Way back in the summer I knew I was looking for another marathon to sign up for. Over the past few years (last year excluded), I had heard good things about the Myrtle Beach Marathon - most importantly, it's flat. So I signed up, booked the room, got someone to fill in for me in church on Sunday (even though it is a Saturday race), and was all good to go. That is until about 6 weeks ago when I began experiencing some pain in my right achilles tendon. So for a couple of weeks I would run a little, and rest more. Finally, I decided I need to take a full week off to recuperate my achilles. That one week turned into 4 weeks before I felt no pain. So this past Monday I went out and ran for the first time in 4 weeks - a good 5 miles. Nothing fast, nothing fancy - just a plain, simple 5 mile run - and it felt good! Yes, I did notice a little tightness, and I could feel "something" in my achilles - but I wouldn't call it pain. Tuesday morning I got up and again went running - this time feeling even better, and I ran 6 miles - and that's when it happened. I began to wonder to myself if I could actually still try to run the marathon this Saturday or not? I had all but already decided that I was not going to run it, but we were still going to go for the weekend just to get away - and plus I could at least pick up the tshirt that my non-refundable registration paid for. But now I got to thinking, what if I simply went out there and started the race? And what if I just simply ran until I either hurt too bad to continue, or just decided I had had enough?
So I have decided. I am going to lace up for the Myrtle Beach Marathon on Saturday. We'll see what happens - I really do not expect to actually finish. How could I? I've only run a total of 11 miles in the past month? But I know this - I'm at least going to go out there, make some friends, and have a great Saturday morning run for however long I want to run - and it will just happen to be in the middle of several thousand other runners.
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Spoken like a true hard headed runner! Can't wait to see how it goes. At least you've had a good excuse for not updating your blog recently.
ReplyDeleteI'm up to 11 miles with 4 weeks to go until my 1/2 marathon. I've had some tightness in my right calf since my last long run and after reading your ordeal I'm definately going to go easy for a while.