haven't been here in a while...

since i injured my right knee and had to come to terms with the fact that i would not recover in time to run the Marine Corps Marathon, i have not much felt like writing.

physio starts tomorrow, so after that i should have some idea how long it is going to take before i'm back to running regularly... and ready to decide which race to take on next.

Marine Corps Marathon allowed me to defer my entry to next year, but that's a whole year away... so i'm going to aim to do another Team In Training event in the spring.

this means (to your great delight, i am certain) that this blog shall carry on into season three of training for marathons and fundraising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma

Society. aren't you thrilled?

i knew you would be...

until tomorrow then, when i shall give you the complete knee recovery update... i leave you with some photos from yesterday's

Marine Corps Marathon... I cheered for the first runner through until the very last runner through.... 6.5 hours on the course, around mile 23.

so, it's been a while... again

i have been avoiding writing this particular post... call it denial if you like.

so, last time i wrote i was recovering from torticollis. and one week later i was suffering from mysterious pains in my thigh... not quite the knee, not quite the groin, but something that radiated from the knee-ish area upward to the groin-ish area and across the front of my thigh.

so, after a few days of icing and ibuprofen and no running, i went for a test run to see if it was any better... and barely made it ten paces before i had to stop.

then i went to see the doctor, who couldn't quite be sure what the problem was because it didn't quite fit any of the typical muscle injuries that she was aware of... she referred me to the sports medicine clinic... however it took a week to get an appointment to see the sports med docs, and in the mean time i was told to have some x-rays done, oh.. and no running.

finally got to see the sports med guys yesterday... so it has now been a little over two weeks since my last run. for the most part, my leg's not bothering me... except when i forget and do things like dash across the road to avoid oncoming traffic... then it hurts.

so, sports med doc number one pokes and prods and twists and hmmms for a while... looks over the x-ray results which say that aside from slight indications of the beginnings of osteo-arthritis in my right hip, there's nothing to see... then he calls in someone else to help him out.

new guys pokes and prods and stretches and twists a little more vigorously until he hits a spot well below my knee that causes me to yelp loudly as i pretty near pierce the examining table with my clenching hands and feel like i'm going to throw up.

then he breaks out the ultra-sound machine and his handy bottle of blue goo.... and we take a look inside my leg. very cool...

and there it is, clear as day... a tear in my sartorius muscle, below the knee... no where near where i have been feeling pain all this time.

and thus have i been introduced to the mysterious concept called "referred pain."

no fun.

so now i'm wearing a knee brace and am scheduled to start physio some time this week.

however, even if the physio and brace miraculously cure what ails me within the next week or so, i will not be able to make up all the time i have lost... and i will not be ready to run the Marine Corps Marathon in 4 weeks time.

i will continue to support my team in their training, and will cheer them on come race day.

i have deferred my registration in the marathon until next year (so i will still run it!! just not this year...). and all of the money i have raised so far will still go to support the work of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

thanks for all your support.

surprise, surprise

turns out i'm hooked...

for about a week after the Shamrock Marathon, i was feeling blue. missing having the weekly run with friends to look forward to, missing having the goal of the marathon to work toward, missing that feeling of being involved...

so last night i went to an info meeting on becoming a "mentor" (aka Team Captain) for another race with Team in Training. i signed up to be a mentor for the Marine Corps Marathon in October. they have loads of people volunteering to be mentors, for a variety of races... so i am not guaranteed the position, but i have it on good authority (wink wink) that my chances are good.

registration for the Marine Corps Marathon opened yesterday, and it always sells out quickly.

my husband and i had been discussing my post run blues, and ideas for birthday gifts... and he decided he would pay for my next race as my birthday gift :-) i think this is a wonderful idea, because goodness knows i don't want or need any knickknacks to sit on the piano collecting dust.

so last night, he registered me for the Marine Corps Marathon.

joke's on him now though, because i registered him to run it with me this morning....


i doubt that he'll join TNT, as the fundraising is a time commitment that he just does not have the time for at present... but we'll be able to train together, commiserate over aches and pains and bruised toenails together... our grocery bill will go through the roof... and come race day morning we'll at least start together. his legs are considerably longer than mine, so no guarantees that we'll finish anywhere near each other. but we'll hobble home together, brandishing our medals and feeling enormously proud.

i'm excited.

no more blues.