The Marathon Push.

The marathon push is on. The advertizing push that is. On my way to work I now walk past no fewer than 3 signs about the upcoming race. Which is definitely fun and that’s partially why I’m not going to go and run 6 miles of it then quit. You only get one first Marathon, not to mention your first NYC Marathon. So I’m not going. Instead I signed up for the 5 miler in Central Park the Friday morning before the marathon. This will be my 9^th NYRR race, which will allow me to sign up for the 2011 NYC marathon. Yes, even though training for this one knocked me out for a while, I do think this is something I want to do.

I think I’m between the 7^th and 8^th week since my ankle injury and it’s amazing to me how much it has improved in the last week. Every morning it’s still tight enough that it will roll a bit, but after a couple stretches I don’t notice it the rest of the day. (Unless I’m sitting around for a couple hours and it tightens back up a bit). The thing that really has me feeling that it’s improved is when I do my toe raises. A couple weeks ago, it was somewhat painful or uncomfortable under that right ankle when I’d do these. That discomfort is nearly gone. So I guess the doctor knew what he was talking about. He said it was typically a 6-week injury and he wasn’t far off.

I’ll just take this as another learning experience. In order to safely ramp up the running mileage to the distances necessary for marathon, I’ll have to keep at these ankle strengthening exercises. They seem to be just as important as core strength in terms of stability. Also like the core, many of the best exercises are static poses. That’s a good thing as it helps reduce the chance of repetitive motion injury.

It’s kind of bummin’ that I didn’t race the two most expensive races I signed up for this year (Timberman & NYC Marathon) but I guess 2010 is going to go down as an off year. It started off well with a ton of short running races in NYC although my times were not personal bests or anything. Then we spent some money on a swim coach to get us ready for Triathlon season, that went really well. First up was Columbia. The swim was good, a rainy day kept my bike time slower than it could have been. (I think anyhow). Then a run that was really weak. In hindsight, I now wonder if I just didn’t have enough calories in me, thus not being able to work hard enough to get the HR up.

Mooseman I guess we should be glad that they didn’t just cancel the race because of the weather. The bike/run was fun but that is my favorite swim race and I didn’t get to do it. So much for all that extra swim coaching.

Not long after Mooseman, it was determined I wouldn’t be doing Timberman at which point I lost quite a bit of tri training momentum. I had to start Marathon training. That was hard enough for me that I basically stopped swimming and biking. So when the Tango came around, I was no longer ready to improve my swim time from last year.

The good news is, I’m really not that caught up in the results. Honestly, what I’m disappointed about is not being able to race more than I did. I had a great time at every race. (Maybe the Run for Haiti wasn’t worth it in terms of “racing” but it was definitely something to witness)

Well 2011 isn’t that far off and I have more than a few goals lined up. I’ll have to post about that some other day.