All I got for Christmas was more IT pain

I went out for some speed work on 12/26 and by the fourth mile I was done. This IT Band thing is becoming a serious pain in the...knee. And it's really frustrating since I have no idea where it's coming from and no idea how to make it go away. So for now I've prescribed myself rest and ice. I just put the ice pack in the freezer and am waiting for that to cool.

I've haven't run again since 12/26 and don't plan to run again until next weekend. Instead, I've been hitting the weights and bike at the gym--which is turning out to be pretty fun. I always neglect crosstraining: I tend to skip those days on the training schedule (the justification being that I already did the important parts of the training week so I can skip the slightly less important crosstraining). Yesterday, though, I was flying away on the bike like Lance Armstrong and having a blast. And just like with the treadmill, when someone got on the machine next to me I got all competitive: "You think you can out bike me? Fool. I've run 26.2 miles, I can kick your ass at anything...probably. I'll spank your ass to next Tuesday."

I forgot, though, that you can get sore really easily from doing new exercises. So dismounting the bike was a tragedy. My ass hurt like you would not believe. Rather, more that I would believe it should hurt after 50 minutes.

I also realized how many calories running burns in comparison to biking. At the end of 50 minutes, I had burned 530 calories according to the machine (yes, I know that's just an estimate, but go with me here). If I had done 50 minutes on the treadmill I would have burned somewhere in the range of 800-900 calories. Sheesh, I almost feel like a slacker.

So I'm off running for a bit, even though Austin is looming over me like a dark cloud. The good news is that even if I can't run on race day, I get a bag of 3M goodies (Post-its, Scotch tape, etc.) with a estimated value of $55--$5 more than the race entry fee.