When one decides to run a marathon, there are many fears to be had. The first question is, can I run/jog/walk 26.2 miles without dying? When the answer to that question leans more towards the "maybe" than the "no way" side, then you pay your registration money and start to ask other questions.
-How will I train?
-How will I mentally prepare to run that far?
-What if I poop my pants?
-Who will be my support people?
-18 weeks of training is really long. What if I get injured during training?
-Can I really do this?
At a certain point, the questions change. I think after my successful 20 mile run last week, I stopped worrying about training and starting thinking more about the actual race.
-What if the weather is horrible on race day?
-What am I wearing for the race?
-What if I poop my pants? (that one never goes away.)
-What if I oversleep my alarm and miss the bus to the starting line?
I was feeling like I was past the point of worrying about training. I'm in my taper weeks. Everything is GREAT! I'm almost there! The thing that I thought I could never do is actually going to happen!
I guess I shouldn't have skipped ahead to the race day questions just yet.
My hip has been giving me some problems over the last two weeks or so. Nothing major, but I felt it and it worried me a little bit. I didn't notice any problems during our 20 mile run over the weekend so I figured that everything would be just fine. But when I ran my 5 miles on Tuesday on the treadmill, I knew that something was wrong. Maybe it was a mistake to go back to BodyFlow on Tuesday morning, who knows.
I put ice on my hip right after the run. I stretched really well. But I knew that I might be in trouble. I called on Wednesday morning and got an appointment with my doctor, hoping that she'd get me a referral for some physical therapy and I could get it checked out quickly. It was a miracle that I not only got in to my doctor on Wednesday morning, but an appointment at the Institute for Athletic Medicine opened up for Wednesday afternoon. (I was told by someone that I'd "never" get an appointment so quickly.)
Bruce, PT did his little eval and concluded that my injury was a result of lots of training + weak core muscles (not a surprise!) and he did an ultrasound treatment on my hip. The x-rays showed nothing out of the ordinary, so that was good. I had been given a prescription for a prednisone taper by the doctor so I started that. Bruce said that he'd hook me up with an appointment for Friday morning. He told me to go out and run my 8 miles for the day and just see how it felt. He said that he wasn't telling me not to run the marathon. He said he was looking forward to coming into work on Monday, June 20th and looking up my name in the results of Grandma's Marathon and that it had better not say "DNF" after my name.
So, I was feeling hopeful after the visit.
I woke up this morning and my hip was feeling much better. (Yay!) I brought Oliver over to my Dad's house so they could have play/fishing time together while I ran, and I was off. I decided to run around my Parents' small lake (8 miles = 12 times.) I'd be shielded from the wind and it was a short distance around the lake in case I needed to stop. But I really thought I'd be just fine. The sun had come out and the day was turning out to be a perfect day for an 8 mile run.
FAIL.
About a half mile into my run, something felt different in my hip. I stopped running and walked for a few minutes after I'd run about a mile, hoping that the break would help. But when I started back running, the shooting, burning pain in my right hip was just too bad and I figured that I should stop before I did too much damage. Less than 1.5 miles and I was done.
So, I'm not giving up yet. But I will admit that I'm worried about the marathon. I have a mere 16 days to get this thing healed up. I've spent a lot physical time training and a lot more emotional time getting myself to where I am today. But will I be able to run on race day? Who knows. I'm really hoping that it doesn't get to the point where I need to not run.
How will I feel if that becomes a reality? I'll be incredibly disappointed. Crushed. Gutted. But I'm not there yet, so I need to try and stay positive. (For someone who is still kind of stuck on the "Can I run 26.2 miles without dying?" question, positivity about the marathon is sometimes difficult to come by.) We'll see...
For now, I'll hobble around like an old lady and pray that I can heal up in time to set my marathon PR.
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