Contributed by:
Brendan Leonard
Article Contributed on: 2/28/2006 4:29:08 PM
Well, my foot is killing me today, and it's all because I want to run this marathon so badly in May.
But I don't want to give up snowboarding for it, so I squeeze all my running in during the week, and on the days I'm supposed to be resting, I go snowboarding.
Thus, on Monday, when I should be all rested up and healed from last week's brutality, I'm not, and I injure myself again. So far in the past four months, I've had shin splints, a couple of strained muscles in my back and pain alternating between my left and right arches. Right arch one week, left arch next week.
This week, I decided on Monday that I'd do my usual three laps around Cheesman Park, except much faster. Somehow, and I believe it's because the track slopes to the outside and I was running clockwise, I either bruised or slightly broke something in the outside of the bottom of my right foot. It hurts to walk on it today.
I'm taking the rest of the week off of exercise to prepare myself for the punishment of running this route on Friday morning.
All this whining, of course, doesn't help. I'm still going to have to run 14 miles on Friday. Last Friday, it took me two hours and 15 minutes to run 13 miles. I ran from my house to Washington Park (2.6 miles), around the cinder track at Washington Park (7.8 miles), and then back to my house (2.6 miles). It is SO boring. I see other people running during my first lap around the track and wonder how long they're planning on exercising. I am jealous of people who are going to run two laps around the park and head home.
Two hours and 15 minutes is a long time. Most movies I watch aren't even that long. And I'm not gracefully running the entire time, either. By the time I'm near the two-hour mark, I'm taking ginger little baby steps forward, barely swinging my arms at all, and I'm bent over like I misplaced my walker.
No one is looking at me out their car windows at the stoplight on Speer Boulevard and saying, "Wow, what an athlete." I'm sure they're saying, "Someone should help that poor man," or "He must have a digestive problem."