I'm really, really nervous. The last month or so I have really stepped back my running. My problem started in my calves, both of them. Since it was both I just figured, eh, it's muscle soreness I need to push through, and I scaled back the miles but kept going. After about 3 weeks of that, it wasn't getting better so I went to a running store to see if I could fix the issue. I blamed it on changing running shoes (and still think that might have been the main cause). I got compression socks and the stick (already had a foam roller) and wow did they help my calves. But that made me realize that my left knee was hurting, which is not a good sign.
Since then I've gone to a sports doctor who says it's bursitis and that I can run the half without damaging my knee/leg. He said my muscles haven't been healing between the running and he's going to help me on a go forward basis to change things so it doesn't happen again. I have a feeling after the half I'll have to skip running for awhile and just do cross training (probably more bike than anything else, we'll see). Anyway, with that I decided to not quit and try to run the half.
But it hurts. All. The. Time. Sometimes worse than others but still. It hurts to run. It hurts to walk. If I don't take Ibuprofen it wakes me up in the middle of the night because it hurts. So crazy! And because of that I've been really dreading the race, not even sure I can finish it.The doctor told me that finishing the race is going to depend on my pain tolerance and I will be a "wreck" (yes his word) afterwards. We'll see!
Dave and I went to the Expo today and I started to get really excited about it like I have gotten excited for races in the past. I'm still nervous but I'm actually starting to think I might actually be able to run and finish this. 'm really disappointed because 5 weeks ago I was running at a consistent 9:15-9:30 pace for at least 5 miles and I know I could have worked up to 13.1 at a 10:00 pace or better. But with my injury, seriously, my goal now is just to do this. I want to be able to say I've run a half marathon.
So I sit here writing this post in my half marathon shirt (oops, probably too early for that, isn't it? What can I say, I'm excited!) and compression socks I bought at the expo. They say don't try anything new for race day but I'm seriously considering wearing these compression socks and a knee brace I bought.
I've been putting off doing this but I'd like to see how my training went. Here are the miles for all the weeks leading up to this week (not counting this week- I only ran once, on Tuesday, and it was a mile. I forgot my running shoes and my knee was hurting so I decided to just do one loop at a park.)
Week 1 16.1 miles
Week 2 12.4 miles
Week 3 12.2 miles
Week 4 19.9 miles
Week 5 20.1 miles
Week 6 4.5 miles
Week 7 10.8 miles (5K race)
Week 8 19.0 miles
Week 9 20.1 miles
Week 10 17.0 miles (5 mile race)
Week 11 21.7 miles
Week 12 22.7 miles
Week 13 10.4 miles (start of calf pain)
Week 14 9.9 miles
Week 15 5.0 miles
Week 16 10.4 miles
Week 17 6.2 miles
Week 18 race week
Total miles since I started training for the half: 238.4 miles
I've put a lot of work into this and hopefully tomorrow will be a lot of fun.
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| Photo Courtesy of Paul Meyer Photography |
Where is your bursitis and how is he going to help you from getting it again?
ReplyDeleteI had 150 miles total training for my half but I started in late February and so I guess I had 11 weeks. I had about 320 miles in the 18 weeks leading up to the full. Note I said about... my spreadsheet is not fully updated so it may be a few miles more than that. I'm not sure if all my recent treadmill runs are on here.
Actually, I talked to a friend at the wedding on Saturday who is a physical therapist (but doesn't live in this area) and showed her where the knee pain is. She said bursitis is in your hip, not your knee. She said it's probably tendonitis. Same type of thing, different place. When the doctor told me what it was he listed a bunch of stuff including tennis elbow and said it was the same thing but in my knee. So I guess I picked the wrong word to use to describe it.
ReplyDeleteThe next question is how sore were you after your half? I have more miles in, but not in the month or so right before and I'm pretty sore. The blisters are the worst though. (Now that they feel better I do have muscle soreness but it's manageable and proves I worked out.)
If you add up your recent 11 weeks what is that total? It's too hard for me to do it.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember if I did Body Pump the day after or the Tuesday morning. I only had a weird tightness in my quad. It caused me to back down on lunge weight. That lasted 2 days. My foot was bad from my orthotic cutting into the arch of my foot. I don't remember anything else. I don't know if I wrote about it on my blog. I could go back and check emails to see what I mentioned.
I woke up today with my calves hurting again. Now both hips are hurting just like they did back in late February.