Cancelled race due to injury - lessons learned
Not the post I hoped to make, but I ended up cancelling my first marathon slated for this weekend due to another flare up of peroneal tendonitis. I’d been training since November and started with a run/walk to get my fitness back up. I was consistent until an illness in January and then an immediate pulled back muscle took me out for 2.5 weeks. After that, it was hard to get back to running 4x a week without some physical ailment. Training caught up to me eventually and I developed the tendonitis. Got checked out by ortho and started weekly dry needling/exercises with PT. PT and I agreed we were only “putting a bandaid” on this injury to get through the race. This eventually led to probably the worst way to train: long run on the weekend, tendonitis flare up/rest throughout the week, feel okay enough to complete the long run next weekend (repeat for ~1.5 month). I was totally undertrained but kept hope because I could complete the long runs! It was post-run that killed me and the tendonitis.
I made the decision to finally cancel the week of the race after ~2 weeks of an achy ankle that didn’t feel 100%(can’t defer or use registration for another race since its passed deadline).
Lessons learned:
-FUELING - holy hell, some post-long runs were truly awful when I didn’t fuel properly. Some runs weren’t great because I didn’t eat enough the day before, no matter how much I fueled during the run.
-Strength Training - I seemed to feel and run my best when I kept up with strength 1-2x a week. Probably not a coincidence.
-Commitment/Time Management - I can get lazy, so once I’m out of the routine of training 3-4x a week, it’s hard mentally for me to get back into it. During my next training block, I’ll need to commit myself to early morning runs, or it’ll be easier to talk myself out of it. I also severely underestimated the time commitment for even the mid-week runs due to my pace (~11 min/mile for zone 2).
Overall, I can’t complain about pulling out of the race. I fell in love with running. I made new running friends who were super supportive during long runs. And I learned a whole lot about what not to do.
Congrats to all who are completing spring marathons! And good luck to everyone still chasing their first marathon - I hope to be back next year!