So I pulled out of the Twin Cities Marathon. It's been a few weeks since the marathon and I'm trying still to accept reality. I can be fairly thickheaded.
I still went up to St. Paul to watch the finish. I did well up with tears a few times over being a spectator rather than a participant. The energy of the event was what I anticipated: enthusiastic, supportive, celebratory - it just had an undertone of sadness for me.
Right after I posted about my pride over my 40 mile week in August, I started to encounter ITB isssues. It's the acronym for the much maligned Iliotibial Band Syndrome. It's a not-too-uncommon injury in runners. For women it's associated with weak glutes (me), weighing more than 135 (me), long runs of more than 2 hours a week (me), and hill training (me). I had it diagnosed and was told it was "textbook". Hey, at least I can finally check "having done something by the textbook" off my bucket list.
Anyway, lots of physical therapy, cortisone injections, NSAIDS, you name it, it didn't help much. I was advised not to do the marathon. So I just watched it. That's about 16 weeks of training for nothing.
Still, I'm glad I went to watch. I saw some pretty amazing things and although it was frustrating, it deepened my desire to complete one.
I'm still on rest. The last time I tried to run it flared up with intensity, so I'm doing other things: swimming and weight training among them.
And in the mean time, I'm contemplating longer-term goals.
Clearly I need to finish the marathon before moving on to a triathlon...but having the long-term goal in mind helps keep me focused on the smaller ones.
