A Possible Change In Plans

I love routines.  Love, love, love them.  I love knowing what’s coming next and when.  When I train for triathlons (when I don’t miss out on the entire season of them with an injury, grr…) I like to go to the actual venue and ride the bike course a couple of weeks before the race so that I can memorize every turn and hill.  Actually, most of the reason is so that I can memorize every turn and hill, and part of it is so that I can know the scariest parts and where there are the strongest chances of me activating my life insurance policy.

When I ran my first New York marathon in 2011, I decided right then and there that I was going to run 10 of them of them in a row.  Well, a few days after the marathon when I could finally get from standing to sitting without feeling like my quads were giving birth, I decided I was going to run 10 in a row.  But, Mother Nature had her own schedule and canceled the 2012 marathon with Hurricane Sandy.  Now, I ran it anyway in Central Park, which to me counted as marathon #2 even if there is no official record of it.  When the calendar turned to 2013, I mentally started preparing for marathon #3 in November.  I started working on training plans, and making sure specific weekends stayed clear of commitments so that I could easily get in my long runs.  But as they say, “People plan, and God laughs.”  Clearly, God has some joke where the punch line is “and then she broke her foot and it took twice as long to heal than it should have.”  Sorry, God, but to me it’s just not funny.

But before I continue talking about marathons, I want to discuss the different styles of running.  One popular method is to “run/walk”, where you run for about 3 – 4 minutes, then walk for 1, and keep that pattern up.  It’s been said that the “run/walk” method reduces risk of injury as it gives the body breaks from all the pounding and stress it receives on a run, especially ones that go on for a few hours.  The other style is plain old running.  You start, you run, you finish. ‘Nuff said.

Karen and me at our 2012 "marathon".

I’ve run both ways.  Generally, I just run, but last year I actually did the entire “marathon” with my friend, Karen, who is a run/walker and we did it her way.  It was fine, and if I remember right my quads stopped feeling like they were giving birth in less time than it took the previous year when I ran straight through (though I’m using a little creative license here to describe the last mile or so of that first marathon as “running”).  It really comes down to personal preference, and I’d have to say that I favor regular running.  So, that’s how I normally run, and that’s how I planned to run the marathon in 2013.

But, surprise! Instead of my foot taking 6 weeks to heal, I was in a boot for 13.  All of my training plans were shot.  Instead of being able to train for the marathon with a nice, well mapped out training plan, I’ve had to combine marathon training with physical rehabilitation.  Not an easy feat. 

Technically, I’m still not medically cleared to run.  I had an MRI 4 weeks ago, that per the report said the fracture was “nearly healed”, but my doctor has not returned my calls to explain to me exactly what that means in terms of permitted activities.  So, I had to figure this out on my own.  What I’ve done is that I’m following an abridged 16 week training plan (traditional marathon plans are anywhere from 18 – 24 weeks long), but doing it run/walking so far.  I’ve been increasing the run time and decreasing the walk time in the hopes of getting to pure running by Labor Day. 

Today I had to do a 9 mile run, 2 miles longer than anything I’ve done since I broke my foot.  Actually, this was my longest run since it was diagnosed, not since it happened; I actually ran a half marathon on the damned thing, which by the way is incredibly painful and kind of stupid.  The problem with today’s run, though, is that my foot has been bugging me again.  At first I thought it was just because of all the rain we’ve had, but then I finally admitted to myself that the pain is true and that I don’t need a doctor to explain to me what “nearly healed” really means.  My plan today was to mix 4 minutes running with 1 of walking, but at the last minute I decided to be a little nicer to myself so I chose to do 2 minutes of walking between each run segment instead.

Fortunately, it worked. I finished a 9 mile run with barely any pain in my foot.  It took close to 2 hours, which is about half an hour longer than a 9 mile run used to take me (and lesson learned: if the picture of the little battery on your watch is only ¼ full at the beginning of a 2 hour run, you should actually charge it unless you want it to crap out 8.78 miles into it).

My plan is still to run the entire marathon, with the exception of allowing myself to walk up the incline to the Queensboro Bridge so that it doesn’t try to kill me again. But, I might end up run/walking the whole thing.  My plan is to run straight through, but sometimes plans need to change.  Hey, whatever it takes to make God not laugh again.