Run, Anne, Run!

I have some posts to catch up on but for now, her's an update of my on-again, off-again, now on-again marathon training. Earlier this year I was contacted by a friend with Children With Diabetes to run with them in January at the Disney World Marathon and Half Marathon weekend. Reluctant to commit to a marathon after a season of 2 Ironman races, I resisted. But as they say, "Resistance is futile!" I'm a sucker for signing up for races! And I loved the idea of running with CWD. I could have signed up for the half, but since I was traveling all the way to Florida, you know, I had to get my money's worth. (?)

Soo.... after Ironman Wisconsin was over and I gave myself some time to relax, I started to pick up the running again. I felt a little weary of training but figured I could get by with a weekly recipe of one tempo run, one track workout, one long run, maybe another easy run, a long ride and a couple swims. After all, I only ran 3 days per week for the entire season leading up to the Ironman events. Oh and I should say, I also planned on a couple days of light to moderate strength training. I get injuries if I don't include that. Well, despite not being Ironman training, it sort of felt like I was still training for an Ironman. I was losing my motivation.

But then, I saw the movie, Run Fatboy, Run, with my sister and her husband, and my game was back on! For some crazy reason, this movie about a guy who decides to run a marathon in order to get his girl back (after leaving her at the altar) inspired me to keep training! I can't exactly say why, because the main character isn't that inspiring as far as training is concerned. And he even had Mr. Ghoshdashtidar's spatula to keep him moving. But I guess, somehow, it reminded me why I love these events and I recommitted myself by running with my friend Rita a few weekends in a row, getting my mileage up to 18 for a long run. (Rita, by the way, just qualified for the Boston Marathon by killing her PR at the California International Marathon in Folsom/Sacramento. Congrats!)

I skipped my long run the weekend I was in Arizona, meeting my fabulous 2009 Triabetes teammates and racing through the desert in the Tour de Tucson 109-miler. (Much more on that soon!) I returned home eager to get some peak training done. I decided to add an extra run after my early-morning swim one day. I was running along, approaching an intersection when I had that horrible sensation of tripping, flying through the air and watching the pavement come up fast and hard! Argh! I was crumpled on the pavement and in a lot of pain. It sounds funny now, as tripping and falling usually does, but it was agonizing! I couldn't get up, really, and just lay there until a fellow runner came and helped me up. I had only been running about 60 seconds when I tripped, so I hobbled back to my car. I was bleeding and my elbow was very swollen.

When I got home, I was sure I had broken my arm but after a while the swelling went down. I think the pain was due to my landing hard on the nerve that runs along the outside of the elbow. My knee was another story. It was stiff so much so that I couldn't walk much for a couple days, and wasn't able to really do much for about 5 days. My blood sugar was going wild and the no-exercise moodiness was in full force. I was feeling pretty much done with the whole affair. I decided to give it one last shot last weekend with a long run. With the race a month away, I would need to get in a few more unless I wanted to be completely miserable on race day. My 19-miler went much better than I expected and I actually enjoyed my run through Portola Valley. And being out there for a few hours did not seem as long as it did in pre-IM days. My knee has remained a bit achy, but seems mostly healed.

So, I am back in. I received my sweet Nike race shirt from Laura at CWD and am going to give it a spin this weekend. I don't expect to pull in a Boston qualifying time in January, but I do look forward to meeting up with the CWD folks and having a chance to run with Goofy for a bit. And I definitely would not have been doing intervals on the track this morning without a marathon looming close!