Sunday, September 14, 2008

3 weeks... and an hour and a half...

The Portland Marathon is exactly three weeks from today...

wow...

These next three weeks it's going to be crucial that I listen to my body.

The first time I felt it was at the Vancouver Half. A slight pain in my right foot that radiated up into my ankle. I thought it was the shoes I had purchased the night before.

It went away, although I would get the pain occasionally even when I wasn't running.

I noticed it again this last month or two. It seemed to only show up post mile 7, or when I ran on uneven surfaces. And usually it went away before the end of the run and wouldn't bother me afterward.

Then I did my fist 20-miler. My foot hurt by the end, but no worse than before... only it didn't go away. It continued to hurt, and I continued to run on it. I cut down my mileage, started icing it on non-running days, and it finally went away a week and a half later.

I did see my doctor and she set me up with an appointment for a bone scan next week to be sure it's not a stress fracture. If it's a stress fracture, that means 6 weeks no running... at my discretion...

Today I have my final 20-miler beginning in about an hour. I need to be smart. I'm probably doing closer to 17 instead, and I plan to really take it easy on my foot, at the first sign of pain.

Wish me luck!


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Update from 7:25 this a.m.... I wised up and I'm not running 20 miles this morning. I don't want to risk really injuring my foot today. I'm going to wait until I get my bone scan done on Wednesday before I make any decisions... And I'll hit the stationary bike at the gym until then.

I was putting an ace bandage on this morning and trying to loosen my shoelaces so my foot would comfortably fit in my shoe and I thought, "this is a bad idea..."

So Kelli and I are going to swing by the farmers market instead... time to hit the shower...

2 comments:

Deborah said...

Good choice, I'm glad you didn't risk the foot. Even if you just tapered from here, you're definitely ready to do the full 26 miles. I hope everything turns out ok with the bone scan.

Runner Leana said...

It sounds like you made the right decision to not run on it. If you have to make all kinds of tweaks then taking some time off is probably the right thing to do. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you that everything goes okay with your bone scan!