After taking a complete break from running and blogging for a full 8 days (longest layoff since my first marathon last June), I hit the payment once again this past Monday for a 6 mile run around the neighborhood. The legs definitely felt heavy throughout the run, but my cardio was still okay. After running the first 3 miles at 9:00 pace, I decided to speed up pace and see how everything felt. The next mile was run at 8:00 pace. I was somewhat winded after that and slowed down to 8:30 for the next mile. Then came mile 5. I slowed it down a little more and then felt the pain in my left foot again. It got progressively worse until finally at mile 5.5, I stopped and walked the rest of the way home.
So, I'm back on the injured list, resting my foot for another week. Hopefully come Monday, I'll be ready to get back on track. The break has been good as the Pfitz program really had me burned out with the high mileage (high by my standards). It was actually relaxing to not have to think about when I had to fit in my run during the day. And it was refreshing to be able to sleep in each day.
However, now that the marathon is only 10 weeks away, I'm getting worried that if I don't return soon, all of my gains from the first 7 weeks will go away. On the other hand, I know from last year that if I return too quickly and push too hard, too quickly, I'll end up back on the injured list and possibly be way undertrained. So what do I do? I guess take it one day at a time. Come Monday, I know that I'll be running easy and starting with 3-4 miles and then progress from there. I'm thinking that I'll take a week to ease back into the program and then start where I left off from on the Pfitz program.
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What exactly is the cause of the pain in your foot? Could it be something as simple as altering shoes or your running gait? Or something more significant?
ReplyDeleteCurious to know what's bringing about the pain...but if I were you, I'd get it checked out. Especially since it appears to be reoccuring. Good luck whatever you decide to do.
good luck with the foot!!
ReplyDeletethat 18 week schedule is a killer, i think i would get burned out too, thats why i like the 12 week one. (although i have been consider 18 for my dec marathon). take it easy and get that foot better! i have had a couple issues with foot pain in the past, one of them was completely cured by changing my shoes. i agree with billy, maybe you should get it checked out to make sure. good luck!
@Billy - I'm not sure what exactly is causing the pain. I've done some searches on the Internet and message boards to try and figure out what it is and it doesn't seem to fit in any category. I had the same pain last year when I first started training. I rested it and it went away so I'm thinking that it could just be an overtraining issue. If it doesn't get better this week, I'm going to go get it checked out.
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