2017: Highs and Lows

2017 was a year of high highs and low lows. 

The year started off with a strong and enjoyable training season determined to BQ or Bust after missing my BQ time by 1 min 12 secs before.  I felt great and strong from January-March, then felt some hip flexor soreness and rested a week then hit a very strong final 20 miler with a negative split.  Later that night walking to dinner my quad seized up causing it hurt to walk/run .  I ran zero miles during my 3 week taper and still decided to give my April marathon a shot anyway figuring I had nothing to loose and I always would wonder “what if?”.  Made it 20 miles and then the quad hurt so I walked the final 6 miles.  I didn’t want to risk further injury knowing I wouldn’t make my time goal anyway...but seriously walking 6 miles through the strong desert sun took forever...I would have rather run!  

That injury lingered with me the rest of spring and the whole summer.  I took up a lot of cross-training...open water swims and strength sessions at the gym.  It was frustrating and felt like it was never-ending- always two steps forward, one step back.  

Fall came and I really wanted to do another marathon.  I wrote out a plan and started training lightly but doing runs on back to back days stressed out my quad.  I realized a marathon wouldn’t be in the cards, my leg just wasn’t ready.  I could run but it would take 3 days for the quad to recover. 

I joined Orange Theory Fitness and began going 2x per week which includes treadmill speed intervals.  I truly had no running goals for fall as my mileage was so low.  I had races on the calendar that I had registered for long ago and still decided to run them anyway.  I completely surprised myself with a close to PR 5k, an 8k PR, a 10k PR, a 10 miler personal course record at the Turkey Burnoff, an Annapolis Running Classic Half Marathon personal course record, and a half marathon PR at Richmond!  They felt like they were out of the blue and just what I needed to jump-start my motivation and spark my confidence in myself as a runner again!  

Now it’s winter- my favorite training season and where I had so much fun marathon training last year- but I need to think about myself and my goals.  I want to train for another marathon...having that so close to BQ marathon will always hang over my head but I’m also terrified to train for one again since I got hurt doing so last time and I’m fearful of it happening again.   I think I may just focus on the half this spring and make sub 1:40 be my goal.  I will run with my run group partial distances as they train for Boston.  I feel confident in that goal- but now to make a training plan that incorporates my OTF workouts since I attribute them to my comeback!