Day One Hundred Fifty-Three: It Is What It Is

I hate to do it like this, but I honestly don't have a ton of time tonight. Sadly this will be my last post before Sunday and Sunday is the marathon.

I'm not really at a point right now where I can sum any of this up properly, so I'll save that until after I run. Overall this has been an amazing experience and the only regret I have is the time and training I missed due to injury. I'm nervous and tentative heading into the weekend knowing that I've fallen off the training pace, but thanks to the accupuncture and the advice of my coaches my knee is feeling much better. Everyone keeps asking me how it is and all I can say is that it's as good as it's going to get.

I'm close to $5000.00 in fundraising, which is unreal. I don't even really know how to react to that except to say Thank You.

So now I'm all packed and more or less ready to go. The plane takes off tomorrow morning at 6:55 and the race starts on Sunday at 7:40AM, Phoenix time. If you get a chance to think of me and send me some good vibes that would be great.

I wish I had been able to keep up with this blog the way that I wanted to and I wish I wasn't so behind with entries so that I could give the proper type of send off today before the big run. Unfortunately my mind is spinning at a thousand miles per second and I'm trying to get out of my office so I can get some rest and get out to Phoenix in the right frame of mind.

Thank you to everyone who has read these entries and supported me for the past 5 months. Thanks to everyone who has donated to the cause. Thanks to our coaches and to my mentor Dragan, who have helped get me where I never thought I would be. Thanks especially to Jen, who got me involved to begin with and has made this such a fun and rewarding experience.

Next time you guys hear from me, I'll have run a marathon.

Wish me luck.

BD

DAY 148
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 6
TOTAL MILEAGE: 305.37

DAY 152
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 3
TOTAL MILEAGE: 308.37

Day One Hundred Forty-Six: A Zombie's Best Friend

I am a zombie now. The walking dead. I might not move around as fluidly as I used to, but the only thing that can stop me is a bullet to the brain or someone lopping off my head. So unless there are any zombie hunters out in Phoenix, I'm going to finish this marathon. Zombie style.

That's my new mantra.

Along with my new mantra, I have a new best friend. You might remember him as he used to be one of my greatest adversaries. Funny how in times like this we begin to see our enemies in a new light, because as of last week the treadmill has become a trusted ally. In fact, the treadmill is directly responsible for The Resurrection. Well, the treadmill and the voodoo queen that sticks needles in my leg.

With my knee injury I need to run on flat surfaces. Any kind of hill, up or down, has been bringing with it some ridiculous pain on the outside of my left knee. The only way I can really describe it is that it feels as if there is something in there bouncing around that doesn't belong in there. Either that or someone is jabbing me with a pencil or a nail as I run and moving it around. Ironic that being jabbed with needles appears to be the solution to this problem, no?

You may not know this but Manhattan is actually very hilly terrain. I'm not basing that on any sort of research beyond the 200 some odd miles I've run in the city since August, so you'll forgive me if I ask you take my word on this one. Seriously, there are hills everywhere, especially in the damn park. Even at the Resevoir where the run is relatively flat you run into some slopes, especially now that there is a detour for some maintenance. Trust me, I tried it. About the flattest spot I could find to run was around The Great Lawn which is surrounded with a sidewalk and is about .52 miles around. Unfortunately, it's not the most convenient place to get to. I suppose I could have looked for a track at a local college or high school, but in the interest of time I decided to try out the old treadmill here at the gym where I work. Plus, I'm paying 25 bucks a month to use the damn thing, I might as well get my money's worth.

I have never liked training on a treadmill. It's boring and it makes me feel a little loopy afterwards. Like I'm on rollerskates or something. But sometimes you just do what you gotta do when you find yourself wandering the earth as a member of the undead and you excercise like a Jetson.

The ten miles I ran on the treadmill last week was extremely difficult. For starters, I hadn't run any kind of real distance in a month. Secondly, and I can't mention this enough - running on a treadmill is boring. Nothing changes. Nothing happens. Every once in a while someone new gets on the treadmill next to you, but that's about it. I couldn't wear my headphones because they don't sit right in my ears when I run without strapping them in with a headband, so it was just me and ten miles in the same place. But I did it. And I did it because of the treadmill. That's right. No hills on that sumbitch.

A ha. There's the secret.

After the wild success of Ten Mile Tuesday I decided to stick with what worked and head back to the treadmill for another run on Thursday. We're getting awful close to the run at this point though, and in the interest of tapering I was going to have to live with the ten miles being my last long run and now just concentrate on keeping my body moving (hopefully without much complaining coming from my left knee). I was sore from an accupuncture appointment the day before (shit feels like a charlie horse for two days afterwards) and from the 10 miles on Tuesday, but better to run through that soreness than totally tighten up in Phoenix leading to a major league crash and burn. So I set the speed for a 10:54 mile and started running. And because it was a treadmill nothing happened of any note until I stopped running. But on the bright side, it felt good and my knee had no complaints to register.

Another 5 miles in the books thanks to my new best friend.

But sometimes you've gotta do things on your own and you can't bring your best friends along with you.

Which is exactly what happened last Saturday when I went back to Central Park for my last weekend group run around the 6 mile loop in Central Park...

DAY 146
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 5
TOTAL MILEAGE: 296.37

Day One Hundred Forty-Six: Back From The Dead

What can I say?

This past month has sucked. I've touched on it all before, but I guess I'll just make sure to catch everyone up by saying that right after Thanksgiving I hurt myself. It's a pretty common injury for new runners who's bodies aren't used to the strain of the kind of training we have been doing. Basically there is a tendon that runs down the outside of your leg from the hip to the ankle and mine became too tight which was causing a lot of pain in my left knee when I ran. I don't know if I'm a big baby or what, but holy crap it really really hurt. I tried to rest it (along with the recommended icing and stretching) and none of that seemed to be working. So finally in late December I started seeing an accupuncturist.

This past Tuesday I ran 10 miles on the treadmill which was the longest I had run since December 2 when I kicked out 12 in the park before I had to stop because of my knee. The great news is that my IT band didn't act up at all and I was able to finish the run. The not so great news is that 10 miles was really really tough on me and I feel like the 5 weeks that I have been hurt has done some serious damage to my training (obviously). This week I had been giving some serious thought to transferring my the funds I have raised to a Spring event and starting the whole process over in February and running the San Diego Marathon instead of Phoenix. Trust me, it's really the last thing I wanted to do - second to last thing actually because the LAST thing I want to do is go to Phoenix and not finish because of an injury. I won't really be able to deal with that.

Last night we had our Send Off meeting where we got together with the rest of the team and got some final instructions about tapering as well as going over our schedule once we get to Phoenix. I spoke with Ramon before the meeting to voice my concerns about my injury and my conditioning. He told me that if I can run 10 miles I can run a marathon and that he thinks I should come to Phoenix. He said that the last 6 miles are going to be hard for everyone and that as long as I am very cautious with my pacing I should have no problem. I don't know how much of that was real and how much of it was motivational coaching, but you know what? Fuck it, I'm going to Phoenix. This is the run that I have been training for and this is the run that I have been begging people to donate for and this is the run that I want to finish. I have absolutely no idea how it's going to go down. I don't know if the route is going to be flat enough to not bother my knee (both up and down slopes really make it sing). I don't know if I'm going to have the wind to finish and even if I have the wind, injury or no I don't know that my body is really ready at this point. I don't know if I'm going to have to walk a few miles and if that is the case how I'll respond to that mentally.

I just don't know. Which is pretty freakin scary. But fuck it, I'm going to Phoenix. I mean, everyone is nervous for their first marathon I suppose, but not having trained for the past 5 weeks just adds too many questions and I'm not so good with questions that I can't answer. I asked Ramon last night if I should try to squeeze in a long run and he said absolutely not. I asked if I should try to run on some hills to see how my knee responds and he said absolutely not. If it didn't go well, what do I do then? Basically he said there is nothing I can do at this point that is going to prepare me any better for the marathon except to taper and take care of myself. So I've got to just let all these questions I have go unanswered until I actually get out there on the course in Phoenix and then I'll find out if I can actually run a marathon or not.

Yeah, I'm terrified.

But fuck it, I'm going to Phoenix.

There's this song that's been in my head the past couple of days called "My Poor Brain" by the Foo Fighters - one line especially. At one point Dave Grohl sings "Sometimes I feel I'm gettin stuck between the handshake and the fuck." That's sort of where I have been the past few weeks which is why it's been really difficult for me to continue with this blog not knowing if I was going to be able to come through and finish this amazing thing that I've started. The most frustrating thing about my situation was that it wasn't due to a lack of will or dedication on my part but simply because my body wasn't working the way I needed it to work. I didn't (and honestly I still don't) know if I'm going to be able to do what I set out to do on that first morning of practice way back in August almost 300 miles and over $4500.00 dollars ago.

But you know what?

Yeah, you know.

See you in Phoenix.

Here's a wrap up of what has passed for training recently:

There were a couple of aborted runs that were honestly less than 2 miles before I had to turn back and walk home. I'll leave those days out because honestly, I don't even really remember when they were and never bothered to track my mileage. I've also done a day or two of cross training every week to try and keep myself somewhat in shape (tell that to the 5 pounds I have put on).

DAY 133
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 6.26
TOTAL MILEAGE: 275.76

DAY 135
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 5.61
TOTAL MILEAGE: 281.37

DAY 144
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 10
TOTAL MILEAGE: 291.37

Updates to follow on my fundraising progress and what accupuncture feels like (I'll give you a hint: it feels like someone sticking needles in you).

Sorry I've been gone so long. Hope you stuck with me.

BD