The St. George Marathon

This post is going to be dedicated entirely to my most recent marathon, and it's a loooong one (no pun intended, of course).  So lace up, kids!  You're in for quite the saga about marathons, babies, recovery, injuries, training, and achieving my dreams.

I feel like I need to recount some of my running history to keep this post in context, so I'll start from a little while ago.  Back when we lived in Salt Lake City, I ran the South Jordan Marathon.  That ended up being the last marathon I would run for almost four years.  When we moved to Pittsburgh the following year, we finally decided it was the right time to try to have a baby.  As these things go (or don't go in our case...), I didn't get pregnant the first month, or the second month, or the third month, etc. etc.  I began to wonder if the high mileage was affecting my body in some negative way.  I thought maybe it was stopping me from getting pregnant.  So, I cut back and decided not run any marathons for the time being.

{SoJo Marathon, 3:09.50}

Fast forward to the day our sweet-little-angel-baby Auggie was born!  It had been three years since SoJo, and I was dying to get back out there and race.  Because I hadn't competed in what felt like ages, I re-set my lifetime goal of running a 2:59.  I was going to come back from pregnancy stronger and faster than ever and finally break three hours.  Hooray!  

I was cleared to run six weeks post-baby, but I didn't feel well enough to try until seven weeks.  My first "run" was hardly that.  I hobbled and walked through a twelve minute mile.  But honestly, I was jogging so it didn't even matter!  As my college economics professor used to say, "Self...greeeeaaaat day!".  And in that moment, it was a great day to be running again!  

In contrast to the exhilaration I felt on that first day back, every day for the next couple of months was an epic battle with my body.  Sore muscles and sucking in air were the least of my concerns.  My insides were on the major fritz, which meant I had to use the bathroom for all the things all the time, everything from my waist down was unpredictably painful and loose, and I suffered through the dreaded out-of-shape itchies for far too long.  But I kept going, one step at a time.

By three months, I could finally run four *slow* but consecutive miles, and after six months I was running about forty decent miles a week.  I had successfully gotten myself back in shape to the worst shape I'd ever been in, prior to pregnancy.  Does that even make sense?!  In other words, it took me six months of busting my butt to feel in shape enough to start getting in shape again.  Another hooray for phase two...let the real training begin!

The actual marathon training was hard, but doable at this point.  I downloaded a sub-three training plan and completed every single day as directed with no alterations.  In hindsight, I should have been more thoughtful with what my postpartum body could handle.  About ten weeks before the marathon, just as training was getting really good, I started to feel a pain in my upper thigh area.  I finished the week with a worrisome sixteen mile run.  The ache in my leg was constant.  My heart just sunk because I knew it felt like a stress fracture.  Don quickly got me in for an MRI, and sure enough, I had a stress reaction in my pelvic bone.  At the time, this was absolutely devastating news.  Bone injuries are a pretty concrete "no running for a long time" kind of thing.  How could this happen after all my hard work?!  Suffice it to say, there were no more hoorays for a while.

With an injury like this, I didn't even know if I would be able to run the marathon.  It was anyone's guess how long it would take to heal, but with Don's read and notes, the orthopedist recommended just two weeks of cross training before trying a run.  They didn't think the bone looked like a full blown stress fracture which was great news, and two weeks was way less healing time than I thought I would need.  Her diagnosis gave me a little confidence.

I began listening to a bunch of podcasts about professional runners who had been injured and used cross training to prep for big races.  I listened to even more podcasts about the benefits of cross training to aid in overall fitness.  Don had also been telling me that cross training could be really helpful as a substitute or supplement to my running in general.  When I added it all up together in my head, I decided what the heck?  Why not just run the thing and cross train my way to a 2:59?!

And that's what I *almost* did.

I extended my two weeks off to three just to be safe, and during this time I cross trained two hours a day almost everyday.  When I started running again I had to take it slowly to avoid re-injury, but given the short timeline before race day, I didn't have the luxury of taking it too slowly.  I took a gamble.  I ramped up my miles more quickly than one should when returning from an injury.

The good news was that my bone seemed to be healed, and the dreadful dull ache was gone.  The bad news was that I injured my calves on my first long run back.  They weren't used to pounding the pavement after three weeks of swimming, and I shredded them pretty fast.   It's ironic that over the next six weeks the calf strains were what stopped me from training, not the stress reaction.  I went through an extremely frustrating cycle of workout ---> calf re-injury ---> limp home ---> three days of cross training to heal ---> workout ---> repeat.  The calf pain was debilitating, and I ended up running no more than twice a week for the last six weeks leading up to the race.

On the day of the marathon, I knew I wasn't ready to run a sub-three, but I went for it anyway.  By mile two my calves were on fire, but I was feeling really good otherwise.  I remember thinking in my head, "there is no way I can hold 24 more miles with this kind of calf pain.  I'll be limping by mile six!".  But somehow the adrenaline took over, and the pain plateaued to an uncomfortable kind of numbness.

I ended up feeling smooth and strong throughout the entire race until mile nineteen.  I had given it my all in the early set of steep hills to stay on pace, so by the time the second round of hills came I was done.  And I knew it.  With six miles to go I unraveled, and my lack of fitness became obvious.  I crossed the finish line in 3:04.57, my second best marathon time ever.  At the time I was so disappointed, but it didn't take long for me to be proud of a heroic effort.  Considering my injuries and the minimal amount of running I had done in training, I had pulled off a miracle race.

{the beginning of the unravel}

It took me an entire month to recover, that's how much of my body I had given.  In the meantime, I researched which marathon to do next.  I felt wiped out physically, but not mentally or emotionally.  I knew I had another marathon in me...just one more.  After talking to some friends, we decided that the Phoenix Marathon would be my best shot at breaking three hours.  I felt that if I could just have a training cycle with no injuries, I could do it.  So, I signed up for Phoenix and started training again.

It's now one month away from my race in the middle of my peak week, and I'm injury-free.  I don't know that I've ever felt stronger or more ready than I do right now.  All I need on February 8th is for everything to go right and nothing to go wrong.  Ha...that's not too much to ask, is it?!  No, but seriously.   I'm excited and nervous, and I'm scared and afraid.  But, I also feel fast and prepared.  Anything can happen on a marathon day.  I'm just hoping and praying that after all this time my stars finally align. 

Oh, and that an enthusiastic hooray! won't be nearly good enough to express my deepest feelings of triumph.