Injury + Marathon. Top 10 “Don’t Freak Out” Reasons

So here we are, Big Sur Marathon is 4 weeks and 5 days away.  I am a marathoner, of course I know how many day away my race is.  And my app tells me. See:

I am injured.  Runner not running.  Two days ago, I was taking a “mini-break” for 4 days to heal up.  Now I will actually call myself injured.

I have an inflamed big toe joint.  Small joint. Big pain. It hurts with each footstrike.  A marathoner can’t run like that. I am getting excellent care by Chiropractor Richard Thompson at Active Approach.  I’m not sure how long this is going to take to heal so I can get back to my training before my April 29 race date. I also have an annoying strain of a left ab muscle- that’s an old injury that resurfaced.  I’ve been complaining about it to my training partners Dave and Mike on and off all winter.

No one particular run caused this.  Instead, an accumulation of training just happened.  I was running really well. I came off a 1:28:08 half marathon on PEI (recap here) and went right into an 80km, a 94km and a 96km week capped off with the Moose Run 25km. Was it too much? I don’t know. No one knows.  That’s the thing and a risk with marathon training, it’s fine until it’s not. You push to grow but sometimes you push a little too far.

I bought my favourite sneakers from Salam Hashem on Feb 24, Asics DS Trainer, the 2018 version.  I started wearing them.  I wore my racing flats for the PEI half marathon and complained that all 33 joints in my feet were sore after.  But only for one night.  My big toe joint was like 1% sore after.  Then one March morning, sometime shortly after that, I know I tied my sneaks up extra tight because my other foot Achilles was a little sore and the Achilles is happy when it’s tied up tightly.  Then the big toe joint was a little more sore.

It was like 1-2% more sore every day in March.  I re-laced my shoes skipping an eyelet to give my big toe joint a little more room on the Thursday before Moose Run.  I ran 15km on Friday and everything was fine.  

Then all of a sudden, all those 1%’s added up to 20% and the sore got big post-Moose run. It didn’t hurt during the Moose Run itself.  But it did hurt during my cooldown run. The Moose didn’t damage my toe.  The whole month of March probably did.

So now I’m going to the chiropractor and I’m ice-bathing my foot and I’m not running.  My Monday, March 26 tester run was a fail. I lasted 5 minutes. Too much pain the whole time.  So now I’m hurrying up and waiting to heal. Last week, I told Richard that I could be off until Monday March 26 which would be 4 days of no running and not freak out.  But that I would freak out on Monday.  Because this was after 3 days of training that look like this: 4km, 5km, 3km.  And an April 29 race day.

Now Monday has come and gone and I can not freak out.  I know this. Making it through this injury and to my marathon start line absolutely depends on me and how I choose to think about this.  

I give each of the athletes who I coach 24 hours to be sad/upset/angry/etc over an injury.  They can have 24 hours to feel it. It’s ok to really feel it. But you can’t stay there. I gave myself the same 24 hour period.  Now it’s over. Now I get to work on not freaking out.

Here are 10 Reasons Why I will not Freak Out at 4.5 weeks out:

1. I’ve done this before.  Before California International Marathon.  I lost 16 days of training after falling down the stairs while carrying my then-two-year old.  I injured my sacrum. I got back with 4 weeks to go. I set an 8 minute PB at that marathon with a 3:02:59 on my Garmin. Therefore.  Maybe I will still set an 8 minute PB at Big Sur. 2:55? Bueller?

But seriously.  This is like an early April Fool’s Joke.  I really did do this before. After CIM, I was having a conversation with Coach Lee along the lines of “how did I actually run so well at CIM?”   His answer: the rest. I ran so well because of the forced rest. So I cheekily joked about the ideal marathon training plan including 16 days of injury. Perhaps I should not have joked about that.  I blogged a lot about this CIM journey: the setback, being ready to fly and the CIM recap.

I kept my head on straight during that injury, believing all the way that the time off didn’t matter. I could run well anyway.  I believe the same thing this time.

2. I have new shoes are waiting for me to get back to training.  I’m blaming the 2018 version of the DS Trainer for starting this process.  The toe box is a little more narrow. The upper is a little more firm. Combined with my mileage, the math on this was bad for me.  I bought my first pair of DS Trainers in 2010. They’ve been my favorite shoes for 8 years. I am breaking up with them now.

My shoe purchase a nice little circle of life story.  Our city is big but our community is small. I went to Aerobics First, of course, our stalwart Halifax running gear headquarters.  I was planning to see pal and fellow Road Hammer Matthias. Instead I got Blair. Who is the son of Blair the Elder, my co-coach, with my high school running teams.  Blair graduated from the high school where I work while I was working here and I was the Head Coach of his high school career (though he trained with a club). He’s all grown up, killing it at Dal with the running and with the shoe fitting (note none of this makes me old, haha!).  We select these Brooks Pure Cadence. A firm and responsive flat feel, similar to DS Trainer, but with a larger toe box and a very soft upper.  That’s a nice story in this big city.

3. Fewer 5am alarms are ok.  I run my easy mileage in the early morning.  I have to be home at 6:15am to get all the children and people to work for 8am. That means I have to be running by 5am to get in about 13km before 6:15am.  This week, I will be sleeping until 6:15am and that’s ok.

4. Winter will be over by the time I am back.  We are in winter #3 now? It’s 8 degrees in the afternoon but still -6 with a windchill at 5am.  Next week, it will be warmer. It might be real spring.

5. A #motherrunner always has other things to do while not running.  Life is full. Life is happy. I will have full and happy life while not running this week.  Like tonight, my kids and I made this special dessert: homemade peanut butter cups as shared by Love Training More OG Julia.  Oh and that bottle of wine with the extra delicious supper the kids and I cooked.

6.  My athletes all believe in and support me. I’m the Head Coach at Love Training More and I enjoy being the coach and joining these amazing people on their athletic journeys.  A surprise side benefit is that my role as coach has created this wonderful additional community of support for my own athletic journey. I got this note from my athlete Amy this week:

I hope you are feeling better. Even on your little break, it’s inspiring to us. You can’t get better if you don’t push yourself. So much respect to your first female win on this race and so many others since you’re back from injury. It doesn’t sound right in the way I say it but you’re so inspiring to us!

This support is really meaningful as I intentionally face forward to Big Sur.

7. It’s not about the performance anyway.  The Moose Run is usually a good predictor of running fitness for a spring marathon.  We often say that the marathon pace that you can hold at Moose Run is about what you can pull off in a spring marathon.  At the end of a big 3 week training block and in the middle of 32 total km, I averaged 4:18/km for 18km and 4:21/km overall at the 25km Moose Run. So I am fit.  

But since the moment I signed up for this marathon, I’ve declared that it wasn’t about performance. I just want to run those roads pain free and see beautiful things. There’s a mountain called Hurricane Point in the middle of the marathon race course.  Like a 2.2mile long climb of 136m. It’s not a PB course anyway.

Any missed training time is ok.  I will still run those roads pain-free and see beautiful things. 

8. My body will heal. This is know.  I very slowly and diligently healed my pelvic floor injury enough to get back to this running spot.  Now that I think about it, right before my 2011 run across the West African country of The Gambia, I injured my groin.  That healed. All of my previous running injuries have healed. My body will heal this too. That’s a fact.  Being hopeful about the timeline is the best option.

9. Perspective.  It’s only running.  I have healthy children and a full and happy life.  The running is the extra scoop of ice cream on the dessert.  I have a hard job. The individuals who I work with would love for their biggest problem to be a sore toe.  This is a limited number of days lost in a training cycle. That’s all.  I’ve got a ton of training under my belt at this very moment. Like 5 runs of 32km.  I’m fine.

10. The marathon is special no matter how you run it. Sometimes I think that I’m done with the marathon distance.  But I truly love it. I really learned that when I ran Legs for Literacy Moncton Marathon with my sister Kristen in October 2017 (read that recap here).  

This is my 10th marathon.  I planned it to be special. It will be as special as I make it. I will make this marathon special no matter how I run it.

So those are my 10 “don’t freak out” reasons and this is me, not freaking out.  Facing forward. Being hopeful.