TI Chronicles: The Hope & Change Edition

As the calendar alerts on my computer and phone have been reminding me, I was supposed to be shirking my soccer coaching duties and deserting my family this weekend for a trip down to Michigan Bluff for some big training on the Western States course. That Western isn't happening for me this year is no longer news, though I did finally let the RD officially know last week that I wouldn't be coming, and I'm actually happy not to have to squeeze in my trail work over the next two weeks, since snow is still covering most of the area singletrack.

Apart from the reminder that I'll be missing Western, the past couple weeks and especially the last couple days have been trending in the right direction for my knee and the prospects of actually getting a race in this year.  To honor the fickle gods of injury, I am not saying that things are going great and that I'm out of the woods, because I'm not.  But, the knee has shown some decent improvement lately, and yesterday I actually got in my longest run since Wasatch.  It was slow and it wasn't epic - 21 miles with 4300 feet of vert - but it was something I'd call a real distance, and my knee held up very well and still feels pretty good today - the day after.

A couple months back, I set May 1 as my "reality check" for toeing the line at the Cascade Crest 100 in late August. If I wasn't running consistently by then, I reasoned, it was time to lop it off the calendar. Well, it's May Day, and I'm running consistently (if not horribly far) and if things keep trending as they are, I have an outside shot at that 100 mile tour of the Cascade Mountains.

So, I'm going to take it day by day, keep stretching, rolling, and icing, and set a new reality check date further down the calendar.