Houston We Have A Problem!!

This weekend we took the motor home to Knoxville to tailgate and watch the Vols play the Arkansas State Indians. It was a great trip, but on the way home I jumped out of the RV at a gas station and missed a step, I landed upright, but had a really bad pain in my lower back. When we got home three hours later, I could hardly move. I could not bend over at all and I looked like I was a 98 year getting in and out of my car. I had ruptured disc surgery in high school because of a football injury, and I have not had pain this severe since then and two weeks before the marathon. I am taking drugs and going to therapy and if it does not get better by Friday I am supposed to have an MRI. My doctor really thinks it is just ligament damage because there is no pain going down my legs like the last time, but he says if it does not get better, then that he could be wrong. Of course I asked him about the marathon and he said if I can run without pain,and we rule out the disc problem then I can go for it, but I am not supposed to do any running till Friday, I will miss a whole week and a half of training, but at this point I really feel like you would have to take my leg off not to try and do the marathon. I don't really have any pain standing or walking, so I am thinking I won't have pain running. I am going to give it a try tomorrow, I will let you know how it goes.

20 MILES

Saturday was the best and longest training run of my program. Now I will be running less and less till the race on Oct 7. It was a beautiful day and the temp was lower than any of the previous runs, my legs and lungs felt great and Kim and I were pumped 4 hours after we started to be finished with it. I can't explain how great it feels to be done with that run. I really did feel like I could make it another 6.2 when we finished Saturday. Now I am concerned with what I am going to do about all this nervous energy that I will have now that the runs will be shorter for the next 3 weeks. I guess I will have time to read and actually have energy to do other stuff.

I hope to curtail my eating as much as the running, so that I won't have a weight gain over the next 3 weeks. As matter of fact I hopw to lose a little more weight before the race. Now that I will not have to fuel for more than 3-8 miles on most days between now and then I think I will have more confindence that I can get those run in and eat a lot less.

I have been thinking a lot about what my athletic goals will be after the marathon and I am not sure that this is the time in my life to train for an Ironman. As much as I still want to accomplish that goal, the time commitment I have had to make to the marathon has caused me to miss out on family things and rush through other stuff. I think I might need to wait till Robyn gets a little older. I may not sign up for the Ironman for next year, but start lifting weights again after the marathon and stay in shape for 5 and 10ks and think about a half ironman sometime next year. With all the things going on in my life it will be very difficult to make the kind of training comittment that an Ironman would take right now. I think I may re-focus my goals to getting my weight to the 200 pounds mark and working towards running a few 5 and 10ks this fall and winter. I am currently planning on running the Grizzly House 5K again this year with my friend's Von and Melissa, it will be their first race ever and I am excited to be there and experiance it with them, and go back to where I ran my first race 3 years ago, but this time over 150 pounds lighter and with a couple of 1/2 marathons and a marathon under my belt.

Better Blogger

I need to be a better blogger, but if I don't have time to run, I really don't have time to blog. I only got in two of my runs for last week, but this is the big week. This is the week that gives you the mental edge to run the marathon. Everyone has told be if I make it through this week the marathon is a done deal as long as I don't get injured. So yesterday was 5 today is 10 and tomorrow is 5 rest on Friday and the big 20 mile training run is Saturday. I have done 18, so I am not sure that 20 will be that much harder, but on the heals of this week and the challenges to my schedule and all the other stuff that has been going on, I think just having the time to prepare for it and lay out the water and feel good about it will be the hardest challenge.

The weather is great and it will be a blessing to out and running in it. I am really excited about the marathon, it is less that a month away. After this week the runs get shorter and shorter till the OCT 7.