Going Long (again) in 2024

Goodwill Drive recovery run; 8:43 pace.

Yesterday, it was 12C/54F for my run, which is about what it will be for my race.  Today, even cooler at 6C/43F.  Wore long sleeves and gloves for the first time since early Spring.

Radar Road; 8:53 pace.

Radar Road; 8:42 pace.

Skead Road; 8:52 pace.  Start of the week with the most mileage.  Race is 4 weeks from today.

Strength Workout on Radar Road.

3 x 2 mile intervals @ 7:20 pace with 800 recoveries.

No issues at all.  The conditions were perfect and it felt great.

Tempo Run on Radar Road.  10 miles @ 7:31 pace.  No wind, clear skies and 8C/46F.

Recovery Run on Skead Road; 8:53 pace.

Skead Road; 9:05 pace.

Long Run on Radar Road; 8:06 pace.  Close to 100% humidity.  Heavy fog from start to finish.

This was my final Long Run.  Marathon is three weeks from tomorrow.  

Recovery run on Goodwill Drive; 9:00 pace. Light rain.

Well, a set back today.  I'm not sure, yet, how significant.

Scheduled for a 4 x 1.5 mile Strength Workout at 7:25 pace, with 800 recoveries.  11 miles in total.

Finished the first 1.5 in 7:21 and then the next mile in 7:20 before I had to stop.

So, for the past two weeks or so, I've been keeping tabs on my right ankle/achilles tendon, medial side.  It is a little sore until I hit mile 3 or so on my runs.  No change to stride.  I've been icing it.

I'm not sure if that's connected to what happened today.  That soreness left when I started my first 1.5 mile repeat, but then the top of my toes on the right foot started hurting.  They continued to hurt during my 800 recovery, and then started to get worse on my second repeat.

That's not what stopped me, however.  It was almost falling down 3 times.  My right leg went wonky - like the nerves were not firing.  The third time, I barely caught myself and recovered, so I thought better of it and walked.  That's when I noticed how really painful the top of the foot was, and I limped painfully home.  

I just finished icing it and I'm still limping, so I'm not sure what's going on down there.  It doesn't seem like a running injury, certainly not like anything I've had before.  Tomorrow is a rest day anyway.  I'll see how things go today and tomorrow and then decide how I want to handle the final 3 weeks of training.  

Well, it looks like my PR attempt is cancelled.  At least I cancelled my airbnb accommodations in Montreal, and have resigned myself to putting the kibosh on this race.

From what I can tell, I have either Extensor Tendonitis or Metatarsal Stress Fracture in my right foot.  My guess is the ET.  The symptoms are pretty much identical, and both mean no running for a while.

If ET, there is a chance that, after 3 weeks of no running, I might be able to run a marathon.  But that would mean a 10% loss in fitness, which translates into a 3:35 marathon.  That just does not interest me.  And, of course, if a fracture, then 3 weeks of rest will just not do it.

After Monday's disaster, I limped around all day Tuesday.  I was marginally better yesterday - not visibly limping, but moving slow.  Today, it's still painful to walk, and especially to go down stairs.  

What gets me is how fast this came on.  I can point to the exact spot on the road where I was when the pain started.  There was no lead up to it.  Just bang.  That I don't get.  No signs of it on my 16 mile long run Saturday, or my 6 mile easy run on Sunday.  

However, here we are....

On another note, after waffling on the decision for weeks now, I decided not to run the Boston Marathon next Spring.  Registration is open now, and I beat my BQ by just under 13 minutes, so getting there was assured.  But having run it (poorly) once, I just can't seem to work myself up to getting excited about it again.

I'm not sure where that leaves me for next year.  I toyed with the New York Marathon, but that doesn't seem to interest me a lot right now either.  What DOES intrigue me is the Ultra distances, and that's what I'm thinking right now.  I MIGHT go back to running Ultras next year.  We'll see.  For now, I need to finish going through my mourning process brought on by loosing this golden opportunity for a Marathon PR in October.

This will be my last blog until December, or maybe January next year, unfortunately.  My right foot is broken.  More specifically, I have a metatarsal stress fracture.

I saw a podiatrist last week, had x-rays, and just came back from my follow up visit.  He had also suspected a leg length discrepancy, and so had me x-rayed for that too.  He was right:  my left leg is 1.4cm longer than the right.  He was amazed I had no back or knee problems.  Said I was lucky I was skinny, or I would have.

I took a closer look at all my shoes, and I can see that while I have a decent strike pattern on my left (land on left side of heal and toe off the big toe side), on the right I'm landing on the outside midfoot and toeing off normally.  That puts a lot of extra stress on those metatarsals.  He chalked the difference up to the leg length discrepancy.

As far as a solution goes, he suggested seeing this as a one off, given that it has not been a problem until now.  Basically, at my age, going for that 2-3% improvement in my marathon time may have just pushed me over the edge.  Neither of us wanted to look at an orthotic lift, as it would mean messing with my whole kinetic chain.  It took me years to get that part of my running down just right.

So, in the short term, no running for 11 more weeks.  That puts me into mid-December.  He said I can shorten that by a few weeks if I decided to wear a surgical boot, but that in any event I should be careful about weight bearing and certainly should not think of running.

In the long term, he sees no reason why I couldn't go back to training as I am now.  I'll give it more thought over the next few months or so, but what I'm toying with is going back up to the Ultra distances.  The training mileage is basically the same, but at a much slower pace, and on trails.  We'll see.  For now, I'm going to switch to bulking up a bit this Fall with weights.  I'll certainly miss running.  Oh, and the race I was supposed to do on Sunday?  PERFECT conditions!  Sunny, 40F at the start line and 55F at the finish.  I would have nailed it!