August Fail

August = grappling with disappointment. I wish I had been able to keep up with blogging and running and dailymile while dealing with my injury but I couldn't bring myself to check any of it.

I took a vacation to Jackson for a friend's wedding and skipped two low milage weekly runs.  I had a 12 miler scheduled the day after my return, and ran it just fine - felt great, in fact!  Two days later I ran 5 miles at a faster-than-usual clip (August 15).   I felt 100% fine after the run, but woke up in the middle of the night to pee, stood up and gasped at the pain.  I could barely walk to the bathroom.  Woah. 

I did the next planned run at the health club alternating 'mill and elliptical.  I also JUST got my new shoes in the mail.  I tried another super-slow 3 miler which was a fail.  Another stint at the health club resulted in 2 full hours on the elliptical.  Boring.

I decided to downgrade my 13.1 Giant Race entry to a 5k race entry (a $95 5k!!!!!!!!!!).  This was a mixed blessing because I got to run the race with my seesters, but had major disappointment.  I'll recap the 5k in another post, but at one point during that weekend the pain became so intense I thought for sure I had just experienced a fracture.

I did another 2 hour stint at the Health Club upon return from the City, and have since logged 3 runs of increasing distance.  The pain is lessening and almost gone.  I've started icing my feet in a bucket after ever run, no matter how short.  I've been stretching my arches and NEVER going barefoot (not that I went barefoot at all really before this injury). 

I believe my injury is Plantar Fasciitis, but don't really know.  I thought it was a stress fracture, but don't believe the pain would be lessening if that were the case.  It could have been caused by my old shoes that had just over 500 miles on then.  It could have been running too fast.  It could have been skipping two runs.  It could have been walking barefoot on a fragile foot. 

It's been a difficult month to bear, and I feel apprehensive about my marathon, which happens in 19 days.  I've skipped a total of three long runs: 19, 13 and 20. This is difficult to swallow because it happened so far out from my actual marathon that my last month of training is tapering instead of peaking.  I've wrestled with skipping the marathon - deferring to next year, downgrading to the half - but decided to just do it.  I've read so many inspirational stories of people who run marathons and just finish them.  I will have to walk, no doubt.  I will have to throw away any and all expectations of time.  I will have to hold my head up high and enjoy the day despite my training not going to plan.  I will have to decide if I want to go through all this again and give myself another shot at running a marathon injury free.