Two weeks from today is my next attempt at a marathon. The Virginia Beach Shamrock Marathon. The last one (San Antonio) didn’t go too well mainly because I strained my abductor muscle a few weeks before, and they lied about having food at the start. The one before that (Phoenix) didn’t go well because of my torn meniscus. I still ran the full, but because I had missed a lot of training, I knew I would be hurting to do the whole thing. But I knew that going in so I wasn’t the slightest bit disappointed. This time, I am not convinced that I am ready, but really it’s all in my head. I should be ready, but part of me isn’t sure. It’s a lack of confidence in myself that I need to get over. How can I do it? Is there a formula, or a pill that I can take that will give me a mind boost? I know that there are actually running psychologists that specialize in this type of thing. Maybe it’s worth it to talk to one of them? Has anybody out there done that? I talk to other runners that I run with, and the successful ones all say that the first time that you get those negative thoughts out of your head, you will be fine after that. And the only way that they did it was to battle within themselves when those thoughts would start to creep in. They say that because you’ve done the training, you should be able to this. Sure your legs are going to hurt. They are going to hurt whether you keep running or whether you stop, so might as well keep running.
Archive for the ‘abductor muscle’
The Good, The Bad, and The Not So Ugly
Well there’s good news, and there’s bad news. The good news is that I don’t have a tear in my leg like I thought I may have. The bad news is that I have an abductor muscle strain, and a hematoma (sp) the size of an avacodo. That’s what is really hurting me because it’s pressing up against my leg muscle. But it is getting better. So now the plan is to take a few more days off, and then run on Saturday. Wahoo! I was actually thinking of running today or tomorrow, but here in Denver we are getting hit with a snow storm. There’s sleet, and hail, and rain, and snow, and god knows what else. You know the weather forecasters here are so lucky. They predict how many inches of snow we may have, and they haven’t got a clue. Everything they say, it get’s doubled. For instance they will say 2 - 4 inches of snow. Or 4 - 8, or 10 - 20. If I did that at work, I would get fired. “Hey Dave, what’s sales look like for this month”? I could say, “well I’m thinking 1 - 2 million this month”. Yeah right. Loser. So the last thing that I want to do is go running when it’s icy out. I guess I could run on the dreadmill, but that sucker hurts my knee too much. So I will just wait until Saturday, and run along on the Hi-line canal with some other running buddies. My marathon is only 2 weeks away so at this point, and whatever running I can get in is not going to matter too much. But the main thing is that I will still be able to do it!
I was diagnosed with MS about 6 years ago and I am one of the lucky ones. I don't have too many problems associated with it, and the disease has actually slowed down. I took up running 4 years ago just to see if I could do it. So far I've run 4 marathons in 2 years and 12 half marathons.