I left off the blog as I was finishing up the training for the Atlanta marathon 2010. I was looking forward to this marathon more than ever. My training was spot on, I had made it through all of the long runs during a cold and brutal winter, my tempo runs were done, strength training was consistent, and I was looking forward to seeing what would happen if I could put together a good race. Hopes were high. Then, about a week and a half before the race I felt something pull in my calf muscle. I was on the treadmill doing my last tempo run and had to stop. ouch. I didn't think it was serious at first and of course iced and stretched it. Took an easy day, swam the next and went out over the weekend for my last long run of 8 miles feeling better (a week out from the big day). Uh-oh, I couldn't get past a few blocks, my calf pulled again and I could not run. Frustration! I used the rest of the week to ice, ice, ice, stretch, ice, pop some ibuprofen... well, you get the picture. I needed to make the decision by mid-week if I was going to get on the plane to Atlanta. My calf felt much better by mid-week so I decided to go for it. I worked really hard to heal the calf as much as I possibly could. I felt I had done that and after a short run of 2 miles with very minimal pain I was going to give 26.2 a shot. In hindsight, not the smartest decision, I'd say my stubborn side won out a bit on that one. Anyway... fast forward to race day and I made it to mile 7 where I re-pulled the calf muscle and was forced to stop the race. Major bummer and disappointment.
...All was not lost on this trip to Atlanta though. I actually enjoyed myself quite a bit! I stayed in a swanky hotel downtown Atlanta (a "W"), ate really good food, watched a movie, read my book, enjoyed some relaxing alone time. Can't feel too sorry for myself... I was just hoping to be limping home because I was sore from leaving it all out on the marathon course, not limping because of an injury at mile SEVEN. Grrr.
It has been over a month now and I'd say I was able to get over it fairly quickly. Took a good week to shake the frustrations out and move on. I have a big picture to look at and I can take home some very important lessons from all of this. There will be plenty more marathons to do and as a matter of fact I might even be able to redeem myself at the Atlanta 2011 marathon, we'll see.
By far the funniest story from this weekend... After dropping out of the marathon and notifying a race official, they sent the "SAG wagon" to come and get me. After picking me up they drove to a few more spots along the course to pick up other injured runners. As we were pulling up to pick one of them up a police officer asked the driver, "Are you here to pick up the lame??"
Yep... that pretty much sums it up!
