Training Is Over, But Boston Is On!

Last Thursday, I hit the wall.  I finally reached that breaking point in my Boston training where I felt like throwing my hands up in the air, plopping my bum on the floor, stuffing my face with a box of Girl Scout cookies, and drowning my sorrows with a bottle of wine.  (In actuality I only had one Thin Mint and only had one IPA, but I did feel defeated.)

I don’t know the exact time of death, but at some point that day I realized my Boston training is over.  I’m sure I sound like a broken record (I’m sick of hearing myself talk about it), but I just haven’t felt well at all during these past couple of months of getting back into running, and with the weeks till Boston dwindling away, I have feared if I would even be able to make it to the starting line.

So, I called it quits.  There should hopefully be a little bit of easy running and an extremely small sprinkle of running at marathon pace before the race, but I’m pretty much choosing to only cross-train and rest from now till Boston.  My mileage tally for the last 13 weeks came in at only 445 miles with two 20-milers (first being 16 easy, 4 moderate and the second 10 easy, 10 moderate), one fairly hard 18-miler in Week 5, one 17-miler with 3x1 miles at marathon pace (1 on, 1 off) in Week 12, a couple of sixteen milers with a bit of time at marathon pace, and a fifteen-mile run early in training with one mile uphill at marathon pace.  In summary, training or rather “training” seemed like a bigger piece of thrown-together crap than one of my Kindergarten Sunday School projects.     

But I knew before I started training that time was not on my side.  Three months is not a long time to both come back from an injury AND train for a marathon.  I have said from the beginning that I wanted to get to the Boston Marathon starting line healthy, and that is still my intention.  I just need a new plan.

Unless you are a wealthy celebrity, most people do not have the luxury of just giving up and checking out of life and in to a swanky rehab facility to rest their bodies and minds for a few weeks.  Thus, I’m moving on to a new strategy.  Let’s call it Plan BB since I am quite sure I probably have had enough plans to go through the alphabet at least once.  Before too long I may wind up with more training plans than there are rows in the Panthers’ Bank of America Stadium.

Plan BB consists of not only resting and cross-training but also getting trigger point dry needling to help release some of my muscle tension.  If you think lying on a table with your shorts pulled down and half your butt hanging out while a stranger sticks a needle in rear as you cling to a stuffed animal sounds weird, then well, I completely agree with you.  But this training period has been a time of experimentation and we have evidently gotten to the point of playing with needles.  But just to be clear, there is absolutely nothing being injected in to my body.  A shot of steroids could perhaps be more effective, but I will never go there.  Caffeine is my sole performance-enhancing drug.

I have felt like I have done nothing this training period but back off and then back off some more.  I have given and given until my back was up against a wall last week.  However, even though I may have felt like I gave up, I didn’t really…I like to just think of it as regrouping.  Giving up completely is just never an option.  Cause while training may be over, Boston is still on!

Boston Experiment Week 13 of 16:  13

This Week’s Beer Choice: Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA  (Almost Lake Time!)