Marathon Training Update: Week 15

Only 3½ weeks until our marathon... I can't believe it! We're on week 15 of 18 (running schedule here) and I'm so excited, but also a little discouraged. Two weeks ago, we ran 22 miles for our long run. I felt great during the run—we were right on pace and besides for a little knee soreness, I had no pain anywhere else. I finished the run feeling like a rockstar, knowing I would have had to run only 4.2 more miles to have completed a marathon. That's crazy awesome! The only thing is that later that night, I had some major right calf pain and soreness, down by my peroneus and achilles. I thought it was just sore... but it turns out I was mistaken.

I ran last Tuesday and my lower calf was still really sore. On Wednesday, I was about a mile into my mid-week 8-mile run, when I felt a big snap (not a tear, thank goodness) and immediately began hobbling due to the pain. Of course I started crying too... crying while still trying to run down the road at 5:30 in the morning in the pitch-black darkness. Awesome. I thought I may have just tweaked my calf, so I kept on running, but about a mile later the pain was pretty severe so I turned around and ran (slowly) home. And again, I cried the whole way.

I think the tears were less about the pain and more due to the fact that I was upset because I thought I might be injured. I didn't think I had seriously hurt anything—I mean, I was still able to run, so nothing was torn—but the idea of training for 14 weeks and not being able to run this marathon was really getting me down. As soon as I got home, I called my physical therapist. I went to her house for an appointment, and we didn't have any fancy equipment, but she believes I have either a grade 1 soleus strain or a stress fracture in my fibula. To be honest, when I heard that news I breathed a huge sigh of relief. BOTH of those are things that can be healed, and both are also something that I can continue to run on while treating with care. I took the rest of the week off from running, but biked the weekend 12-miles with my mom while she ran.

Yesterday, I ran for the first time in a week, and while my calf was tight, the pain was not significant at all. Looks like my resting, icing, compression, elevation (and ibuprofen!) are helping do the trick. I'm keeping my running slow and not trying to do any speed training like I was before. Bummer... I was having so much fun with trying to set new training PR's, but that in itself may have been the thing that tipped off this injury in the first place... dumb, dumb, dumb—all my fault. My new goal is just to be able to actually run the marathon.

So here's to healthy legs, less than a month to the race, and a big HOORAY for no more long mid-week runs (our last one was last week, now our mid-week distances max out at 5-miles). Come on legs... you can do it!