It has been some weeks now since I finished my 1st marathon. The marathon was on January 13 and today is February 10th. I was able to actually able to run 3 miles today relatively pain free. (I did have some trouble breathing since I've not run in almost a month.)
First the race report. As I mentioned in my last post, my family and I flew down to Disney the Tuesday before the race. This gave me a good 5 days to acclimatize myself to the conditions in Florida. This also gave me the opportunity to walk around all of the parks with my family, ride some great rides, wait in line for some not so great rides, swim, eat, sleep and eat some more. The first 3 days I pushed myself through and hour on the elliptical too because as I've written about before, I'd been plagued with injuries on both my left and right ankle. I was extremely concerned that I wouldn't be able to go the distance because I hadn't done a long run that was greater than 16 or 17 miles. In fact, on or about October 12th, I thought I'd sprained my ankle. I took it easy that week and then resumed training.
Running was tough. I slogged through my weekly jogs, but on the long slow days, I couldn't make it past 16 miles; my left ankle would freeze up. It was so f'n painful, like a nail being driven into the joint. I figured my ankle was still sprained and needed a bit more rest.
Fast forward to the race week. I'm in Florida with my family and am having a hard time walking around the parks. I am having lots of pain and figured I should just stay off my ankle. The day of the race, I figured I would try to "Galloway" it so I can go as far as possible. I started with a 10 minute jog with a 1 minute walk. I cycled through this a few times and then went to a 4 and 1 and then a 1 and 1 and then a walk. Along the way, I met a great lady with whom I was able to chat for the last 13 miles. She had a bum ACL, so together we had one set of working legs.
My mantra throughout was to finish what I started. I trained for a Marathon, I was going to complete the distance. As the finish line came into site, I saw that I could break 6 hrs. The clock was ticking. So I said, "see you at the finish line" to my new friend, Susan, and took off on a "sprint".
I did it. 26.2 miles. Sure it was 1 hr slower than my goal time, but I finished what I started.
When I got home, I went to the Orthopedist. Turns out, I didn't sprain my ankle, I broke a piece of my Tallus bone. By getting my ankle drained, a shot of Cortisone and staying off it, I was able to use it again.
My next race is the Hartford half marathon...
Stay tuned
