"Work hard and give it your best shot; never be a quitter"

Training for a marathon is really difficult when you keep getting injured by non-running related accidents.

Last Saturday I ran my fastest 12 miles of my life. Averaging 8:30 to 9 minute miles and finishing it in 1 hour and 50 minutes.  If I had been running a half marathon, I would have broken my personal record (2 hours and 4 minutes).  To top it off I wasn’t even feeling that great.  I had been fighting off a cold for over a week.

Really it was something else and I suffered (Also celebrated my victory!) from that run all day. Which is another story, where I talk about nutrition and its effects on my runs and post run.

Do you want to know how I celebrated my amazing feat? By getting doored by a car the next day bike riding to a friend’s house.  In the city of Chicago it is illegal to ride your bike on the sidewalk if you are over the age of 12, so you have to ride in the street.  I thought I had it down too because I had a helmet, a new awesome used bike, and I was paying attention to parked cars. People warn you about doors, “Watch out for people opening doors, it can be really dangerous.”

This is much easier said then done.  It happened so fast that I’m pretty positive I’m not even quite sure how it happened. The guy opened his door the exact minute I was about to pass the drivers’ side and BAM, I smash into the door and I believe I fell over. This is questionable because I barely remember the sequence of me ending up on the street.  I do think the guy came and picked the bike off of me and then I think sat there unsure how injured I was.

Nothing broken. I’m alive.  I would say it was a pretty lucky being doored situation.  But… I have a gigantic bruise on my right arm and my left knee/leg is bruised.

The first thing I really should have thought about after being hit was thank g-d I’m ok.  Instead I think and then say out loud, “I’m training for a marathon, and I keep getting injured!”  As I told my colleague the other day, in order to get to the starting line I just need to persevere through my injuries. 

Ok so my knee hurts… I’ll just ice it and go run 5 miles.  After my 12 mile run I feel even more determined to make it to the starting line.  Won’t let a little bike accident get me down.

Lastly, I really want to point out the dangers of biking in the city.  In my head I keep going over if I could have avoided that door and honestly I don’t think I could have.  The bike lane on Clark Street is between the parked cars and the moving cars.  Nothing about that car made me believe that he would open the door when he did and the guy wasn’t even paying attention.  He told me he was distracted and forgot to look for bikers. The only way I could have avoided that was not riding in the bike lane and riding with the cars.  Really though, what is the point of the bike lane if its so dangerous?

If the city of Chicago wants to make it illegal to ride on the sidewalk over the age of 12, than they really need to start thinking about how to make the roads safe for not just cars but for bikes too.  Personally, if I were a parent I wouldn’t want my 13 or 14 year old child riding in the street with cars.  People can seriously get injured when they are doored and I was lucky it wasn’t that bad.

Perseverance is commitment, hard work, patience, endurance.

Early Morning Runs

One of the things I said I need to work on is Sleep and Nutrition.  I think this is going to be a key to my success, amongst many other things. 

I think everyone thinks I am nuts but the only way I'm going to get through this training is if I do early morning runs.  At first I wanted to do early morning runs in order to allow myself the rest of the day or that night to be social. Now I realize I need to do early morning runs to avoid the heat.

There is nothing worse than overheating on a run.  Everything else feels fine but the sun is beating down on you in 80 degree muggy weather and you feel like you are going to pass out if you don't get

some shade.  The most annoying thing about this is that it causes me to take breaks when normally I wouldn't.

I am much more prepared for running long distance than I ever was when I trained for my last three half marathons. New to my running gear:

• Running hat that doesn't hold the heat in (this is important and I learned my lesson my last half marathon....)
• Belt with water bottles and a place to put my keys, bus pass and phone
• New sunscreen that is sweat proof.  This is also key. I realized my sunscreen wasn't working because I was sweating it off
•  Running shorts that don't cause chaffing on my legs.  Sounds weird but this is the worst and really painful if it happens.

Today I woke up at 8 am, didn't make it out of my house until a quarter to 9 and the heat was already on its way to being too much.  The hat was probably helpful and my face wasn't burning from my sunscreen this time but the main problem was that apparently 8 am wasn't early enough. I stopped three times because I was overheating and I needed the shade to cool off.  I even poured water on myself at one point.

I heard training for a marathon was a time commitment but I already see this being an issue for going out on a Friday night. I guess I might need to become one of those people who call it an early night on Fridays.


This week I ran a total of 20 miles.  I was told I was supposed to start at that but I think I am fine.  From here it will just keep increasing.

Only about 3 months left!

Back in Action

While I don't want to jinx myself... I am back in action.

Fundraising sign on my office door.

It officially took me 5 months to move past my knee injury.  If there is anything I've learned from this is that you have to be patient and not always trust your physical therapist to know the answers.  What I would thank my physical therapist for is suggesting that I start swimming.  While he had no idea what was wrong with my knee, at the very beginning of our sessions in March he said swimming would help.  It took me until May to get myself out of bed on the weekend and go swimming.  First, I have to say, I have really missed swimming. Second, I started swimming twice a week and my knee started to feel significantly better.

Was it swimming that help my knee heal? Or was it just time?  Hard to tell but its possible it was a combination of the both.  I got a MRI done in May and they told me there were no tears in my knee and it was just inflamed.  I think it motivated me to continue to be patient and gave me confidence that I'd start running again.

And running is just what I did.  I started training for the Marathon the beginning of June (very slowly).  My week currently has looked like this:

Monday: 3 mile easy + 45 minutes Yoga
Tuesday: Swimming
Wednesday: Run
Thursday: Run
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Long Run
Sunday: Swimming

Honestly, kind of a lot for me and can be exhausting. I've attempted to mold myself into a morning runner so Monday/ Wednesday and Thursday I can still be social after work and when it gets too hot I'll already be used to running at 6 am. But the key things I need to work on is: Sleep & Nutrition. Falling asleep at your desk at 2 pm isn't really looked at highly in a professional setting.

All in all, I need to be more cautious.  I had to stop running again this last weekend due to another injury.  I was really starting to think it was a sign from above that I'm not meant to run this marathon but than I realized that its just another roadblock to get past.  I slipped on rainy stairs downtown last Thursday and luckily caught my fall but not before smashing my foot into the steps.  I badly bruised one of my toes.  Still kind of hurts but thankfully not broken and i'm pretty sure not fractured....

Positive Thinking = Key to Success. Or in this case, key to make it to the starting line.

I went for a beautiful 5 mile run yesterday along the lake path. These runs always make me re-appreciate Chicago for what it is. But beware, the bugs are out and its not fun when they fly into your eyes..or you by mistake eat one!

Step One: Sign Up For Marathon

Did you hear? I signed up for a half marathon in January and than I injured my right knee.  Since I thought I was an invincible runner, I then thought it only appropriate to sign up for the Chicago Marathon, my very first Marathon. It would have been perfect, train for the half and be in impeccable shape to start Marathon training in June.

It is debatable if I still will run the Chicago Marathon but in order to keep myself motivated and optimistic, I want to blog about this experience. Mostly with the hope I will make it to the Marathon starting line on October 13th, 2013.

I guess this blog will start out as the Chronicles of an Injured Runner.  Exciting! Before we start though. Here is a little background on how I found myself sitting at my desk struggling through registration (and wondering if this was a sign not to sign up...)...

It all started back in the fall of the year of 2012, when my work (the Jewish United Fund/ Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, check it out: www.juf.org) decided to launch a Marathon team.

Yes, maybe after each of my first three half marathons, I swore I'd never run a marathon, but something told me this could be a great opportunity.  Not only would I be running 26.2 miles but I'd be running it to raise money for a great cause and be part of a team.  I have a soft spot for doing good in the world and I guess making myself suffer as I do it.
 
I thought there was no way this knee injury could last that long.  So I struggled through the marathon registration in February. It just so happened that this year the system crashed.  I was one of the lucky ones who got a spot in the marathon in the first few hours. 

It turns out though that what I thought was a quickly curable injury, is indeed not that at all.  I ended up dropping out of training for what would have been my 4th half marathon and started going to physical therapy for my knee.  Weeks went by of trying one exercise after the next and nothing seemed to be helping me. About a month ago the newest exercise appeared to be doing the trick. I finally could do a squat without shooting pain up my knee.

I declared myself pretty much cured.  I started going on short runs in celebration of overcoming the longest running injury I've ever had.  I also started to pair that with Yoga and biking to work.  Guess what, it turns out I was over doing it.  Got a little too excited about being in less pain and now I appear to have returned to a period of pain in my knee.

Congratulations (to myself of course), I've joined the club of overzealous runners not giving themselves enough time to heal.

Saturday I got an MRI and I'm hoping they will get a better idea of what is wrong with my knee. A few things to point out:
1. It's been almost 5 months since I first injured my knee.
2. I really really really really (can i emphasize this enough) miss running.  And yes, when you talk to me about running, or I see you running... I am jealous.

In the meantime, I am keeping myself in shape through biking, yoga, the elliptical and strength training.  Technically, I should be starting to train right now.  Because of some really motivational friends, they have encouraged me that I don't have to quit quite yet.

Maybe in a couple of weeks this blog can become "Chronicles of a non-injured runner."  First I need my knee to cooperate with me.

Lastly, I have suspended fundraising for the Marathon because of the uncertainty of my knees ability to cooperate with my pending goals.  You should check out my fundraising page anyways just for fun and to prove to you I once thought I'd be cured by at least May.  To all those that have already donated to help me raise money for the JUF, I can't thank you enough for helping me keep motivated.

My Fundraising Page for TeamJUF

To be continued...