This week is the first week of December and I am stoked because the hour is upon me to start marathon training again!
In the past 11 weeks I have only run twice (I've been dealing with an Achilles tendon injury both mentally and physically), the Daytona Beach Half Marathon, which made my injury worse and last Saturday in the Run to Sun 4-mile MDA benefit race.
Yup, I jumped the gun a little bit and ran a race before December (the doctor's orders), but I had some really REALLY good motivation so it was worth it and the best news of all is everything went perfectly fine. Of course I thought I was just going to walk most of the race and maybe only run a small portion. Well folks, that's just not me. I ended up running the race at an 8 minute pace until the last half mile where I admit I did feel some discomfort in the Achilles so I slowed down considerably to give me a finish time of 34:36. After the race I stretched and iced the Achilles and in the following days the injury remains unchanged. I feel that it's getting better very slowly, but the best part is it is not getting worse.
Each day since I have been testing myself a tiny bit more every workout. On Monday I played outfield in a Men's league softball game and that means sprinting. This went fine and I even hit an in-the-park home run when I burned the right fielder. On Tuesday (Dec. 1, aka, official start to marathon training) I weight trained and then rode the bicycle. Yesterday I set out bright and early at sunrise to a beach boardwalk that is a 1.5 mile loop. The idea was to start off running short distances. A lot of short distances to get my legs back in shape and if no problems persist with my Achilles go for maybe one or two long runs before the Disney Marathon. I know this probably sounds ludicrous, but you have to take what you can get sometimes. My nemesis is definitely over doing it and training too hard so this plan forces me to take it slow and hopefully not re-injury a healing Achilles. Only problem yesterday, was I'm not good at running slow.... specially when I know I only have to go a mile and a half! When I finished I looked at my watch and it read 10:30ish.... yup, my slow first official training run somehow turned into a 7:30 minute pace. Then, just for good measure I decided to play softball again last night. It was a double header and I played outfield again (more sprinting) and even managed another in-the-park home run (super fast sprinting).
The best news of all? Today my Achilles is fine. It's still not 100 percent, but it's not any worse and I think the fear of making it worse and the trauma I've been through is going to be enough to force me to take it easy the next 38 days until Disney.
I'm a 100 percent open to suggestions. I've had to tweak my original training schedule twice since September and each time my Achilles tendon has blown it out of the water. Essentially, I have not trained in two months (running wise) and now I have only one month to get ready for the Disney Marathon on Jan. 10th. This sounds insane even to myself. I'm determined to at least finish the damn thing and if that doesn't satisfy me I'll go for a respectable time in a future marathon down the road. But, if anyone has any ideas of how to get ready for a marathon in 38 days, please feel free to speak up? I'm in above average shape, but my legs are not ready to hash out 26.2... I know that much.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hey! Glad to hear your achilles is doing a bit better. Just be careful and don't push yourself too hard. The goal is to get to Disney, so you don't want too go to full force in training and then have trouble just before. It's better to be strong and confident going into it.
ReplyDeleteYou know I've been dealing with foot injuries for a while and some days it is better than others, so stay in touch with your doc and make sure to keep up with any streches, icing, etc that he recommends.
Good luck!