The Taper came a little early

If you have been following my emotional roller-coaster of half-marathon training, you would know it has been a rough journey from hating running to developing just a strong dislike. The past months have been extremely challenging, pushing my body to new limits when it comes to running, hitting milestones for distance with seven, eight, and nine miles; improving my speed and PRing my mile time.

Aside from the physical struggles, it has been one of the hardest things mentally for me to push through, working to defeat this demon that I call running.

But I hit a turning point after I reflected on my longest run to date at 9 miles. I gained major confidence in running and the thought of the half marathon coming up. Post 9-miler, I had my worst 3.5 mile run this year, full of pain and agony (but it was immediately preceded with thrusters and double-unders; probably not the best idea..). Two days later, I had my fastest paced 3.5 miler, just shy of a 10:00/mile, which happens just about, oh, never.

I may have even flirted with the thought of what challenge will come next? Do I want to learn to swim and attempt a sprint triathlon? Another half?! Will I finally be ready for a Tough Mudder? 

So what happens when you’re finally feeling mentally prepared and ready to tackle the 10-miler run on Saturday?

You hurt yourself. To the point where you know you shouldn’t run.

Since I did my Kona 10k in June, I have an on-and-off issue with my right hip. It’s a bit of a nuisance, but never an issue to the point of injury. The pain will come and go; I’ll roll and stretch and then it will disappear for weeks. Yet on my last “run” a week ago Thursday, 5x800m intervals, it hurt like something mad afterwards.  I rolled, stretched, called my FMS, Brad, the miracle worker, and scheduled an hour to get my hip worked on for Wednesday.

Friday morning, I could hardly walk. Saturday morning I had a choice of running 10 miles on my own or 8 miles of trail running with my running group. Again, it was painful to even walk, let alone think about running any sort of distance. So I skipped my final long run and took THREE REST DAYS.

Every training plan has some form of taper time built into it, right? Mine just came a week early..

I am not a fan of rest days. When I rest, I get antsy. And resting multiple days in a row, I tend to get lazy. And eat garbage. And maybe a cupcake. Or 5 (but it was Mom’s homemade buttercream frosting..). The thought of not being in the gym was making me nuts.

I did yoga on Sunday, and Monday I decided to be lazy no more and went back to Crossfit, bumming hip and all. I figured as long as the WODs didn’t include anything with running or jumping, I should be able to scale the workouts and at least do something other than sitting at home eating cupcakes.

Monday’s WOD was hang cleans and bar-over burpees. I managed the burpees somewhat one-legged and was able to walk away from the WOD in one piece. The hip was still a little tweaked, but nothing like it had been over the weekend.

Reppin’ the ladies of Girls Gone WOD!

*stretching, rolling, icing*

Tuesday, still a little aching, and the whiteboard was “Helen”, a combination of running, kettlebell swings, and pull-ups. I still felt like running would not be a wise choice, so I opted to row instead. My arms were not happy, but my hip thanked me.

*stretching, rolling*

Wednesday I had my feet, legs, and hips massaged and poked and prodded for an hour and I was feeling amazing. I was all set to WOD and then had big plans to run. Everything felt great until we did sled pushes, which I do not recommend to anyone who has aches and pains anywhere. The WOD was double-unders and snatches.. and then the hip was extremely unhappy yet again.

*stretching, rolling*

Thursday, probably a good day to rest, right? Nope, this girl, full of ego and not wanting to really rest, had to go back to Crossfit yet again.. With a metcon of wall balls, box jumps (step-ups for me), and ball slams, followed by a WOD of 10-1 WOD of deadlifts and push presses, I will tell you Friday’s rest day was looking better than ever.

*stretching, rolling*

And here I sit. 9 days from the half-marathon. With a hip that is surprisingly feeling pretty good today despite the lack of overall resting (though my temperamental left shoulder is not).

The plan for tomorrow is to RUN. Can I tell you this is probably one of the few times ever you will hear those words come out of my mouth? That I want to run?? Ideally, I would like to run at least 4 miles, possibly 6 seeing depending I feel. I am almost confident that I am mentally I am ready for the distance of the half marathon (well, I was feeling good two weeks ago once I finished 9..) but do not want to press too high of mileage while still in a bit of recovery mode.

The rest of the week, I am thinking yoga, a couple of days of Crossfit then resting from Thursday until Race Day!

Your turn..
Have you ever injured yourself close to race or competition day?
How do you handle an injury when you are training for something?
Have you ever had to make a decision to drop an event due to injury?
Am I going to be okay for race day?! 😉