916… Hitting a 1000k this year?
A few weeks ago, I had to make a difficult decision which didn’t necessarily made me happy. I’d like to tell you about it below.
On the 31st of December 2018, I resolved to run 1000 kilometers this year. In 2018, I managed to run about 500k, so it was a great challenge. Running 20k every week, that should be doable!
After a rough start with a minor skiing tumble incident resulting in my hopping around with crutches (oh yes I’m a beginner) in February, I was back on track and running about 40k every week to catch up. Every week, I wrote down the mileage compared to where I was supposed to be. Around the summer holiday, I was on a roll! When the schedule told me I should be at 560 kilometers that week, I logged my 650th kilometer. Easy going!
And then I got injured. A tendon in my right foot had apparently not liked the new shoes, the hill training in Switzerland or the sudden increase in mileage after the summer holiday. As the half marathon of Copenhagen was right around the corner in September, I decided to have it checked by a physical therapist. He advised me to take it a little slower and get enough rest, but didn’t see any harm in continuing running.
I ran the half marathon, not as fast as hoped, and continued training for the other races I had lined up. A week later, I ran the Dam tot Dam and I felt it wasn’t getting any better. I lowered the frequency and the distances, but kept running, as I still needed to log about 10 to 15k per week to reach my goal for this year.
After the Zevenheuvelenloop, I realised my injury was not getting better fast enough. If I want to be running a marathon in May, I need to start my schedule in January. If I am injured, I can’t. So I made a difficult decision, I stopped running three weeks ago until the end of the year. I am giving my tendon time to heal properly, so I can focus on my biggest goal of all for 2020.
Does it suck that I am at 916k and have to give up? Hell yes. Does it annoy me that I cannot control the pace of my healing? Oh, yeah. I might even feel a little betrayed by my body, but it is what it is. So now I need to keep up my fitness level without running! For the past few weeks, I have been doing alternative training.
On Monday, I will post an overview of my current training schedule! It is a good opportunity for me to build some strength and work on core stability, while excitedly waiting for my injury to disappear!
Running Ella 