The picture for this post was perfect. It suggests injury as well as my mood—down the toilet. I’ve spent the last few days totally depressed and doubting myself. How could I have run so hard for so long only to be injured during my taper? Should I have tapered even harder? Should I have skipped the taper? Who knows?
What I do know is that I was totally primed to kick this marathon’s ass on Sunday. I had the best 20 mile run I’ve ever had the previous Sunday. I’ve nailed every single tempo and speed workout during the past 11 weeks. I’ve only missed 1/2 of 1 workout during that time and it was an easy workout. Even though I was training for a 3:36, I was going to run with the 3:30 pace group and hang on for as long as I could.
But then my Thanksgiving tempo run came up. 7 miles, 5 at 7:45 pace with a 1-mile warm up and 1-mile cool down. It was a hard workout, but not that hard, and definitely something I’ve done before. My taper was supposed to be of similar intensity as my training but about half of the miles. The injury occurred at mile 4.8 of the tempo part. I felt an uncomfortable twinge in my left hamstring, but no real pain. Since I was so close to the end, and pains come and go throughout all of my runs, I didn’t think much of it. But by mile 4.9 I was feeling more pain so I shut it down and jogged it to mile 5. T and I jogged the cool down, but the pain kept increasing so I totally stopped running by mile 6.8 and walked back to my car. But still I didn’t think much of it.
For every day actions, the leg feels fine. I know that something is wrong with it, but it’s just kind of tight. There’s not really any pain. I can do everything that I want to do. But I still didn’t run on Friday. Saturday it felt better, still kind of tight, but nothing major. I hopped on the treadmill Saturday night but got off after one minute. My leg can’t run right now.
My intense taper is now a full on rest break until next Sunday. I’m still going to Vegas. I don’t know if I’ll be running, but I’m not waisting the trip. There are people there that I can support even if I don’t run. I’d like to run. I’m staying positive that I’ll be OK by next weekend. I’m going to schedule PT and massage this week in the hopes that they can mend me up. But if it doesn’t work out, there will be other marathons to kick ass at.
I’m just so disappointed that I went from being able to truly kill all of my goals to maybe not even running the race at all. We’ll see where I end up—probably somewhere in the middle.
Post Script:
The winner of the Subway “Get Pumped Up In Style” Giveaway is Ashley R.! I really liked her comment. Congratulations Ashley, I’ll be in touch soon!
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Well shit. I am so sorry about the leg. You know I can relate. I got injured during my taper too. My doc says this is the most common time for marathoners to get hurt since they are at the end of a hard cycle of training and even tho you’re “tapering” we tend to push our paces. Hopefully some rest will do you good. Yes, go even if you can’t run and support those who can. I *almost* forgot about my injury when I did that. Well not exactly, but you know what I mean. Thinking of you…
Oh Mac, oh yuck, I’m just so sorry. I’m glad you’re going regardless but ya, that sucks. Thinking about you.
Major bummer Mac. You’ve got much more experience in this area than me, so all I’ll say is rest up this week and hope for the best. I hope to be eating your dust on Sunday
Hope you get better soon!!
Thinking of you! Take care, rest and best of luck in Vegas!
I was bummed when I read this on FB. Take care buddy. Try and have a great time regardless.
I’m actually feeling a lot better. Still not out of the woods, but things are looking up.
I’m so sorry to hear about the injury. I know how it feels. I was meant to run the original Marathon to Athens last year, it would have been my first but during my taper I injured my foot on the penultimate week.
It was sad because I had trained so hard and long. I considered just taking a few pain killers before the race but thought, its not worth the risk to my long term health. I didn’t end up doing the race but this year I completed the NYC marathon and it felt all the better.
I hope you can recover before the big day.