Checking In

Wow, that last post got found by the spambots. I was going to delete them all, but got bored.

Moving on. I finished the Timberline Marathon – what, nine months ago now? Yikes, time flies. During the race I was doing okay, jogging along, and then I tripped and landed awkwardly on my right leg. Nothing popped or broke, but I got a shooting pain in my knee/IT area. I hobbled along to the finish and took a long time off running. I needed a break. I'm now considering the Autumn Leaves 50K in October. No firm plans, but I'd like to try and get my act together to train for it. If I do get a schedule in place again, I'll start updating more. In the mean time, here's me getting cozy with my medal.

Tomorrow's the big day

I'm leaving work at noon today to head up to Timothy Lake. I'm camping with a bunch of friends up there tonight, and running the marathon tomorrow! I'm supremely lucky to have such a great group of friends, who'll tramp up and down Oregon to watch me race. :-)

I'm not really nervous about the run. I went up two weeks ago and did the whole thing, to see if I could make the time cut-off. I did! And it really wasn't too bad. (If I was running, I would never do the whole course just two weeks before the real deal, but since I'm run-walk-shuffling, and it's on trails, I figured it wouldn't be too hard on my body.) I felt good even after driving the ninety minutes home, and the day after the dry run I was barely stiff at all. One interesting thing I tried on the practice run was to listen to music. I did about half the course without it, and then pulled out my iPod. It helped pass the time, for sure. I'd love to find another slowpoke to talk to during the race, but if I don't I will be plugging in ye olde ear phones.

I'm looking forward to knocking this one out and then taking a few months off to let my Achilles get all better. It's definitely on the road to better right now, but it's been flaring up now and then. Once this race is over I'm going to baby the hell out of it until the new year.

Yup, still here.

Still planning to show up at the start line for Timberline. But I'll be prepared to stay on the course for six or seven hours rather than four.

In some ways walking a marathon seems more daunting than running. You're on the course a lot longer, and being at the back of the pack must wreck havoc on motivation. Yet I really can't take it as seriously as I've taken running marathons. I'm only walking twice or occasionally three times a week (though of course that isn't really true – I walk two miles a day getting to and from work). And one of those is a 3-mile loop around the waterfront at lunchtime. With five and a half weeks to go I've only gotten up to 18.5 miles walking. (That was last weekend on the Hunchback trail – pictures below.) I suppose it's because I think of it "only" walking. I do wonder if this marathon is going to school me.

Suppose I'll have to wait and see. I'm planning on getting in two 20+ miles hikes before the 19th, so I'll be marginally better prepared. At least I've been enjoying my time on the trails.

Pictures from last weekend:

Update

I'm going to try some light jogging on the treadmill after work today. Fingers crossed, toes crossed, eyes crossed, etc. that my tendon cooperates. I'm actually quite nervous. I've been RICE-ing the thing religiously and haven't run in nine days. (ACK!) If it isn't feeling better today it will definitely be time to visit Dr. Awesome, aka my chiropractor. I emailed my GP (aka Dr. Useless) last week and he was (one guess) useless. I'm trying very hard to keep perspective and not freak out about skipping all these runs, but man it's hard.

I had been semi-planning on doing the Autumn Leaves 50k after Timberline. If I can start running easy again after today I might stick to that plan. But if not it seems wise to take it off the table. In any case I'll be planning a hiatus from racing for a while after this fall. (Famous last words, right?) I enjoy running, but I hate feeling nervous and fail-y when I have to skip runs, even for a good reason. It's extra stress I really don't need in my life. It's nice to have a running goal, but when it starts causing more misery than motivation its time to reevaluate.

Catch ya later

Hard to be upset when the forecast looks like that. I'm off to have fun!