October 2017 Running Challenge

unplanned rest day today. With in-laws over, I ended up entertaining them and looking after little man, while my wife went to a baby shower. Tomorrow is a rest day too, but that's OK with me. I'll run Tuesday and Wednesday, rest Thursday and probably do a VERY short, like 2 miler on Friday. Then comes Saturday. I'm trying VERY hard to not think about Saturday.

A couple of days behind in reporting! I was super busy at work on Friday so I got up and walked in the neighborhood for 45 min at 4:30 am. Saturday was my youth YMCA team's XC meet so I didn't have time to do my normal Saturday run, but ran about 1 mi chasing them to cheer them on. My team was awesome --out of 5 runners I had two 1st place and two 2nd place in their age groups and we got 2nd overall. My 8 year old son finished 3rd overall and 2nd in his age group (the overall winner was also from the 8-9 age group rather than the older kids!). This morning I ran 4 mi on trails with a bit of warm up and cool down walking. Afterwards did this really cool restorative yoga workshop with live digeridoo and other instrumentation. Hope to do my long run tomorrow since I am on vacation this week!

Day/Distance/Comments

10/1 5 mi (+ 1 mile walk) + serious stretch program (Gymnastic Bodies Front Split)
10/2 Water walking
10/3 3 mi + light yoga
10/4 Walking + yoga
10/5 3 mi + PT (scraping + treadmill + stretch + strength)
10/6 Walking + PT (stretching + scraping + ultrasound + H-wave)
10/7 4 mi (+ 1 mile walk) + yoga and PT moves
10/8 6 mi (+ 1 mile walk) + Gymnastic Bodies Front Split stretch routine + PT
10/9 3 mi slowish with youth XC team + 40 min water walking + PT
10/10 Walk for 45 min + PT moves
10/11 Walk for 45 min + a little PT
10/12 3.5 mi (+1 mi walk) + PT
10/13 Walk for 45 min
10/14 Ran about 1 mi plus some walking
10/15 Ran 4 mi + walked 1 mi + restorative yoga + PT

Goal: 75 mi
Total: 32.5 mi
To go: 42.5 mi

Thank you @kgirlhart @garygse @Runningmischka for well wishes!

Unfortunately, today was not my day. This morning, I woke up to higher than normal temps as projected but noticed it felt more muggy out than I thought was forecasted. The fact that I didn't need a coat before a race in the middle of October in central Ohio is telling. I also started the day feeling a little under the weather, but bounced back okay after taking some medicine, as has been the case off and on the past few days. I was up and out the door by 5:20 and downtown and parked by 5:45. The running group I was meeting was supposed to leave for our meeting spot around 6, but we didn't end up leaving until almost 6:40 and I spent those extra minutes thinking of how I could have slept longer. I walked down, took care of gear check, spent some time waiting to go to the bathroom for the third or fourth time, met up with my step-sister and her friend near my corral and only had to wait about 5ish minutes in the corral before our corral started moving up and starting.

I crossed the start line at 7:43 and those first 2 miles were a little tough for me, as they usually are. However, I got into a groove and felt pretty good for about the first 10 miles. So good at times that I had to keep reminding myself that I was running a FULL marathon and needed to slow myself down. I should have realized that the sweat that was rapidly forming after the first mile was my first indication that things wouldn't exactly go my way. Around mile 10, it felt like a switch was flipped and all of a sudden, I felt awful. Like, sick awful. You know when you are sick and everything physically feels 10x harder? That was me at mile 10 with 16 more to go. I'm pretty positive I had a fever as I have a low-grade one now. I also started to feel the effects of some unevenness in my gait with my right knee, calf, and hip becoming tight. I let myself slide back to a more manageable pace that was slower than what I wanted my overall average to be but I had a little in the bank, so I thought I'd be okay. I battled with whether I should turn with the half marathoners at 12.5 miles, but I knew I would have been so disappointed if I didn't turn. I regretted that decision miles 13-18. At mile 13, I took the Tylenol I brought and I also started experiencing some cramping in my knee and calf. I did a LOT of walking miles during this time and even stopped at a medical station for about 60 seconds to see if they could take my temperature (they could but only had an oral thermometer and I had literally just downed some cold water, so I declined). There were several points before mile 18 that I came very close to deciding enough was enough, but I ended up seeing a familiar face from my running group and decided to keep going as he was having a hard time too and we were encouraging each other to keep going. We played leap frog for a little bit, but I started feeling better around mile 18 as the Tylenol finally started to kick in (and I'm sure all the walking helped a bit too). I practiced the miles around 16-18 many times as it's one of the tougher uphills of the race and I think that helped knowing that I was past that. I started running a little faster (relatively) and for longer stretches, but the cramps kept coming and I had to walk about ever 1/3-1/2 a mile but I was able to walk for shorter periods, mainly just until my muscles stopped seizing. The last 6-8 miles, I started getting very windy with 20mph winds and some spitting rain around mile 24. Also, the noticeable lack in aid stations the second half left me a little dehydrated, but I was happy to have my handheld water bottle with me, which I filled with a cup of water or gatorade each station. I knew that a PR was out the window after about mile 15, let alone the other goals that I had. After all the obstacles that I overcame during the race though, I am happy just to have finished. This was the first marathon that I truly didn't think I would finish. My official time is 4:56:36, so I was under 5 hours and about 7 minutes faster than my last marathon in Chicago around this time last year.

After talking with others afterward and seeing many other posts on Facebook and Strava, this was a horrible race day across the board. I found out after I was done that after a certain point, they started diverting runners that were still on the first half of the course to finish with the half marathoners. The next few days, I'm going to focus on recovery and healing. I'll then come up with a game plan of what I would like to do between now and the New York Marathon in a few weeks. The issues I had with my right leg tells me my focus needs to be on doing what I can in that short time to strengthen those muscles.

Thank you all for your support and for reading this whole thing if you've gotten this far I think you guys are the only ones I know where I could post this and you'd care to read to the end, haha.

@osubuckeye87 kudos for completing the race. Hope next time is more fun for you.

I feel good after my ten miler yesterday. (I'm taking a rest today though.) I had to smile during my run. I'd got to just past the eight mile mark and I was feeling a little weary when I ran past a woman and her young daughter. I heard the little girl says, "look mommy, she's running! And she's going fast." I wasn't going fast by any means, but damn, it sure put a spring in my step.

I am trying something new and I'm running everyday for a month. I am 6 days in so far.

Goal - 50 miles
MTD - 25 miles (right on target!)