Tuesday, August 24, 2010

And I'm back...let's hope for good

Okay, so I haven't posted in forever because I have been doing physical therapy for the past 4 weeks for my ITBS. Without running, I have not really had motivation to exercise. I have mentally tied exercise with running so that when I'm not running, I have no desire to exercise. If I was at school, I would at least have exercise classes at the gym to go to, but here at home in MD with no gym, I am not able to push myself to do anything but run. With that said, I have been very good to rest up when I should with my ITBS and did not push myself when I needed to. This is good for my running and health in general, but not so great for my training. I totally forgot that my school's track club registered me for the Philadelphia Rock 'N' Roll Half Marathon for September 19th. Whoooops. With now less than 4 weeks, I know I won't PR, but I'd like to at least be within 5 minutes of my PR.

After that, I have to then decide if I can do the Marine Corps Marathon on Halloween. To be honest, I do not want to do it if I do not think I can PR. My goal is to break 4 hours and my PR (three years ago) was 4:01 and this past fall, I ran one in 4:02, so it's doable, at least before my injury. I am really afraid I won't be able to run it in my goal time, so I have to wait the next few weeks to decide what I will do.

For now, I have to feel happy that I ran 7.25 miles today at MP + 11 seconds on average. For that, I am ecstatic and feel like a million bucks. Let's hope this can keep up....

Sunday, August 1, 2010

ITBS can really eat rocks

Now that my 24 hour race is over, I'm in this weird place right now. I am feeling like a break would be great, but am stressed about starting training for the Marine Corps Marathon. The week after the race, I only got in 4 miles, but I was fine with that. This past Tuesday, I got in my normal 7.25 miles with my local Road Runners club. I run them at about 9:30-9:45/mile pace (for which I am going to need to speed up for my marathon training). My knee starte to bother me a bit, but it just felt like my normal runner's knee flare up. I woke up Wednesday with my knee really hurting me, which felt weird. My hip also started to hurt, so I immediately thought I had ITBS. A Wednesday night visit to my PT uncle confirmed it. Sometimes if I walk too much (especially in unsupportive shoes), my knee and hip really hurt. It's really frustrating because I am already sidelined from training for my marathon plan, which should be starting in a week. I have a large mile base from my ultra training, but in order to break 4 hours for my marathon, I really need to get my miles to be faster. I am not running at all because I am trying to let it heal as much as possible, but it is getting so frustrating.

Okay, rant over. My mother finally uploaded her pictures from my race, so I figured I'd upload some of them.
The fam before my race.

That's me on the left waving as the race starts.

This is me at the end of the race, covered in sweat, dirt, and happy tears.