recovering from Disney
Thanks so much for all the comments about my marathon. It was fun to write about it. I was glad I had a busy week at work, since many say that a post-marathon letdown frequently happens after the event has passed.
For the first two days afterward, I experienced the normal soreness in the quads and hamstrings, plus a pain on the outside of my left knee that had been bothering me during the race but was something I had never felt before. I did no running until Thursday, when I ventured around the neighborhood for a little run. I was only able to go one mile-- the knee and feet began to hurt, so I decided running wasn't a good idea.
This morning I met up with my running partner, Susan, and we did an easy four miles. The weather's finally a bit cooler (in the 60s as opposed to 80 every day), so that felt nice. I had hoped to go for six miles but as soon as I felt the new knee pain again I stopped. It's not an unbearable pain, but I'm still not recovered, and it's frustrating that pain disappears elsewhere and then reappears in a new location.
I want to run a half marathon in a few weeks and am wondering if I'll be okay for that. Would I need to force myself to run it slower than I'd like, if it's been less than a month since the marathon? They say that one should take a day of recovery for every mile run in the marathon, but what constitutes hard training, aside from speed, hill work, etc? Distance? Running too fast? No matter how much I read about running, I'm still never quite sure I'm doing it right, because sometimes speed feels good, and the next thing you know, you're injured...
I'm so excited that I met a cool running partner through Team In Training, someone who's serious and wants to keep running together. It's hard to move to a new place and not know any other runners, especially when nobody in your life runs. After our run, we went out for bagels and coffee, which was nice. The RBF is a great venue for sharing that love we all have for running, but it's nice to have people who understand it out in the real world, too!
posted by Rachel @ 1:44 PM
3 Comments:
Congrats on your first marathon. I did Team in Training in 2003 and loved it. My wife's a leukemia survivor so I always love to see TNT people.
Regarding the Half Marathon, I would do it but don't have a lot of speed expectations. Go out and have fun and take the race as it comes--if you feel good go fast, if you don't then slow down. Some people do 1-2 major races a year, others do one or more per month so everyone's different. Last January/February/March I did three half marathons in five weeks and then my first full marathon a month later. So it is possible. I would worry less about what you read about running and focus more on what you know about running from your own experiences! Good luck.
Marshall is so right. Listen to your self, to your own body of knowledge. If that knees hurts stop, or slow down. Sign up for the half and take it as it comes. You sound like you're handling it fine. You're responding to what you feel.
Good luck.
Watch that knee! That is exactly the type and location of the pain I got from my ITB injury. It started right after my first 10K. Worse on the downhill. It just got worse and worse. My advice is stop as soon as the pain begins and don't try to run through it. Check out the ITB links on my page and see if they fit the description of your pain. Be careful!
On a happier note, glad to see you are recovering otherwise and there's no post marathon blues. :)
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