Countdown to Boston: 2 Weeks to Go

Looking back at the week of April 4th through April 10th... Man.... this was also a rough week... It was a lot of reflecting and a lot of memory lane looking up Boston Marathons from previous years to remind me why this was important. I'm going to put up a quick recap because it's hard to backlog... But I hope some of these hard times of doubt and actually misery can help anyone else that might be struggling to make sense of their post Botox experience or anyone else that is going through anything that doesn't have a straight path forward. Sometimes in this world of the internet and social media, we forget about how hard things are for other people because most people aren't showing the hard stuff... But I am. So.... 2 weeks to go.... 

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Monday: CrossFit disaster.
Well this was great. Exactly two weeks out from the Marathon and I go to Crossfit and try to run a single quarter mile and my calf cramps up. My RIGHT calf cramps up... That never happens! What the ACTUAL Hell! It was pretty bad too... Like I was limping and all sorts of pissed off. My first thought was "well, there goes Boston".... But my next thought was... "Funny Bone" and I tried to run again but just stayed in the parking lot and it oddly was okay. Like running through it was... okayish....not great but.... okay enough to still have that thing I have such a proufound love/hate for: HOPE.
​ Dear Lord how am I ever going to do 26.2 miles? 

Tuesday: I can't actually tell you much that happened on Tuesday. I definitely didn't run. Ha!  Probably OD'd on Advil and likely spent most of my time surfing the internet looking for something to validate me or tell me how STUPID I am. Something PLEASE TELL ME TO STOP TRYING TO DO BOSTON! But instead I got an email with my corral assignment and my QR code for number pick up and at some point throughout the week my friend Linda who waited 10 years and is in the best shape of her life and is one corral behind me called and wont let me not show up. Fuck. I guess I'm going to still try this thing????

Wednesday: McGinley Webinar
I'm pretty sure he'd kick me out of these things if he could at this point. Rewatched the webinar in case there was just a tiny bit of information that was new or that I missed or that was overlooked. Then ask a bunch of anonymous and some not anonymous questions to get some freebie answers to all of my problems.  Will a knee brace make things worse? What about compression sleeves again? How much exactly is too much just a month after a treatment? ... Can you please advise me against running a marathon?
I just want to remind people I *do* have a therapist, but we're twice a month now... so I'm scheduled for right before Boston- Logically. 

Thursday-Sunday: More of the same. Can't remember much just know I'm irritable, ordering a billion things online, frantically checking the weather... and have taper crazies worse than anyone who is *actually* tapering. One of my athletes raced and won. So that was cool.... But I did a bit of jogging while she was racing and that cramping just kept coming. It was manageable but still very present.

​BUT I spent a good amount of time reflecting on how bad this could be and how damn proud I'll be even if I'm last to finish. I started visualizing my worst case scenario... Rain, and walking in pain the whole way. A lot of people just visualize the triumph, but I encourage athletes to visualize the worst case scenario... what are you going to do if this cramping starts happening and you are only at mile 3.  I started coming up with drop out criteria... Which when I stopped to think of it I had only one drop out criteria... I am unsafe to continue. I defined unsafe as two things: Hypothermic, Dehydrated. Limping did not mean unsafe. Having to walk 25 min/mile did not mean unsafe. Being hungry did not mean unsafe (but I did start thinking about how I would get food if I was going that slow) .... Hypothermic or Dehydrated. Those were my only criteria for dropping out. I started to visualize the crowds thinning and really.... I started to prepare myself for a really sad but personal triumph. The stands being taken apart, the crowds gone, the roads open again.... but I thought about all the times I stood on the sidelines missing out... and it was worth trying. I thought about the pain and all those failed runs where it felt as though I was going to lose my legs if they didn't figure out what was wrong. I thought about the sleepless nights because my numb, cold, and slowly dying feet.... Whatever baby, I'm doing this. One week to go.