One Week to Stay Healthy

The marathon is less than one week away! Although I've done all of the trianing I'm starting to get nervous that I won't be able to do it. Hopefully that feeling goes away. I don't know about anyone else's work spaces but it is definitely cold season in our office. A lot of people are out with either hacking colds or funky stomach viruses. Even my roomate is coughing. So far I've been feeling okay but it would be perfectly ironic for me to be healthy for the 4 months of training and then get sick in the final week!

My gameplan this week is to take it easy, drink a ton of water, and eat safe foods. I hope everyone else is excited to finally do their runs!

Remiss in posting, but (mostly) not in running ...

Last time I posted, I was talking about my training plan.

Since that post I had two nasty stomach bugs and a college reunion weekend. (I -- rather optimistically -- signed up to run the alumni 5k that reunion weekend, but at 8:30a.m. I was nowhere near the cross country trails. I was dragging myself out of bed and down to the Comfort Inn complimentary breakfast after a late night.)

Thankfully, I am running the 10K, not the marathon, so even with a lot of downtime, it has not been too hard to get back on track. I did about 10K last Sunday, to give myself confidence that I can do it again on race day. Not only did I do it, but I achieved my goal -- 6.2 miles in under an hour! 59:56, to be exact. That felt great and now I am not so worried about race day. Even if I don't match my time, I will surely finish.

I did 4 miles today, pretty slowly since I was pushing my son in the stroller. Tomorrow I'll do about 5 without him, take a couple short runs early in the week, then rest up. I can't believe race day is almost here!

Waiting for October 26

Training has been challenging, exhausting, and thrilling. I can't wait for my first race. Good luck everyone!

10 more days!

Well folks, it's down to the wire now. 10 more days till the Marine Corps Marathon! I did my last long run two weekends ago (or was it three?) of 23 miles. And I felt great, absolutely wonderful! This past weekend I did a sprint triathlon, so there was a 5K run in that. This coming weekend, I'll probably do a ~14-mile run, maybe less.

I'm so excited and I know that everyone else here must be as well! If it's your first time running this marathon, watch out for the last 0.2 miles- it's very, VERY steeply uphill.

Back to work... gosh, I don't like this whole tapering bit. I want to keep working out like normal but I have to rest up.

Running thru pain

My foot pain has been diagnosed as plantar faciitis, basically an inflamation of the tendons connected to the heal caused by stress (running, in my case). Normally the cure is to take a few weeks off from running, but I don't have that kind of time. I rested/iced/medicated for a few days, then did a 12-mile test run on Saturday and had good results. Constant low-level pain, but it didn't get any worse as the miles went on. And the pain stopped the second I quit running. After two more days rest, I've run on it for four days now, with the pain being a little less each day (with more ice and ibuprofen after each run). It looks like I'll be able to salvage a run for race day. Not an ideal situation (nearly two weeks of missed training) but I'll start the race, and see how it goes.

What Can I Say

Hello to all the FitArlington Dedicated Marathon Participants, this is your colleague who has to inform you that I am out of the race. If you will look at my previous posts, you will see where I mentioned a right knee injury on July 7, 2008. In later post, I told you folks how it was coming along, and then recently, I mentioned that it was still bothering me (I mentioned that I was breaking down and going to the doctor). Would you believe that I got the report yesterday, that I have a torn meniscus and was told that there would be no marathons in the near future. Now I know why I shedded that tear when I was first notified that I had been selected. I am truly upset about this. I was so looking forward to this race. I am truly ready and know I would have been able to complete the entire race. I am scheduled for outpatient surgery on Oct. 28, 2008. It has been a wonderful opportunity and experience. I truly enjoyed the various meeting locations and scenery. Much success and fun when you folks run the race. I am debating if I am going to come and support you folks simply because I know I will have the urge to run/walk the race anyways.

Injuries Can Really Take the Fun Out of Running

A day after being on a high, having completed a 20 miler with the last five miles under race pace, I was quickly brought back down to Earth. At first, I thought the bruise on my right foot was annoying, but nothing to be concerned about. My feet hurt a little all the time during training, so this was nothing new. Then again, the pain was in a new spot, back in the arch of my right foot, not across the ball as usual. Three days later, while running 5:30am 400m intervals, the pain became intense at split number 9 and I had to stop (I was supposed to do 12). I jogged home easy and figured I'd be fine. It only hurt bad during the high-intensity of the sprints. A few days of only bike riding and I'd be fine for my weekend 15-miler.

Sunday came and the pain was mostly gone. I set out to just log the miles slow and easy, nothing to strenuous. I had my last 20-miler coming a week later and then the taper for the race. I didn't want miss a long run at this critical juncture. I only made it a mile and a half before the steadily increasing pain caused me pull up lame. Determined to get some benefit from the day, I turned the 15-mile run into a 10-mile walk. This was a mistake. My forced walk/limp produced an unusual gait and was something new for my legs. The 2.5 hour trek resulted not only in a more-bruised foot, but also an extremely tight hamstring on Monday morning.

I'm taking the entire week off from running and will see how things are again this weekend. I am extremely discouraged at this point. Last spring, a very similar series of minor injuries kept forcing me to put off workouts until I had missed nearly two weeks of training a month before my scheduled race. I tried to come back too fast, got hurt worse, and dropped out. This particular feeling of deja vu is horrible. Stupid feet.