Maine Half Marathon 2.0

Driving the struggle bus with about a mile to go. (Thanks for the pic Mari.)

I’m not mad that I ran 1:50:17, even though it is almost 9 minutes slower than my PR. I’m not upset that when I wanted to take off and run, I couldn’t. I knew when I toed the line for the Maine Half Marathon on Sunday I was not in racing shape. I’ve been a little bit injured. I’ve been running super low mileage. I’ve missed a bit of training because I’ve been sick. My focus and energy has been spent on other things, like moving and family.*

*Those all sound like excuses but I’ll never understand when people say, “I won’t make any excuses.” Each and everyone of these things impacted my training and my ability to race, why should I ignore them? They are facts.

No, I’m not mad about how my race played out. I am upset and a little nervous about how my body responded to the effort, though.

The hours after the race have been a struggle. My left leg has pains I’m not even sure I know how to describe. My shin hurts. The outside of my knee hurts. My glute on that side is even a little painful.* I’ve walked with a limp most of the day and have been told by more than one person that I look like I ran a marathon. I feel like I ran a marathon.

* Note: I started writing this post Sunday night. When I woke up and stepped out of bed Monday morning, my glute hurt the worst. I’m definitely still limping.

Not exactly ideal splits. The plan was a conservative start, race it in. I couldn’t race it in. And I stopped in mile 6 to pee.

None of this was a huge issue during the race. My shin hurt a little bit and my left quad had moments when it was spoke up, but my main issue during the race was crampy calves. In the last two miles, my calves were spasming and strumming like guitar strings. I couldn’t run fast because of it, but I figured a good stretch and a little rolling would take care of it (that worked, for the most part).

It wasn’t until after the race, walking around, that I started to limp. Hanging out in the finish area, chatting with friends and walking around to try to find others, the outside of my knee started to hurt. Walking was uncomfortable. Then I walked over to my car for dry, warm clothes limped the whole way. Putting on pants was an adventure because every time I straightened my leg, my hips would cramp up.* Walking back from my car to the athletes village Seth saw me and yelled from across the street, “You look like you ran the marathon today.” That’s exactly how I felt.

*All of these cramps, I’m pretty sure I’m not fueling properly. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I don’t think I should be cramping up this bad. 

It only got worse as the day progressed. I hung out to watch some friends finish the marathon or the relay and limped from spot to spot. I finally went home to take a nap and getting out of bed was a chore. Stepping into the shower was worse. I could barely lift my left foot off the floor. A few Advil helped me get moving a little better, but when those wore off at work, I started limping all over again.

I went into this race fearing how little fitness I had and how my achy groin/hamstring on my right leg would hold up. The good news is my right leg gave me absolutely no issues. I never noticed it and it doesn’t bother me today. The bad news is my left leg is a shit show.

So yeah, I’m pretty discouraged with how I feel after “racing” 13.1 miles. Soreness is fine. Hardly being able to walk is not OK.

2017 has been a difficult year when it comes to running. My best race was in February. I got injured and had a meltdown in my goal race. My mileage has been super low. I’ve been super unmotivated and not exactly healthy. And now I can’t walk. My body waited until my 44th year on the planet to completely revolt on me. That’s what I get for treating it like shit for so long.

I’m taking that as a message I need to get serious about “Redesign. Rebulid. Reclaim.” If I want to continue to push my body to run fast and run long (which I do) I really need to start taking care of it. My routines all have to change. I’ve said this shit a million times, but if stepping out of bed this morning and barely being able to walk isn’t the wake up call I need, I should just stop trying.

Danielle and I will tackle the MDI relay in two weeks. Hopefully I can walk.

Hopefully, this will all clear up and in two weeks I’ll run another half up in MDI. After that, I think I need a hard reset. I’ll probably take a little time off from running. Just mentally and physically take a break and forget about it. Then, when I come back, have a plan to make sure my body is always in a good spot so I can train the way I want to chase goals the way I want.

And to not ever feel like this again.