Half a Mile From Tucson, By The Morning Light

Sounds kind of like how I felt after Chicago last year. You might give some other form of exercise a shot for a month just to get the doldrums out of your system. You'll lose a little fitness, but as long as you don't just sit around, you'll get it back quickly. And a month away from running will probably have you itching to get back to it. I'm just going to ease off and run shorter races this spring myself because the stress of work combined with all the other life stuff and cramming quality marathon training in is just too much of a headache right now. I have no doubt you'll figure out the best course and be back at it with the desire needed to cash in on that sub 3.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Sorry to hear this, Chris - and I am glad that you posted as I was getting a bit concerned. You did the right thing though, so no harm there. Hopefully the knee thing is nothing. It may simply be ITB issues or even tight quads/glutes which often cause my knees to hurt. You have put in a lot of work over the last few months and you deserve the rest. Rest, recover, re-energize and I will see you in Boston in April. Happy Holidays!

Interesting that you mention the ITB. On Friday, I got a pre-race sports massage. The woman who gave it was shocked at how tight the ITB was on both sides and asked how I was able to run. I'm not really even fully sure where/what the ITB is so I just shrugged and said "I dunno - I feel fine". She said I should be using a roller blah blah and I stopped listening at some point soon after that....ha ha, maybe I should figure out what she's talking about and deal with this. Still no doctor appointment scheduled. I'll try a different/new one tomorrow because my old doc can't get me in there for at least a week. I've never really had any kind of lingering injury in 4 years of running and it does kind of suck away whatever motivation you have. I struggle with the demands of marathon training period but adding in annoying and sometimes paniful niggle on top of it really is deflating. But Dave is getting me fired up to run the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in April and so I think that will be my next real target with Boston the following week being more done for fun although knocking off a 2014 qualifier would be a nice bonus. But first rest and getting healthy in body and mind!

You know Chris, it's too bad Pittsburgh didn't offer a marathon with the half. You could have strolled in the rest of the way at 7:30 pace and still gone sub 3, and life would have gone on from there. I applaud the decision to change things up for a bit. Marathon training is not only time consuming but extremely mentally draining. I hope you keep up the soccer.

Well, Chris - I would think that your tight ITB may be part of the knee issue. You might want to see if there is a good ART practitioner in the area as I would bet it really isn't a worse knee issue. I have a couple of running friends who can run or walk a step with knee pain if their ITBand is too tight. And by the way, the IT band is a ligament?tendon? (Diego help)that runs from the top of your hip down to under the knee. When too tight, it can hurt at the hip or down at the side or base of the knee. The pain can be debilitating. Check out this website.

http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/sport-injuries/knee-pain

I believe that I will see you at Cherry Blossom. It is a week before Boston, but I doubt running or even racing 10 miles on the Sunday before the following Monday will really do me in. I had such fun last year and had a great dinner with Vivian and Kevin.

Heehee, I realized the other day that I only needed 325 to Boston 2014 too.

Diego wrote:You know Chris, it's too bad Pittsburgh didn't offer a marathon with the half. You could have strolled in the rest of the way at 7:30 pace and still gone sub 3, and life would have gone on from there. I applaud the decision to change things up for a bit. Marathon training is not only time consuming but extremely mentally draining. I hope you keep up the soccer.

They did! I could have turned right instead of left and kept going, I think. But believe me, had that race been even 14.0 miles I'd still be out there. My slowest mile of the whole race was the final one and that was downhill into the finish. I was completely and totally cooked and vommited a bit on the nice lady who gave me my medal.

Michele's advice on the ART thing has me intrigued so I'm going to try it. Something needs to be done. Even now, if I sit at my desk for an hour or two, its incredibly sore when I get up to limp around. It loosens up eventually but I gotta fully get past this before thinking about serious running again.

Count me in for the CB10 dinner and race, though! Did you guys go to Birch & Barley? I finally went there with Jennifer just recently. Loved it. Awesome beer selection.