Marathon Madness

It's finally here, well almost. It's the week of my marathon and I'm a nervous wreck. Some know, but most probably don't know I've been training for what will be 30 weeks come Sunday. However, when I was home, in Houston, during Christmas and I was out on my 20 mile run I strained my calf muscle. It had been raining so I was hopping around sometimes on my tip toes to avoid the water, I didn't want to run with wet feet and get blisters with only 4 weeks till the race; however, I never imagined I would injure myself. In the middle of my run I began to experience extreme pain in my calf. I had no idea what was going on, but I was determined to keep going. I made about 5 more steps then stopped and stretched; hoping it was just a cramp or something that would just work itself out. I started to run again and fell to my knees. I'm not sure I've ever felt pain shoot through my leg like it did in that moment. I'm not an emotional runner, but the tears started to flow. I had no idea what to do. My dad was with me as he was my water stop every 3 miles and I called him and told him I thought he should come pick me up. I could barely walk to get back to him. I was devastated, I didn't have time for an injury and I had seriously trained for 25 weeks, up to that point. I decided to take that next week off and that following Sat I went out again to make my 20 miles. After .9 I was limbing back to the house (we were back in Lubbock by this time.) I walked in the house and the tears just wouldn't stop. Kyle looked at me and said "is it too cold??" I just looked at him and with tears streaming I just said I can barely walk. I decided that I had no time to just sit around and see what happened so I went to the doctor. They did an Xray and all the bones look good, so it had to be a strained/pulled muscle. He wanted to do an MRI, but they don't do those on the weekends so I'd have to go back…I never did, I summed it up to a strained calf muscle, which can take 6-8 weeks to completely heal. I decided I wasn't giving up, I would cross train, ice it, keep it wrapped and try to rest as much as possible because I only had 4 weeks for it to heal! After a few days of cross training (spinning and swimming) I wasn't feeling any better so I decided to completely rest. I returned to work last Monday and was talking with my coworkers and here at the college we have a PTA program so I went over and met with Jackie (director of the program) and she had a laser treatment thing she could do on my calf everyday for the week. So I did that and I got back on the bike for several days and with no pain I was able to try the elliptical on Friday and still no pain! I taught spin Sunday and may have pushed a little too hard as I'm sore today, but nothing too major. So today is the day I'm going to try an easy run. I'm not sure what easy means, but I'm going to try and take it easy.

I'm not a natural born runner and I'm not sure I run correctly or if I eat 100% like I should, but I've tried my best and I've given it my all in these now almost 30 weeks of training. It has been a family sacrifice and I can't imagine not crossing that finish line come Sunday. If you're reading this I'm asking for prayers. Prayers for good easy runs this week, prayers that my calf will hold out on me and prayers that I can finish the race pain free. I know you might think I'm silly asking for prayers for running and for a marathon, but I can't even explain the desire I have to run just 1 marathon or how hard I truly have trained to get to this point. I know with all my heart, soul, and mind that I can do this, that I can run 26.2 miles and cross that finish line.

Here's to marathon madness this week!
Mary