Marathon Mom

There not resolutions, so let's just call them goals for the upcoming year... -Drink less Diet Mt. Dew -Eat less sweets -Get healthy and stay injury free -Qualify for Boston at Grandma's Marathon -Finish my first multi-sport events (a Duathlon and a Tri ) -Keep up with the cross training once I'm back to running -Run new PRs at all distances My 2008 Race Schedule (So Far) April 19 Earth Day Half Marathon April 26 Get in Gear 10K May 10 Oakdale Duathlon June 1 Downtown Half Marathon June 21 Grandma's Marathon July 23 LifeTime Fitness 5K July 26 MinneCreek 10 Mile October 5 Twin Cities Marathon (Coaching) October 20 San Francisco Nike Marathon (Coaching) October 27 Dublin Marathon (Coaching)

Some good news, I found an awesome sports doc and got in to see him today. He thinks it might be a minor stress fracture in the lower part of my right tibia near my ankle. He watched me walk and doesn't see anything with my gait and just thinks my body has had enough stress, so nothing I need to change with my running. He want me to take some time off running, which I figured. No bone scan since he says many runners get false positives due to the stress on the bones of running so they aren't 100% accurate anyways. We're just treating it like a stress fracture and forgetting about expensive tests. He thinks I should be back to running in 1 month. I guess in the meantime I get better at biking and get my butt in the pool.

My right leg pain has gotten worse, so bad in fact that I had to stop my run on Thursday, I never do that. It started as a dull ache, but now it is very localized, throbbing at times. I am thinking the worst that I have a stress fracture in my tibia :( I finally got an appointment on Friday afternoon with an idiot Family Practice doctor who's answer was that running is bad. He only wanted to do an x-ray, which was negative per him, not surprising. He did tell me he's not very good at reading x-rays. He then refused to order an MRI to get an actual diagnosis. I need to know what it is, is it a stress fracture and then I'm out for 6 weeks or tendinitis and I can run when the pain is gone. I think I have rode my bike more in the past 3 days than I have since June. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise to make me a better cyclist and get me back in the pool. As long as I am able to run by mid-February to start training for Grandma's everything will be fine or at least I thin...

It is so hard for me, I have been training for marathons basically everyday since June of 2006 when and was running pretty consistently for awhile before that. I have run 6 marathons since this craziness started with Chicago in October of 2007, then PF Chang's Phoenix in January 0f 2007, Fargo in May of 2007 and a short 3 weeks later San Diego in June. Than came Twin Cities in October and Honolulu in December . Wow, I'm tired just thinking about it! No wonder my body needs a rest, but mentally I am so used to running that I am having a difficult time with this. I am trying so hard to follow the Recovery Plan, but when I feel good it's hard to only run 3 miles. At least it is winter and that keeps me from wanting to get outside as much.

The Minnesota TNT Team on Race Morning! Sunday I was up before 3am. Ate my bagel with peanut butter, got dressed and headed down to meet the group for a picture at 3:45. Then the rain started, someone found us a roll of garbage bags and we eventually headed out in the rain to the startline for the 5am start. The start corrals were pretty much non existent, I got in the 2-3 hour grouping with 2 others from the team after seeing the 4 hour pacer at the front of the 3-4 hour section. The start was amzing , a huge fireworks display and lots of noise. We started and were passing walkers right away, the course was extremely crowded and my first few miles were 10-11 min/mile just due to crowds. I was behind pace by about 10 min by mile 4. Around mile 6, I was able start making up time until going up Diamond Head at mile 8 when all of a sudden everyone in front of me stopped dead due to an ankle deep puddle, I waded through, my feet were already soaked ...

The adventure started on Thursday morning with an early flight into LA, we arrived only to find that there was a 5 hour delay. The team was getting a little crazy with nothing to do and a lot of energy, so we stayed plenty entertained. We finally got on our flight and into Honolulu late Thursday night, by the time we got checked in to the hotel I think I had been awake almost 24 hours. Me at the Expo, Aloha! Friday morning I headed over to the expo to pick up my number and I felt like I was in another country. They were speaking Japanese on the loudsepeakers and almost 3/4 of the runners were from Japan, so the Americans were very out numbered. I got to meet some running greats and get a few autographs. Friday was a rainy day and we tried to walk back to the hotel and got caught in the rain, so we grabbed some lunch and tried to wait it out. I guess I was happier to be stuck outside in rain and warmth than cold and snow. The team met up for dinner at Duke's (a reccomendation from...

I am so excited, especially now that we are covered with snow and it is freezing. I leave tomorrow with the TNT crew for Honolulu and it will be so nice to be in warm weather again. We just found out this morning that McKenna's parents, brother and sister will also be coming to Hawaii, how great for them and us!