My First Marathon (x2)

In early July it was clear that I wasn't going to be able to do the full marathon at Monumental and redeem myself since I had stress fractured my left foot. What happened on my birthday only made it worse. I went out for my first unrestricted run after completing the progression from the stress fracture. I planned on four miles and thought that would be reasonable...I was feeling good on the way out, but about .5 miles into the return trip all the sudden I was in PAIN. My hip felt like it had torn open. It took me the better part of an hour to hobble back to the deck in Broad Ripple and then I just laid down in pain. I spent the rest of the day walking very gingerly and basically "holding my hip on." It was the week before RAGBRAI so I figured I would be doing more cycling than running and with the time off running it would heal itself. I used the elliptical once after I came back and my hip didn't hurt. The next day I tried to run and right away I knew it wa

Well, it is all but official that I won't be doing the full marathon at Monumental this November. I haven't made it official by "dropping down" to the half, but it will happen. My foot has healed from the stress fracture, but it will take time to build back mileage and it won't be able to happen in time for a fall marathon. I am back up to 2.5-3 miles but I would need to be at 6 miles by now in order to have a shot at a full in early November. It simply isn't worth re-injury. So I will focus on RAGBRAI later this month, an August full of triathlons, and half marathons in the fall. And as Brian Schuetter put it...this isn't the weather to try to recover in...it has been over/near 100 degrees for several days. Most of my activity has been in the gym since it is just really too hot outside. The down side of not being able to run as I usually do has been that I have gained about 5 pounds. On one hand I did train nearly every day even when I couldn'

It's National Running Day...and I can't run yet after the stress fracture in my foot. But someone else reflected on why they run today and I thought I would do the same. It was August 15, 2008 when I received a call at 7:30 AM from the nurse at my doctor's office that I had Type II Diabetes and needed to come in that morning. I expected that I would be diagnosed at some point since I am overweight and have significant family history...but I didn't expect it at age 32. After the initial shock I decided that I needed to start getting some exercise. I started walking 20 minutes on the treadmill every few days...the treadmill that we bought in 2004 when we bought the house and had relatively little use since then. Then I started adding a little time. My undergrad roommate/best friend Kara told me that I should do a Halloween race with her called "Run Like Hell" - it was three miles long. I told her that I couldn't walk 3 miles and that I would finish l

So...it finally happened...I have a running injury more serious than a busted (or lost) toenail. Last weekend during the Riverbank Run 25K in Grand Rapids, MI I managed to get a stress fracture in one of the metatarsal bones of my left foot. I finished the race and didn't notice anything until the drive to Mom & Dad's. I knew something wasn't right and went to the podiatrist on Monday since I planned on running Geist this weekend. I was hoping I was being overly cautious, but no...it's broken. So I am out of running for 4-6 weeks. The podiatrist will take more x-rays in 2 more weeks. I can still ride and swim so I have been doing that. It is really fine since I needed to start getting more miles in for TourdeCure and RAGBRAI. It was a bummer to be sidelined for Geist, but it was also a pretty warm day, so maybe I am ok with the medical deferral to next year ;). It was fun to be there when some of the faster runners came in, though. This week I did get my