Back On Track

Hello again!
Thanks for checking out my latest post! Im already feeling ... meh... about being back on Instagram, mostly because my foot is still hurting and I don’t really want to post another picture and try to caption the essence of it all. Again, my Instagram has been primarily about my training and balancing that with real life... but I’m not really training, so why am I on there? What do I post? Or do I try to train so I can post and hope for the best?


Obviously the latter isn’t my answer, but to be honest, it took getting off ​instagram to remind myself to not let it dictate any decisions I make. I haven’t been training but I HAVE been running... sort of as a way to self assess and figure out what to do next.. and sort of because I'm a stubborn idiot and think I can "beat this" while still running. I said I’d get back on track with weekly recaps, so even though none of this feels right for a specific instagram post, I can certainly fit it all in a blog! Here we go!

 Lets go back to the weeks of training I did leading up to the decision to drop the marathon and right through when I stopped posting on Instagram. I was still on strava, so some of you follow me there and know I took time off. Here’s my progression of Mileage (or digression?....)

Feb 4- Feb 10: 36.6 miles. I had some pain, as usual, saw a massage therapist who told me I needed 3 days off, so I listened.

Feb 11-Feb 17: 52.7 miles with a rolling 7 of 64 from previous Wednesday to the Wednesday of this week. Peak mileage.

Feb. 18- Feb 24: 23.2 miles. I got a sinus infection really bad... and pink eye... and was just terribly sick.

Feb. 25- Mar. 3: 16.1 miles. Still sick but felt hopeful that the time off healed my injury. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

March 4- March 10: 12.3 gave up Instagram and decided enough is enough: time to heal.

March 11-17: 0 miles

March 18-24: 3 miles, purchased a night splint for plantar fasciitis, it was definately helping!

March 25-31: 0 miles running, but i was walking now.

April 4-7: 14 miles of combined walking and running.

April 8-14: 14.5 miles of mostly running but still some walking. Confusing signals from my foot. During runs it hurts mostly in the beginning, hurts pretty bad after, doesn’t hurt at all when I wake up the next day. Then on days I don’t run it hurts way worse the next day. Is running helping or hurting? I have no clue.

Brings me to this week:

MONDAY: In general, Monday is my off day. I often have staff meetings so it’s not usually a good day to run, but in this case it was the marathon so I stood on my feet and cheered like crazy. I felt good all day. No foot pain whatsoever from the run the previous day. I was super inspired and optimistic and all about changing my plans to make sure I fit in a BQ this summer. 

Tuesday: 5 miles. I was supposed to do 4 today and 5 the following day but Matt and I went to the rail trail and I took advantage of the soft surface and nice weather and did the 5 miles today. I felt great... and surprisingly fit! I just loved the weather and the dirt under my feet! Trails are my jam!

Wednesday: Off. My foot felt okay when I woke up but I wanted it to keep feeling okay, so I took today off. I went totally crazy cleaning and organizing the kids rooms and donating all their old toys... wow, it felt good. Again, since I can only remove so much physical stress in my life, I’m trying to remove emotional stuff. I haven’t just been tackling my debt, but also my clutter!

Thursday: 4 miles, 2 in deep trails. God I loved every second of the trails. I felt so alive and no foot pain until I returned to the road. Ugh! I felt so good I thought about maybe forgetting the roads and doing the mountain and trail series just to train in the trails and increase ankle stability. Maybe the trails could physically and emotionally heal me! But then the pain on the roads made me pissed off and confused. 

Friday: off My foot felt pretty good! But since it still hurt a bit during the previous days run, I wasn’t sure I was ready for back to back runs yet... so I just played Easter bunny and finished cleaning and uselessly posting on Poshmark. I’m donating May 1st, so if there’s anything you want, let me know! The black Calvin Klein dress would love a new home! (Also the shoes!). I don't have expensive taste, but you never know who might like something!

Saturday: 3.1 miles This was a turning point for me and how I’ve been approaching all of this. I went to watch Matt race in his alumni race, and my brother raced too. Matt has a mile PR of 4:19, but on this day he ran a 5:03 and I couldn’t be more proud. It was exactly what I needed to witness to adjust my own thinking. I keep feeling like I’m losing part of my identity when I feel the aging of my body happening with these injuries. I hate slowing down so I keep rushing the healing process. I know I’m capable of an OTQ under current US standards, but I feel like I’m racing against time. Could I do it when I’m in my 40s or close to it? Can I have another kid and still do it? Or the biggest question, what will the 2024 standard be? (No doubt after IAAF changes US will change in some capacity.) Matt had FUN at his race. It was slow for him but a good performance for where he’s at right now. The race was called the “has-been-alumni-Mile” which was obviously just a funny title that welcomed all fitness levels, but even though Matt was well off his best time, I don’t see him as a has-been at all. I see him gradually adjusting to new life demands, and I truly think when he’s 40 you’ll see him in the New Balance indoor games for Masters... but if not, I know he's still going to give it his all at whatever level he can.

I keep making errors in the process of healing because I feel like I have to swing for the fences, like I have to accomplish everything in one swoop... and when you do that sometimes you knock it out of the park... but most often you strike out. I keep striking out! It sucks! I didn’t intend on writing this baseball (softball) analogy, but... here we are... when I was younger, I played serious ball. At one point I even had the opportunity to play on a traveling team. I was the catcher (skinniest one in history probably! (Jk)), and I suuuucked at bat. Since I was fast my coach always made me bunt and then I’d steal the bases each pitch... and if that catcher dropped anything you better believe I was stealing home, too. There were times I could get all the way around the diamond before the teammate who batted after me hit a fair ball. I never hit a homerun or even a double... but I could still make it happen one base at a time. It’s hard to have patience and wait for the right time to move, but I have to... and honestly, if I don’t accomplish the big goals I want to, there’s still a lot more to this sport, and Matt showed me a bit of that.

Sunday: off My foot hurt. Not terribly, but bad enough that I can see I’m going to crash and burn if I try to run another marathon cycle this way. At this point I just want the pain gone, and I have to forget everything else. I’m just trying to enjoy this beautiful life I have. It's frustrating to run in pain but more frustrating to live in pain. I need to take some more serious measures to get this fixed. I always heard people talking about Plantar Faciitis, but until you experience how crippling and frustrating it can be across all areas of life, you can't understand. I just want my life back!

I've invested in a bunch of things that are definitely helping in the in between periods of just walking around. I've posted links below if you are interested! I will hopefully continue to blog twice a week but at the very least a Sunday recap... even if it's recapping all the non-running I"m doing. Running is NOT the hard part, it's resting that is. So even though I am back on track with blogging... don't expect track workouts any time soon!