Thoughts on Marathoning

First off, training for a marathon is hard. Anyone that says it isn't is full of it. Probably won't find many that will argue that. Thoughts of what I've done right and wrong in training go through my head as I start tapering. My right calf is still really tight. So now I'm wondering whats really wrong. Is it my shoes? I have new ones, a different brand but I was fitted at a running store. Maybe I should have stayed with what I had used all year. I still have the left achilles problem. I was hoping the new shoes would have helped that but it didn't. It's not worse. The miles don't seem to make it worse. It's just a nagging thing that won't go away. Now I have the calf issue. I can run on it, it seems to loosen up after I start running some. I have massaged it, iced it, bio freezed it among other things. So I wonder what it is. What have I really injured? Did I injure anything at all? I woke up last night wondering if its some kind of stress fracture. I guess this is what happens during taper. So my plan today is to take a couple days rest. No running till Saturday. Hopefully it will loosen up for my 12 miler I need on Saturday.

Tuesday/Wed Updates:

Tuesday night I had the running clinic. Our task was speedwork, 1x800m@lactate pace, 1x1000m@lactate pace and 1x800m@lactate pace. I started with a .9 mile warm up run to the area where we do our speed work. I really wasn't sure if I could even run or not as the right calf was really tight. It was hard to get going but once I did it seemed to loosen up. We always do some strides before the workout starts but I couldn't do these at all so I just slow jogged. We started the workout and I figured I wouldn't be able to run fast so I just started jogging slowly. Annette and Cheryl was in my group and they were ahead of me. Cheryl was coming off an ankle injury so she couldn't run that fast so I thought this was perfect. After about 200 meters or so the calf seemed to loosen up and my stride got longer. Before I knew it I was clipping along at a pretty good pace. At probably 400 meters I passed the girls. Didn't feel too bad. First 800 was 4:42. We took a 3 minute rest and went right into the 1000 meter run. Same thing happened again. I started slow and after getting going I was able to speed up the pace. Passed the girls around 500 meters and sped on. Ended with a 5:51. After a short rest went on to the next 800. This time with about 500 meters to go, Brenda and Cindy passed us and I decided I was going to try to keep up with them. They run really fast so I knew it wouldn't last long. I was able to stay on their tails almost to the 800 meter mark. That felt good and my time was 4:24. I wasn't able to do the strides at the end, the leg just didn't want to cooperate. After a .8 cool down back to our vehicles I was done. I actually ran these intervals too fast. This was supposed to be lactate threshold training but I think I wanted to see how fast I could run hurt. Dumb huh. My LT pace should be about 9:30. Here was what I ended up with:
800m - 4:42 - 9:21 pace - about 10 seconds too fast
1000m - 5:51 - 9:16 pace - faster still
800m - 4:24 - 8:21 pace - ok, i blew my LT by over a minute here!

Wednesday night was Halloween so Annette and I met Brenda at Magness Creek for a Halloween run. This was just a slow steady run through the neighborhood. It was kinda fun with a lot of the kids getting out for Halloween. I ended up with 5.6 miles and a 11:29 pace average. We stopped and talked to Coach Dennis along the route and saw some other people we knew along the way so this slowed the time. Annette stayed and ran some more but I went home. When we saw Dennis I asked him about my leg and he seemed to think it could have been from dehydration on my run Sunday. He gave me some tips on how to massage it out and suggested taking a day off. So, thats what i'm doing.

I wonder how it would feel to run without a nagging pain or injury? Maybe one of these days.