What Went Wrong

There are many factors to consider when runners get injured, but my   running journal revealed the painful truth of the major contributing factors of my running injury. This revelation is almost as painful as the injury itself.

The training plan was reasonable for someone who had not been running consistently for several months. It was Hal Higdon’s 30 week Novice Supreme Marathon Training Guide that combined spring training and novice marathon training schedules into this 30-week plan.

So, I had a great plan but I did not execute it very well…

This is what went wrong as I discovered from my running journal analysis:

 

• In the beginning weeks I decided that the 1.5-mile runs needed to be bumped up to 2 mile runs. I continued to increase those shorter runs above the program’s quidelines without realizing this was increasing my weekly mileage by more than the recommeneded 10% per week .

 

• As I was increasing my mileage, I decided to also increase the intensity of some of those daily runs which worked for me when I was younger. But aging muscles, tendons and ligaments don’t respond in the same way as they use to.

 

• My long runs were only 45 seconds to a minute slower than my daily runs. These runs should have been at least 90 seconds slower than my daily runs.

 

• I skipped out completely on the weekly cross-training days.

 

• When I started feeling tenderness in my Achilles, I continued to run.

 

So, yeah I completely set myself up for this injury.  But why? The burning question – what was the motivation or reason (excuse) for advancing in this program beyond what I was capable of? The answer is Her Tern Half Marathon. In 2013, I trained for this half-marathon sensibly and completed it in a time of 1:56:49. Not my best time by far,  but a decent time for someone that had not ran a race in more than 10 years. But…that time was almost 3 minutes off from qualifying for the NYC Marathon. So that was the motivator. I felt that I had to advance more quickly in order to get the training in that was needed to reach this goal. I don’t have an explanation for not including those really important cross-training days or why I would continue to run with an injury.

How is it that runners can talk themselves right out of running altogether when we know better? I know that none of what I was doing is part of a progressive and healthy way to train. Denial?! Sometimes I think our focus on a specific goal can be so strong that we believe what we are doing is the right thing at the time we are doing it.

Today I am still recovering from this injury, and I have been accepted into the NYC Marathon. As mentioned in a previous post, my goal is to simply make it to the finish line,  so I have to be very smart about my training this go round! I will follow Hal Higdon’s training programs again, but this time I will follow them precisely and take even more rest days if needed.