11 Miles & No Sharp Pain

After speaking to my Dr. he told me I should run 10 miles or try to run 10 miles on Saturday so I don't lose my legs with only two weeks to go before the marathon. EK had me scheduled for a 10K test so I tried to incorporate both into this workout.
Atlanta was calling for 56 and sunny starting the day and warming up to 60 around noon. Today I ran the Silver Comet trail one because the tri team was there but also because the trail is pretty flat and I have had the most issues with my knee when climbing hills. Going down hills is where the Dr's would expect me to have issue but why be part of the expected category at this rate. Having a Dr's visit yesterday my knee/leg is bruised and pretty sore before I even started. 8:00am came around and the run started. Due to my lack of real long run lately and EK's test I started out with a pretty fast pace and was able to keep up with the faster guys for about four miles. We stopped at a water stop for about 30 seconds to get a glass of water and I took down a Hammer Gel (yep I usually use GU but I met a Hammer rep and he gave me some free samples to try. The apple cinn. was by far the best tasting gel I have ever had but I am not sure I noticed a performance difference today). So after the break off for the next few miles I ran. I happen to catch up with a few people that were running 12 miles today so I ran two more miles and turned around (6 miles down) and EK's test. I finished 6 miles in 51 min which is slower than my previous test but I wasn't unhappy with the time. My knee at this point was sore and ached but I hadn't experienced the sharp pain that was making me stop running. I headed back and after two miles stopped for a little Gatorade at the same water stop I had previously stopped at. Off I ran for the four miles with a pretty sore knee but I never experienced the sharp pain. A few times I felt it coming on but it never actually occurred. Is the Dr really fixing it? At the 10 mile mark I decided to go one more mile and then walk the final mile to cool down. I needed to go over 10.5 miles because that was the distance the last two long runs that I have experienced the sharp pain. I made it the remaining mile and walked a mile to cool down. I never ended up experiencing the sharp pain this day! Overall I ran 11 miles in 1:30:00 which is a really good pace for the state I have been in. I have to keep in mind this course is much flatter than the marathon course which has a ton of hills but I will deal with those on marathon day. I have two more appointments with my Dr prior to the marathon which is in two weeks.

The knee felt good when I got home meaning there was no MORE additional pain or soreness. I took a nice warm shower (I tend to be pretty cold after running over 10 miles) and iced my knee. The sharp pain showed up and my knee was really stiff for most of the day after the icing. This is good and bad. Bad because it happened again, Good because it shows that the issue is the IT band muscle locking up especially when it gets cold. So Monday I will share that information with the Dr and see what we can do to keep the knee warm for 3:50:00 for my time I run the marathon :) Still shooting for under 4 hrs.

Went and saw "Alice in Wonderland" movie tonight. It was in 3D so that was cool but overall it wasn't anything amazing.