And the Journey Continues…..

As I mentioned in my last post, my training has not gone as well as I had hoped. My contemplation of deferring until next year has become a reality. I have not officially hit the cancelation button, but I have made the very difficult decision to not run this year.

Even though my achilles has gotten better (thanks to Dr. Engelbrecht), it is not healthy enough to run this year’s race.  If I would have met him earlier in the year, I think I would have had a different outcome. Just a little too late. Or maybe if I would have been more sensible about my training, I would be running this year….but that is a big maybe and a lot of what ifs.

This is the way the training has been going lately:

• See Dr. Engelbrecht,
• Start where I left off in training
• Run without any pain
• Pain sets in later in the day or next morning
• Forced to take a few days off
• Repeat

When things don’t work out, I like to figure out why. Analyze the situation. I wasn’t really paying attention to the actual training and what I was doing to cause my injuries to reoccur.  But, when I reviewed the Garmin Express training log, it was obvious. In the last 19 weeks of training I ran only 53 days and had to take 80 days off! 39% running compared to 60% off. But the damaging part is when I took a few days off after some tenderness, I would get right back on schedule instead of gradually building my mileage again. Of course, I did that because I had to get in certain training days and long runs in order to run the marathon! At least that was how I thought about it.

My options are that I could still try to run it, but if I am forced to quit due to injury during the marathon, then it is over and back to trying to get in again (or ending up with a long term injury). But if I defer or cancel now, then I have guaranteed entry into next year.  I feel so lucky to have that option! A year seems like forever right now, but that is what I need to heal and to properly train. It is a dream and a goal of mine and it will happen. My daughter, Sonja, says “you want to be able to run the race that you want to run“ and that is so true. It is more that just crossing the finish line. It is having the proper training, attitude, and respect for such a great distance.

This journey is not over……:)