Once again, my workout was five miles today — pretty much the same as Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Although the mileage was the identical, I decided to try a different route. I consulted one of my favorite mapping websites — Gmap Pedometer — to find a suitable five mile course. Here’s what I came up with:
My workout was going along fine until I turned left onto Millersport Highway. This busy road is crowned to allow for rain runoff. Running down the left-hand side of the road meant that my left leg was slightly lower than my right leg due to the slight sideward tilt of the road shoulder. That small difference seemed to coincide precisely with the arthritis in my right knee, creating some real discomfort! I couldn’t wait to get off Rt. 263 and back on narrower and quieter roads that were not crowned as noticeably. Fortunately, the pain slowly went away after about mile 3.5.
I learned a valuable lesson from today’s run that I’ll be sure to apply in the race: always run down the center of the San Diego roads to avoid uneven surfaces.
