Thursday, May 19, 2011

I am not indestructible

Contrary to my beliefs... I am not indestructible and unfortunately will have to forgo the marathon this year. I am sad but a little relieved. Training was going well until I had some pain in my right foot after the long run (25K) on easter weekend. I found out that I had tendonitis in my calf/achilles a few days later. I took it easy, iced, stretched and went to physio but alas, no luck. It seems my time to run a marathon is not now. But I'm OK with that :-). Better to take it easy and not have a long term injury rather than to keep pushing myself, overtraining and causing further damage.

Lessons I've Learned:
- going from zero to hero in 2 months is a little ambitious
- running longer lengths and less frequently decreases chance of tendonitis
- when your body says stop, you should STOP (i.e., when I was dying at that 21K mark I probably should have stopped)
- anything over 20K is not normal and your body feels the wear and tear of running more than 20K every week!
- it really does take 10 months or so to train for one of these things :(

Dang.

So, instead of running I've gotten back into yoga and hooping and am gearing up for beach volleyball season. The time to run is in the future.... just not in this moment and I'm OK with that.

~A