What did I learn this week?
- That I wanted to run the Marine Corps Marathon so much today and not being there bothered me more than I want to admit.
- That how I was feeling about missing MCM, negatively affected my running this week and made me a pain-in-the-ass to live with over the past couple of weeks. My apologies and thank you to TheWife for being patient with me.
- That I can run a half marathon, but that I am not ready to really race any distance – yet, but I am getting closer.
- That now that MCM is over, I can get back to training, instead of wishing/dreaming about achieving a goal that will/did not happen.
- That I need to start taking better care of what I am putting down the pie-hole
- That I am going to go back to “my” gym, sometimes price is not the most important consideration – the friendships that you have made over the years and being able to simply “yack” with other people at the gym is more important than, just going to there, putting in your ear buds, doing your workout in your own little world and not talking to anyone else, before you leave.
Week’s Summary
Monday: 7.0/52:55 — Treadmill at Champions – Tough-ass workout, that compared to some that I did earlier in the year, before I got injured. 1.0 @ 7.2, 4x.25 @ 9.1, 6x.25 @9.6, 2 x .25 @ 10.1
Tuesday: 5.0/NT — I screwed up on my watch and couldn’t time it, so in other words, I just relaxed and ran comfortably instead of pushing to meet a certain pace or time for the course.
Wednesday: DNR
Thursday: 7.20/59:14 — 2 Laps around Back Cove Portland – A comfortable first lap and then I pushed a little harder on the second one.
Friday: DNR
Saturday: 13.11/1:48:48 — Home to Concourse in Waterville – This was my personal MCM run, no I didn’t run a full marathon, I only did the Half, but it was a helluva confidence builder, I went under 1:50, which is something that I didn’t really expect to do. I had to slow down a little after 7.0 and a little more after 10.0 due to my Achilles, but not as much as I have had to before.
Sunday: 5.0/48:03 — Middle Road Loop – I forced myself to run slowly after yesterday’s long run, in other words a nice recovery run. I know that I needed it, my legs were tired and I never really got into the groove.
Gear
Skechers GoRun Ride2’s (Orange/Gray) (175.88) — As I said in my Saturday post “I didn’t notice them and I can’t pay a pair of running shoes, no bigger compliment.” I will be buying another pair, I can’t say anything better than that.
New Balance 1010 — No trail running again this week.
The reality is that
I got over 35 miles for the week, so I was happy with the total mileage and the quality of my harder runs.
No, I didn’t have that miraculous recovery that I wanted so badly and go to Washington, D.C. then run the race of my life.
Honestly I am still far ahead of where I actually thought that I would be after I injured myself back on May 27th (I knew that day it wasn’t good) and a lot further than my PT figured that I would be at this point, but it just wasn’t far enough to let me finish that particular dream. Oh I could have run MCM and gone through the same ordeal/hell that I did 30 years ago, when I vowed to finish no matter what and then not be able to run again for a long time after the marathon was over. It was the correct thing for me to do, just not what I wanted to do.
Now I can stop whining and thinking about what might have been, MCM is over and I can finally move on.
It is now time to look forward to what comes next – what will be my new “big” challenge for me to meet?
Time to begin running towards it.
That first step you take is the longest stride – Nickelback.
Harold's Blog 
I have a couple of friends who were at MCM, so you were definitely in my thoughts along with them … I know this was super-tough for you. No matter how much ‘we know’ the right decision, it still sucks.
My kids were in the NY marching band state finals in Syracuse yesterday so that was a 6AM – 11PM blur sort of a day 🙂 So I was out of the loop for most stuff (though glad it was a good Boston sports day 🙂 )
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Thanks Mike – The hard part is over and finally I can move on. You hope right up until the last minute for a miracle, but I am not part of a fantasy novel, where there are magic healing potions that make things better overnight. My injury, like most others, just takes time to heal. It was a good sports day for the home teams wasn’t it 🙂
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I have found that missing a race or not taking part in one I really wanted to do gives me motivation, no matter what the reason is for not doing it. Now it’s time for you to own the rest of this fall!
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Thanks David, I think that now that MCM is over, I can move on and put the experience in my rear-view mirror. Still only about 80%, just have finish rehabbing the Achilles and not injure anything else :-). Gonna be a great spring :-).
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