About a week after going to the doctors, I decide to start running again. My ITB is basically without pain now though my left knee still feels slightly weak. Looking at that time, especially recovering from ITBS, I want to say "I RULE". 6 miles at 9/mile is 54 minutes so I'm under 9. And I haven't broken my vow to stop running for time. I actually walked slowly for a whole minute for every 9 minutes of running. I took small steps, ran at a pace where I didn't have to breathe very hard, and focused on how my body felt, ready to stop at any slight sign of pain around the knees (very frightful of ITBS coming back).

But despite all that, <9/mile! After a week of not running. And recovering from ITBS. Huh? I would have never believed that walking more would make me run so much faster. The funny thing is it feels so much slower than my normal pace. If I can keep this pace up, I may be actually be able to turn in a sub-11/mile or even near 10/mile pace at the marathon. 9 minutes to run a mile, 1 minute to rest, adjust liberally on hills. So it seems my body isn't quite as crappy as I thought...