Two Weeks to Go...

Two weeks to go, and like most times at this point in marathon training, I feel like I'm held together with baling wire and duct tape in a desparate race to get my trining in before my body falls apart.  If I can get to the two week to go taper point injury free, well, that's half the battle.  This year I came up one week short.

Two weeks ago went as planned.  I knocked off a 9 miler around the Cow Harbor course and down to Crab Meadow Beach.  I took the next day, Thursday, off and got geared up for the weekend.

On Friday I set off for my first 13 miler of the weekend.  Headed to Sunken Meadow, parking out at the golf course for a change of pace.  Funny how different it feels when you change the start point.  Did an out and back to Kings Park and felt good.

On Saturday, I met up with Rick at Connetequot for 13 miler #2.  Went out past the pine forest, almost all the way to Hecksher Park before turning around and coming back.  Once again, feeling good.

On Sunday, I was on my own for 13 miler #3, back on the familiar paths of Eisenhower prior to a swim meet.  Dropped James off for JOs, leaving me with a solid 3 hour block before he would race.  Did four of my usual loops around the park.  Started slow, legs were a bit tight, but picked it up as I warmed up.  Felt great afterwards.  I started planning my runs for the week, setting up some big miles before I would taper.  My 500 mile goal was in sight.

Later that night, as I was standing in Julia's room saying goodnight, I took a step and felt a sharp "twang" in my knee.  That's it.  Wasn't jumping, fooling around, playing basketball, or rescuing a box of kittens from a burning building.  I was just standing there.  Bring on the ice and Advil...

Over the next few days I walked around tentatively, afraid of doing more damage.  The only time I really felt it was going up and down the steps.  I resisted the "temptation" of seeing what would happen if I ran.  By Wednesday I thought it might finally be going away, but a few trips up the stairs ended that dream.  On Thursday, it felt reasonably good, so I set up an easy run Friday with Larry.

Running with Larry was always my "faster" run of the week.  It's been awhile since we've run together but as usual, I found myself working to keep up with him.  Not only was it a good test of my knee, but it was a good reminder that my right hamstring was still bugging me.  Cue the duct tape and baling wire...

We kept it short, 4 miles down to Crab Meadow and back.  My knee was achy all over but not altogether unusable.  I gave it a good icing down and took Saturday off to make sure not to do more damage.  Now is really not the time I wanted to go AWOL on training, but I didn't have much of a choice.

Today I met up with Rick in Sunken Meadow for 10 miles.  After wandering around aimlessly trying to find each other we headed out to Kings Park to explore the old Psych Center.  This place gives me the heebie-jeebies...well, it would if I was there at night.  There would be no doubt it was haunted and Jack Nicholson would probably be chasing me through the maze of buildings shouting "Here's Johnny!".

We followed along the Cyclocross trail that Rick had raced on last fall, taking the occasional detour to explore a path or run by an abandoned building.  We ran back to Sunken Meadow, adding an extra stretch along the moat path to make sure we hit 10.  Knee was reasonably good, so I think that's not going to be an issue.  With two weeks to go, I normally wouldn't run back to back days anyway as I tapered.  Knee should be fine by race day.

Later this morning I knelt on the floor to read the paper.  As I stood up I couldn't put any weight on my left foot.  Yep, foot.  Somehow the position I was kneeling in, as I have so many times before without incident, screwed up something in my foot.  Right across the top it felt like someone whacked it with a 2 x 4.  I masaged it a bit and was eventually able to walk on it.  But c'mon...really?  Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Time for another handful of Advil...

403 miles down, 97 to go...