Sunday, April 16, 2006

Week 18 - Day 6: Still Struggling...

God, it's so painful when something that's so close
Is still so far out of reach
-Tom Petty
Tom Petty said it right, didn't he? I gotta tell ya - 26.2 miles seemed way out of reach Saturday. I'm saying - if the CMM had been scheduled for April 14th, I guess I would have had a DNF. That's a scary thought.
I set out around 9:40 a.m. Saturday morning to do my long run of 12 miles. I didn't feel great, but I didn't feel terrible either. I did take Aleve Friday night, so I was hopeful that my knee wouldn't cause too much pain. I started at my house and ran down to the intersection, up to and down interstate drive, took a right and headed down Hwy 55. As I crossed the road where the greenway meets Hwy 55, I heard someone yelling at me. It was Leslie and Jay. They were running up the greenway towards the road. Leslie was running on home to Willowbrook, and Jay was going to turn around and run back to the rec center and drive home. So I decide to run on out to Willowbrook with Leslie. I was right at 5 miles, and we figured Leslie's house was about 6 miles from where we were. I had been feeling a little weak, and was having to keep my pace around 10 min miles...so I warned her that I couldn't go fast. She said she was cool with it, so we took off. Around mile 8 I started feeling really bad. I was sweating profusely and my heart rate was getting higher and higher. I told her how bad I was struggling, and we slowed it down a little. I looked back at my gps and that mile was like 10:13 or something. Around mile 10 I didn't think I could even make it to her house. It was all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. She was a great motivator...she keep trying to think of things to talk about to keep my mind off it...but I was really struggling - my heart rate was high for the pace, and I felt very weak. We made it to the Willowbrook entrance and my gps said 10.5 miles. So I told her was gonna run an out and back in order to go ahead and finish the 12 miles. I ran on down to the pro shop (half mile), then back to the entrance (half mile), then down to her house (half mile) for 12 miles in 2:03:00. The last mile took me 10:30. I downed a Gatorade in like 2 seconds when I got to her house. And I talked to Jay about my knee and he prescribed me some medication. I will be picking it up at Marcrom's Monday.
My knee didn't start hurting until around mile 10. And it really just tightened up a bit...not a whole lot of pain, but that's usually how it starts. Jay said I need an anti-inflammitory and need to try to some bike riding or strengthening exercises some instead of so many pounding runs. So I may start substituting a bike ride for a run this week.
I talked to Leslie in depth about the issue of not being able to run worth a crap at this point. I mean, 4 - 6 weeks ago I was running 22 and 24 milers without too much pain at all, other than ordinary fatigue. But this fatigue is something I've never experienced. It's like hidden....like...I don't realize how tired I am until I set out to run and can't make it. And it's not in my head at all. I will not my blame my mind for this one, because it was my mind that got me through the 12 miles. The body was saying "NO!", but mind said "YES!" and prevailed....not that it was the best thing, under the circumstances, for the body....but I desperately needed a mental victory this weekend. So anyways, Leslie said it's fairly normal to be very fatigued at this point in the training. She said after seeing how bad I struggled during the 12 that I may be a little more fatigued than I should be at this point...but that if I will taper pretty hard and let my body recover, it will come back. She seemed pretty confident of that, but it's hard to believe at this point. I am going to trust that, though, because it's really the only hope I have. Looking back, maybe we (or I) have tried to do too much for our (or my) first marathon experience. It just seemed to all be going fine until the injuries after Week 15, and then the failure of Week 17's long run. But, like Leslie said, I can't go back and change it now...I just have to do what needs to be done to get myself ready...even if it means resting.

2 comments:

Michele said...

Congrats on getting the 12 miles in. You did better then me, I just sat by the pool all weekend. I am going to have a better week this week!!!
Let me know if you want to ride at lunch Thursday. I think I am going to do some sub-ing this week too.

Rae said...

You will feel SO much better during your taper. I was so dead and exhausted by the end of my training and my feet were killing me. Something about that one really, realy good week of taper restored everything and the M went awesome.

I'm so glad you guys love the nano!!! I think I'm going to buy a little waterproof sportsband for mine soon. Right now I wrap it in a Ziploc baggie if it looks like rain!! HA!