Did 10

I woke up late yesterday (since when is 6:30 in the morning late?) so I didn't have time to do the 12 miles because Justin & Makenzie were in the Midvale parade (Justin for the h.s. float since and Makenzie for our stake primary's float).
I did manage to squeeze in 10 miles. I was frustrated that I couldn't go faster and just get 12 in. One thing about not running mid-week is that you definitely lose your speed/conditioning. I was faster than last week (9:50 miles this time), but it doesn't feel good when you're really pushing and look down and see your pace is only 9:00. Good thing to remember for next time- you can't just cut out your weekday runs- you will suffer for it!
Also, the combination of pushing harder and having to run on asphalt for nearly half the time didn't make my shin very happy. I am definitely more sore today than I was last time after the 20 miles. So next Saturday and during the marathon, I'm just going to take it super slow.

The ole taper down

Tomorrow is my first taper-down Saturday. I never thought I would consider 12 miles a short run, but that is definitely what it feels like after 20. I am actually really excited to run after having such good results last Saturday.
I haven't been able to do any mid-week runs this week. I wish I could have, but to be honest, I haven't run mid-week in over a month because I didn't want to aggravate my injury and now I'm kind of used to just running on Saturdays and trying to squeeze in a home workout or gym visit (or 2) in the middle of the week.
So yeah, I'm not going to be as well-prepared as I wanted to be for this marathon. I wouldn't consider myself the eye of fitness right now. But the bottom line is, I'm going to be able to finish it and that's all that really matters right now.
So I'm crossing my fingers that I can just stay injury free for two more weeks!

The Big Twenty

Things are definitely looking up. I honestly thought for a while I wasn't going to do this marathon. The shin pain in my right leg was so intense I thought for sure I had a stress fracture. But after a lot of babying, icing, ibuprofen, stretches, exercises, cross-training, better shoes and my now beloved Kinesio tape, my shin splint pain is actually going away, even after running TWENTY miles yesterday! Yayy!

Tiffany and I went over to Wheeler Farm and found some dirt roads behind it (for the tractor rides). It was really pretty and the longer we ran, the more paths we found. We ran by these little donkeys that we called unicorns, by horses, geese, cows, goats (freaky little things), chickens and roosters... all kinds of fun stuff to look at. We talked the whole time and the time really flew by. We stopped every 2-3 miles and alternated gatorade and water/gels. I stretched out that right leg every time and sure enough, it was fine. It will hurt if I stop taking ibuprofen, but at least it's manageable. 

Tiffany only had to run 18 for her training schedule, so I ran the last 2 miles by myself. I was pushing an 11 minute pace, and kept remembering Tiffany's advice from her training book: "just when you think you need to go faster, you need to go slower." It was true. Everything was aching and I just wanted to hurry and finish. But I knew if I pushed it, I was gonna get hurt. So I just went nice and easy and honestly I'm not even that sore today. It took me 3 hours and 37 minutes to finish.. about a 10:50 pace I think. My ipod said I burned 2200 calories!

After the run, Tiffany and I drove all the way to Moab (about 3.5 hours away) for my grandma's 90th birthday. We had to get back home so we were only there for 2 hours and had to drive straight back. I was really nervous about being in the car for 7+ hours the same day as that long run (talk about getting stiff!) but it was fine. I feel really blessed that this is all working out.

So the marathon is in three weeks. I'm so excited and relieved that it's really going to happen! Woo hoo!

I ran again!!!

It's been a while. After missing my long runs the past three Saturdays, I finally ran again. I ran 17 miles today. It feels so good to get a big number.

Yesterday was Justin's birthday and we spent it at the ward camp out. It was kind of interesting preparing for my longest run yet while camping. I forgot to bring my gels and any water (duh!). I bummed some water from other campers and wrapped up a bunch of strawberry newtons in foil and stuck them in the little pocket in the back of my shirt (talk about comfortable).

My little injury friend was still bothering me at the start for sure, and I did hobble for a while. I'd have to say I didn't feel like my stride was natural until about 5 miles into it. And I never got to a point where it was pain-free. But it was manageable. I read tons of tips online about these shin splints and one guy swears wrapping his leg super tight helps. So I did that and I think it did but I can't be sure.

Everything went pretty smoothly until about the half-marathon point and all of my muscles got super tight. But I was able to get through it and am glad I could finally run again!

Man this is getting tricky!

Last month you could have asked me how my marathon training was going and I would have enthusiastically answered, "Great!" I hadn't missed a single day on my training schedule. Check, check, check... everything was going perfectly.

But now things have changed. I have obviously had to do a lot of adapting to heal from this silly injury (which is still hurting, p.s.), and now the reality of my life not being able to revolve around the marathon is staring me in the face. I just started a new job, Justin is off at scout camp, and I have visitors, all of which is exciting but fitting in training is becoming very difficult. I marvel how so many people can be consistent marathoners. They don't have jobs or children or responsibilities or what?!

But on that note, I have to remind myself that not everyone does a perfect training regimen for the marathon and they still finish. It may not be impressive, I may run 15 minute miles, but I'm going to finish that dang marathon, even if I don't get to run one more day before then! I will keep my spirits up, no more of this pity party stuff. I don't want to look back on my marathon experience and say, "well I finished, but the whole experience was awful." No way! So... adios perfect training schedule and adios ideal first marathon finishing time, but I'm still happy I'm going to run a marathon and I'm just going to enjoy this experience and roll with the punches!

Another missed long run

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.

Hope

So I'm here in Oceanside, CA visiting my brother. New terrain to discover, beautiful Southern California weather, ocean breezes... wouldn't it have been great to run every day here.... But my leg pain has really been overstaying its welcome and despite my efforts with ibuprofen, ice and rest, it wasn't getting better at all. In fact, two days ago it hurt so bad after I ran to put something back at the grocery store that I just wanted to cry (more from the anger about my injury than the pain though, although it did hurt bad).

Then Justin asked me if I was taking ibuprofen around the clock. I told him no, that I was just taking it when my leg bothered me. He suggested I take it more often so I started doing that 2 days ago. It really helped and today I decided to try to run. I was supposed to run 16 miles. There was no way I was going to push it that hard on my first day back but I was really happy because I think I was able to do 6 or 7 and the pain was manageable. I am definitely disappointed that I've had to slack on 2 long runs in a row, but I'm just glad I could run at all today. So I'm gonna keep up with my steady stream of ibuprofen and hopefully this next week I'll be able to run again.