Tendinitis, ITB, Nausea! OH MONTEREY!
So this last weekend, I completed my LAST LONG TRAINING RUN! I say completed very loosely...
Friday I finally made it to the podiatrist to have my foot checked out and she said I had tendinitis and need to rest, but I basically told her "HA, maybe in a month" Saturday morning was our 20 mile run in Pacific Grove- it was a beautiful run and I felt strong for the first 12 miles running with Opritsa, Sarah and Tracey. Throughout the season, the coaches have been preaching to us the art of re-fueling during our run. Experiment, find what's right. I'd been using the Powergel's and this last run, went to a different sporting goods store that didn't carry them, so I picked up a few Gu's instead. Now, some people love Gu and hate Powergel, but for me, the Gu wreaked havoc on my stomach! First gel I had was a Powergel (yum tangerine- like a creamsicle!) Around mile 14 I was getting tired, my IT Band was causing some knee pain and I needed a pick me up and had to go for the Gu- gagging the whole way down because of it's thicker consistency... I'll spare the gruesome details after that, and pick up where I had to spend most of the rest of the course walking. Several times, I wanted to give up, ask some surfer for a ride back... but knew that I'd kick myself forever for that and kept going... My team was encouraging, several walked with me... I wouldn't have made it without them! The cooling down of my muscles, however, did not prove to be an issue until ~2 hours after I stopped walking. My tendinitis is 10x worse than it was because walking on cool muscles caused my achilles to tighten drastically. I've been resting and going between stretching and icing the past few days trying to regain the flexibility. (All of Sunday, I had to walk on my toes because my achilles couldn't stretch enough to walk flat footed) I'm feeling better physically today, and getting the itch to run again... or as Captain Mike Z calls it Taper Madness! Unfortunately now, the battle appears to be fighting a cold- thanks to my fiance Jeff for this one :) So glad to have 3 weeks to recover before my first (and hopefully not last) MARATHON!!!! One more thing... My fundraising deadline is in 1 DAY!!!! Make sure to go to: http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/nikesf09/bmorrowcrd if you haven't yet made a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Cancer sucks, and research helps save lives, so let's do our part!
