So, this is actually the second version of this week’s blog
post. I previously wrote an
article, edited it, and was ready to share, but a sense of uncertainty kept me
from clicking the publish button. And
after lying in bed wide awake for a couple of hours in the middle of the night
Tuesday night (which reminded me too much of the night before the Marine Corps
Marathon last fall when I was pacing the hotel halls with a sprained ankle), I
made the judgment call Wednesday morning to not run in the Tobacco Road Half
Marathon this Sunday in Durham, NC.
I have been back running after my ankle-sprain injury for
about two months now, but I am still not feeling 100%. I am sure I probably needed a couple
months of nothing but easy running just to get my body used to the stress
again, but instead I almost immediately started putting in some workouts in
hopes of scraping together some sort of marathon training. Thus, I have been consistently battling
all those fun overuse and too-much-too-soon injuries.
On one hand, I remind myself that almost everyone who is
training for a race struggles with some sort of injury. I would even estimate that more than
half of the participants at this year’s Boston Marathon will have at least
something that has bothered them recently.
In Grad School, I skipped class one day because I went out
too hard the night before. I still
remember one of my guy classmates said to me, “You know, Paula. You’re not the only one who gets
hangovers.” The guy was quite the
confident young chap and was definitely trying to be a jerk to me, but he had a
point. And I think the same thing
applies here…Almost all runners have challenges with injuries. Thus, you reach a time when you have to
woman-up and do your best with what you got. I can only use the “I had a sprained ankle” excuse
once. And I surely don’t want to
be known as a whiny, why-me Nancy Kerrigan type.
However, I also do not want to be known as the idiot who
runs a marathon on a sprained ankle.
And looking at my track record, that would be a fair way to describe me.
Thus, even though I was pumped to get out and race Sunday
and excited to see how I could run, I am being conservative and choosing to not
risk any further injury by racing too soon. It is extremely important to me to try to get to Boston as
healthy as I possibly can. No
matter what, I will be undertrained coming in to the marathon, but if I bring a
healthy body to the starting line, I can at least give myself a chance to
perform.
With Boston less than six weeks away, it is time or perhaps past
time for my body to feel strong and healed. I do not want to be up in the middle of the night before the
Boston Marathon walking the halls, worried about a nagging injury and whether
I’m strong enough to race. In
addition to possibly preventing further injury, skipping the Tobacco Road Half Marathon
this Sunday allows me to take a break from the hard running and actually put in
some easy miles for a change. I am
hoping to get 100% healed and pick back up training runs next weekend on my
long run. My goal is to get in a few
more quality longs runs then give myself a mental pat on the rear and trot to
the Boston Marathon starting line.
The Boston Marathon should not be the fastest marathon I
will ever run (at least it better not be!), but my confidence has grown over
these past few weeks, and I really do believe I am capable of having a solid
race. Perhaps it is a sense of
hope or possibility, but I feel something that makes me believe I can run
Boston and run it well. Maybe I am
wrong and maybe I’ll get swept up and go out too hard at the beginning. But if so, oh well – everyone gets
hangovers and every runner at some race goes out too hard at the
beginning. It happens.
Boston Experiment Week
10 of 16: 37 (Only 3 runs but lots of quality! One run included five hard miles (no recovery) at around half-marathon/10K pace, and my long run was 20 miles with first 10 miles at an average pace of a little under 8 minutes (easy) and last ten miles a little under 7 minutes/mile (moderate))
This Week’s Beer
Choice: Sweetwater 420 with
my pasta when I was still carbo-loading for the Tobacco Road Half Marathon
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