I took the risk

I of course prefer to be smart and use my common sense but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.
Trails are still closed because of hunting season so I cannot run there. Therefore it is either run on a road or do not run at all. As much as I would love not to run at all (not because I do not want to run, I do want to run but I do not want to run on a road) I know that not running would not get me too far (no pun intended) and maybe it is time to "try" how my ITB can handle little bit more than what I have been throwing at it in the last few months.
I was supposed to do 4 easy runs this week for a total of 3h 45min (which by the way is probably the highest mileage since February 2011 but I am not sure about that because I do not track my miles). Out of those 3h45m I ran 2h45m on a road and 1h on a track. Basically everything what I (and PPC regarding track running) think might hurt my ITB.
And what's worse I had to run on a road on two consecutive days. I did 1h yesterday and then 1h today. I was super scared for the second run and I did my best to pick up the knees, land on mid-foot, use hip flexors and hip stabilizers because it seems that that's the way to go to keep the ITB happy.

So far so good. I did the run and did not feel anything in the knee. I hope that it does not flare up tomorrow. I iced it (even though I have not iced my ITB for over a year because I have realized last year that it is not helping me at all, in fact icing made things even worse because when I iced it I "froze" all the nerves and could not feel the pain although it was irritated and then I did more than I should have done because I thought that everything was ok.) and took some anti-inflammatory drink that an orthopedist gave me last year. I have no idea whether it helps but at least I am getting some placebo effect from it.

So although my knee is ok, other parts of my legs are screaming at me. By the end of the run my calves and ankles were killing me. Poor things, they are not used to all that pounding:(

I want that hunting season to be over! Although I do realize that if I want to run a half-marathon on a road I need to do some running on a road to get used to it so at least I am getting that out of the road pounding.

By the way. Have I mentioned how much I hate dogs? I was chased 6x (6!!!!! by 5 different dogs, one dog chased me both on my way out and my way back) today during my bike ride, and that's only because I avoided the house with 4 stupid dogs that alway chase me (there is little dog and three big ones and that little devil always leads the charge), so it would have been 8 chases. It always gets my HR to 200+, not only because I have to stand up and sprint like crazy to outride those little barking creatures but also because I am scared of dogs and that only makes my HR skyrocket.