Flagging Motivation!

The week started pretty well, but the weather and my orthopaedic issues conspired to make the finish pretty difficult. Monday was a gym day, and tuesday I did the customary 10K with 30 minutes in the middle at 15K tempo pace. Wednesday was an easy 7K run. That evening, those rainstorms came in from california, and when I awoke on thursday it had rained overnight, and was followed up by a whole day cold drizzle. Temps never eclipsed 50 degrees. I had scheduled an 8K run for myself with a plan for 5 two minute sprints with two minute recoveries. I normally warm up for about 20 minutes before raising the intensity, but it was so damn cold and I was aching so much, I pushed the warmup out to almost 30 minutes. The intervals were more orthopaedically painful than difficult from the usual VO2 max standpoint. When I got home, I tried to stretch out, and then took a hot shower. My feet, my fractured ankle from being hit bye the truck, both knees, my lower back, my neck, and left shoulder hurt the entire rest of the day.
On friday I hit the gym again. Weather was the same as thursday, so I went in and came out feeling sore. I did manage to push out three sets of 12 reps at 160lbs. on the leg press machine. My goal by the end of January is to get my sticks to be able to push out 3 sets at my current weight of 180lbs. I need to get the muscles around my cranky knees to take on more of the load, so that my knee joints can be punished running for a few more years.......
On saturday, the weather was still the same. Humidity was 84%. I was still sore. For the past 6 weeks, I had done a 13K long run on saturday. I started out sore and got worse, so at 8K, I decided to do a fast finish run, and call it at 10K. Today the weather finally returned to low 60's, sunny, and cloudless. I did an easy 7K, and my body finally was less sore. I realize that these painful days are reminders of my arthitic body probably getting closer to the end of all this. Like I said before, next year will probably be my last racing year, and I will also have to reign in my enthusiasm and make sure I keep my weekly mileage capped at the 40K mark.......