Yesterday I thought I would just run my long run today and see what happened. My leg has made very little improvement (still limping around everywhere, ergh!) but I just thought that if I missed 3 long runs in a row I might as well give up on the marathon. But I also thought that if I ran 16 miles on an injury I might make it bad enough that there would be no way I could run the marathon.
So late last night I got online and figured out exactly what's going on with my leg. It's called a posterior shin splint. That just means that instead of having pain in front of your shin bone, it's on the inside of your calf right between the calf muscle and shin bone and the pain goes down and wraps around your heel (exactly what I'm experiencing). It said whatever you do, don't run through the pain because it will most likely cause stress fractures in the tibia. I had the information I needed - I couldn't do my long run. Again.
So I rode my poor excuse for a bike (Justin said it looks like a bike some poor dude who got too many DUI's and lost his license would be riding around. It really does). I had been going for about 20 minutes (jealous of all the runners I passed along the way) when I hit a big bunch of sludge on the path. When I got out of the sludge, it started flinging off my bike tires all over me. My face, arms, legs, everywhere. I stopped to wipe it off the best I could (mostly just smearing it), and when I got back going, I cut off 2 biker dudes who yelled at me for being on the wrong side of the path. So that was a pretty awesome experience.
I went home discouraged and went to the gym to do 3 more lousy miles on the elliptical. I did some strength exercises and I'm just hoping this thing will be healed enough to run next Saturday, and that I still have the stamina to do it. If I go off my training schedule, I'm supposed to do my 20 miler next week. Tiffany's schedule is 16 miles. I'd be exstatic to get the 16. So all I can do for now is cross train and hopefully heal.
I'm laughing so hard at the description of your bike! That pretty much sounds like every bike I ever had growing up : ) That's awesome that you got out there and biked and did the elliptical. I'm telling you, cross training goes a long way on helping you prepare for the marathon. That was really smart not to try to run through the pain. You definitely don't want to make things worse. Injuries suck, but I always think about Deena Kastor and how she cross trained for over a month without running and was still able to kick butt at the marathon. So yeah, keep it up!
ReplyDeleteAlso this post makes me think about a conversation Taber and I had the other day about the price you pay just to get to the starting line of the marathon. Isn't it amazing what you go through to get ready? I think that's why the marathon is life changing, because instead of taking the easy route, you do what's hard. Easy would be giving up, instead you got on your "DUI bike" and dealt with sludge. Easy would be going back home. Instead you went to the gym and worked it out on the elliptical. You're awesome Tara. Good luck this next week. I hope things start getting better with your leg!