I’ve just finished the first three week block of building in my training cycle for the Philadelphia Marathon. I honestly expected to feel excited, thrilled to be back at it, happy to be running more structured runs instead of just jogging about, thinking about the race, etc. And there has been some of that. But it’s also been more of a mixed bag than I had hoped. This is going to be a quick summary of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Some of the good:
I’m starting to get the feel for what this training cycle will be like. Coach Cowboy is kicking it up a notch. The newest thing is the track workouts, which right now I’m doing on Tuesday mornings. Except for the damn mile time trial, which I hated, I am totally into the track.
I’m back to the hill runs and last week’s went really well. I got back from the top of the last hill repeat in 29:13. Any time I break 30 minutes on that, I’m pretty pleased.
We’ve got a great crew coming together for Philly. So far Teacher Runner, Swifty and Snarky Girl are all on board. Ok, Snarky Girl may not have actually registered yet……We’ve also got a new member of the crew who is running the half. She still needs a super secret blog name. And a bunch of folks from sub 30 are also coming including my good friend Nicole from Running While Mommy!
Some of the bad:
My knee made a very unpleasant clicking noise at mile 9 of the 14 mile run last Saturday. It hurt for a couple of days after that too. I’m seeing the Maestro today.
Even though I really really want my hip/back issue to be completely resolved, it isn’t totally. It flared up some toward the end of last week.
The ugly:
I came back from the long run on Saturday to a very sick Aidan. He and I have been home this week instead of on a planned vacation with extended family. He’s had a pretty high fever, some vomiting, coughing and extreme exhaustion. It’s clearly the same virus Rose had a week or so ago and with her, it turned into pneumonia.
Sunday was a planned rest day and I took Monday off as well because I couldn’t leave Aidan alone. I also just didn’t feel like it. Monday morning I was ready to shelve the entire marathon. I was worried about my knee and my hip and most of all worried about my son. If someone had said, hey, the city of Philadelphia has decided on a big construction project and they canceled the marathon for 2015 but you get your money back, I would have been somewhat relieved. I’m writing this Wednesday afternoon and I’ve felt like that a few times since Monday morning.
This afternoon Aidan played on his play station with a friend on his own play station in his own house. Sometimes this digital stuff is awesome. Two days completely off was probably a great idea for both my knee and my back. Neither are perfect, but both are better. I missed some kind of crazy track/cross-country combo workout that my running gang cooked up yesterday and I actually felt sad about missing it. The Maestro said I have medial meniscus irritation and it’s not a big deal, so I’m feeling better about that.
Coach Cowboy said not to stress, that this is what cutback week is all about. So, I’m backing off, way way off, for a few days and hoping to come out of this week mentally and physically in a better place. My friend Chris has a saying, Family First, Triathlon Second and this has definitely been a week of Family First, Marathon Second. Sometimes that’s how it is.