Karen writes: Brainstorm in the rain

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Saw the magic physio last week.   My kneecap was apparently wandering off to one side, the impression I got was wimpy muscles holding it in place apparently contributing to the stress on the ITB.   More work on muscles needed, keep doing the stretching and rolling and working within limits.  He did lots of bending of the legs into impossible positions before prescribing some  particular sets of exercises. There was some nasty ouch stuff over the offending thigh, and afterwards I was sore in muscles I didn't realise I had.  On the way back to the car, and whenever else I remembered, I practiced walking, consciously trying to stop my leg turning inwards, tricky. As usual he was optimistic, "go for a run on the weekend and see how it goes".

This morning I ran round to Te Puru to meet up with the runners, and the pain was lurking but not flaring up, but it made me anxious.   At about 8km I decided I wasn't going to get to last weeks peak of 12km, and decided to walk home.  In the rain, inside my orange hood, I had my own pessimistic thoughts about the impossibility of that dratted marathon in less than 6 weeks to keep me company. I know that I am stubborn enough to do the distance, but also understand that if there is any risk of doing more damage, I should be prepared to pull out...do I have the courage, on the day, with Kate ready to race, to actually do that?   I wasn't feeling that happy.

But, brainstorm as I dawdled along...why...why don't I learn how to race-walk?  I'm fit, walking doesn't hurt, so instead of running wounded until its impossible to run anymore then being forced to walk, why not practice walking REALLY fast right now...then I can walk the race and still run over the finish line!

So no better time to start than right now. After that initial 8km run I added on another 11km of somewhat inefficient race-ish-walking, total 2 1/2 hours.  I always thought it looked really  hard (as race-walkers passed me while I was running), and it became clear that while I have the cardio-vascular fitness, there was plenty of stress on hips/back and leg muscles from the different movement so I feel like I have lots to learn about this new sport.   I'm pretty sure other runners will go "awww noooo", and tri-athletes will go "CHEAT", but I'm now aiming for a 5 1/2 hour race-walk/jog marathon... it isn't officially a 'walking' event, but I figure I can definitely do a few short jogs and should be more than able to meet the cutoff  times:

2.5km – 6:22am; run past finish line north bound 1st time
12.2km – 7:40am; run past finish line (complete lap 1)
22.2km – 9:00am; run past finish line (complete lap 2)
32.2km – 10:20am; run past finish line (complete lap 3)
42.2km – 12:00pm; 


This marathon is likely to be my slowest, but I feel much more positive about finishing it and I bet when I do it will feel like one of my most memorable achievements.

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