You Know What Sucks?

I thought it was funny that three people told me this week, "I saw you and Nalani running..." It's kind of a small town that we live in and there are only so many roads... so when you're running a lot, well, people see you. Then yesterday I saw one of Scott's friends at a soccer game and the first thing he said was, "I saw you and your friend running the other day..." I guess there's no secret training around here. Lol.

My running has (had) been going really well. I had a couple of solid weeks and nailed my key workouts and went easy when I was supposed to go easy and took a day off here and there... seemed pretty perfect. My calf started feeling sort of tight/tender on Friday, so I didn't run... then yesterday morning it was still a bit tender so again I skipped the run... I didn't think it was anything serious because it just felt minor and I figured a day or two off of it would be the cure. No big deal.

But this morning was the 30K.

I swore to myself that I was NOT going to leave my marathon out on this 30K course. But then that other part of me just really felt like I was going to have a good run this morning. Having nailed some recent pace workouts and then having a few days rest... well, it was going to be a good day! I told Nalani as we were driving to the race this morning that I thought it was going to be a good day. If only my calf would behave.

We started off pretty conservatively and I had no calf pain. Phew. It took about 4 miles to get on pace (have I mentioned it takes me forever to warm up??) but then I just started feeling like a metronome. Nalani and I were running side by side and clicking off the miles a bit faster than we were even planning. I felt my calf start to tighten up about 5 miles in and it crossed my mind that maybe I should stop? Think big picture Michelle. Don't leave your marathon out here on this 30K course. But I just could not make myself drop out. Not when I was feeling so good otherwise! Somewhere mile 6ish Nalani stopped to use the bathroom so I was on my own. I got to mile 7 almost 30 seconds ahead of plan. Probably too fast but I was having a hard time slowing down because I was feeling so machine-like. Well, I hard time slowing down until I stepped on my foot just the wrong way and felt a sharp pain and BAM. End of race for Michelle. UGH. I should have stopped at mile 5.

You know what sucks? Having a hurt calf and getting a ride back to the finish in the back of a truck.

I've iced it a couple times already and it feels better than it did. Now I have to be as diligent about healing this calf as I have been about hitting pace in my workouts. I'll be super bummed if this takes me out for weeks... the marathon is 7 weeks from today. Seems like plenty of time to heal, but is it plenty of time to heal and get a decent amount of training in? I don't want to slog through another marathon just to finish. I need to be ready if I'm going to get even close to 3:30. Time will tell I suppose.