Good heavens, but I am having a miserable time leading up to the marathon.

As I related in my last post, I twisted my ankle a couple of weeks ago. That's pretty thoroughly on the mend. but the last Portland Fit run on Saturday was disastrous.

It was a short run of only five miles, as befits just a week before the marathon, and I was feeling pretty good overall. Energised, even. We set out confidently enough, and trundled along through the appalling mess that is Moody Road at the moment.

About half a mile in, I lost concentration for a moment (thinking about what to say next to my running buddies I think) and misjudged the height of a kerb. Splat! I fell over. Fortunately, I didn't take anyone else down.

Unfortunately, I landed hard on my right hand and chest, rolled, and ended up sitting cross-legged and facing the wrong way. Nothing broken though, so I got up and carried on. Ho ho, how embarrassing.

After the run, I rushed home to get ice on my wrist because it was really sore. That at least has healed in the meantime - I was stopped from doing some carpentry project work on Sunday, but otherwise it's fine.

My chest has been another matter. The pain is less acute than it was on Saturday and Sunday, but I am still in some discomfort and can't really put any stress on my right rib cage. I am pretty sure that it is just a bruise rather than a cracked rib (since it responds to heat and massage, which a cracked rib would not), but it still hurts.

When I tried running yesterday, it was like running with a permanent stitch. And I'm not sleeping well either. Difficult to, when every toss and turn wakes you.

I am still going to run on Sunday though. This series of aches and pains has the feeling of last minute body rebellion. It's compounded by the depression I tend to get when I don't exercise enough, but I will carry on despite this. I am worried about running on Sunday, since it's only four days away and my chest hurts a lot, but I am going to do this. I've committed too much time and energy to be stop now.

Here are the gory details on runs over the last week or so.

Date	Time (Distance)	Notes
21-Sep-2004	~1:00:00 (5½ miles)	Beautiful day to go for a run, but made the mistake of kicking out too fast (trying to keep up with the Speedy Twins). Ended up taking quite a lot of walk breaks, and finished in roughly an hour. Don't know exactly because my watch reset itself again; need to replace this before the marathon, along with my sunglasses. Th showers were cold.
23-Sep-2004	42:00 (4 miles)	Good outing, benefitting from biking the day before to boost cardio a bit. Had a good pep talk from CK, who is the most experienced marathoner I know. The showers were still cold.
25-Sep-2004	? (5 miles)	Details of this disastrous run already related above. Can't remember the time; on my other watch.
28-Sep-2004	38:19 (3½ miles)	First outing since I fell on Saturday. Ran the Hillsdale hill loop I've done many times with Zee, which was good, but it fellt like I was running with a permanent stitch, which was bad. Worried.

Posted by Dunx at September 29, 2004 12:11 PM