Still trudging after all these years

Despite getting food poisoning and crashing my bike in the past month, my main physical issue is ITB problems. I finally decided that it was an ITB flavored knee problem a couple of days ago. So after researching it, I decided that I'm already doing plenty of hip exercises but that I could get the foam roller out and also add a specific exercise for flexing the knee. I did those two yesterday, then ran my usual Rose Hill Road repeats today (increasing my repeats by one) and didn't have much of a problem with my knee. Of course, I need to get in shape because it is the time of year for... the Titus Van Rijn One Hour Run. I have to complete this by June 14th. I'll probably do a one hour run on a dirt track every weekend from now until the deadline. So if I get around the ITB issue, the next issue will be fitness, I hope. And that's always a good issue to work on.
Rose Hill Road is currently very overgrown with wild mustard and thistles. This gives me two concerns, neither of which has materialized yet. The first concern is rattlesnakes. I saw a striped racer the other day and I have seen rattlesnakes in this area in the past so I know there is a potential. My guess (after finding a snake hiding under a plant in the past) is that the snakes are out there, they're just doing a good job of keeping out of trouble. So I'll continue to do as I suggested to some hikers today: watch where I step and step on the dirt (trail).
The second concern is ticks. I have picked up a few ticks in the past in this general area but I haven't seen any hitch a ride on me yet. Not much I can do about this other than not run on overgrown trails and I can't do that because that eliminates running hills for the most part.
So the current program alternates hill repeats with some tentative runs in the grass in the local park. I'm going to move the flat runs to the local dirt track tomorrow and just gradually push this program and try to get in shape of the TVR one hour.