Change of Plans

So I haven't posted in a while despite my promises to enthrall whatever readers I may have these days with training stories galore about me prepping for the Nike Women's Marathon in October. Well things didn't work out as I had planned.

I started running again after being off for 3 weeks due to the wedding and being sick, but kept on having major issues on my runs. Ever since moving to Vegas, I've been having problems when I run due to what has been diagnosed as asthma due to severe allergies. I had gotten a couple of new inhalers a few months ago that made me stop sounding like Darth Vader during my runs. They worked great until I ran out of the good inhaler right before the wedding. Instead of wasting 2 hours or so waiting at the doctors for him to see me and refill my prescription, I tried calling for a refill. I seriously called every day for 5 days and left messages or spoke to the front desk about getting a refill. No luck. During this inhaler-free time, I was unable to run 3 miles let alone the 10 miles that I needed to run over Labor Day weekend to get me semi-back on track with my marathon training. It was really frustrating.

After 5 days of being without my inhaler, I ended up calling the front desk of the doctors office and freaking out and telling them that I needed this inhaler because I was training for a marathon and I couldn't run without. They said my doctor was out that day, so I asked if I could get a sample and pick it up. They begrudgingly said that would be okay.

With the new inhaler, I was able to run again without being winded or sounding like I was drowning, but my runs never felt that great, or at least not great enough for me to feel confident in suddenly increasing my mileage significantly in order to cover the distance needed to feel somewhat prepared for the marathon. After being so sick for over a week and gaining some weight since the wedding week, I feel like I've really lost quite a bit of fitness and motivation. Work has been very stressful these past few weeks (thankfully things are looking up right now) and I had been relieving my stress by eating crap and drinking wine a bit too often. Running which normally makes me really happy began to feel like a burden, one that I didn't want to wake up early and do (which is really the only option in Vegas since it gets so hot).

A couple of weeks ago, I was supposed to run 12-13 miles on Sunday which would "ease" me into increasing my long runs each week by 2 miles before I reached the final 20 mile run two weeks before the marathon. I was pretty nervous about whether I could run this far, but kept on trying to talk myself into it. My confidence level got substantially lower when the latest issue of Runner's World arrived in the mail the Friday before the 12 mile run. This issue was pretty much dedicated to training for marathons and had all of these different training schedules and people discussing how they best train for marathons. The one common thread was mileage, mileage, mileage. Even if you take the low mileage training options that Runner's World offered, the miles that I had covered were significantly less and I hadn't given myself enough time physically or mentally with everything that had happened since the SF half marathon to build up to running a marathon.

Reading the magazine freaked me out, but I kept on thinking if I can run 12 miles this weekend and it goes okay, I can push myself to train for and run the marathon. Fast forward to me waking up from a nap on Saturday by jolting out of bed with a horrible dream about me crashing and burning during the marathon. Having this dream made me remember how hard and difficult my first marathon was and how I was so much more prepared for that marathon than I was for this one. It felt like this nightmare was an omen of what would happen to me in October.

I set my alarm for 5 am on Sunday morning with the plan of doing the long run with Carlo. I ended up waking up around 2 am in a panic attack thinking that there is no way in hell that I can run this marathon without doing harm to myself, physically and emotionally. I laid awake for the next couple of hours thinking about how I felt and whether I could keep on training with the marathon as my goal and succeed, or at least achieve a good race regardless of when I crossed the finish line. My honest conclusion was that I wasn't prepared to run a marathon and 6 weeks of intense training wasn't going to change that.

Carlo of course got woken up at 4 am by me sobbing and not knowing what to do. Even though I knew I was making the right decision to not run the marathon, I still felt like a failure for not being able to train like I had wanted or not following through with my goals. All I could think about was my 7 mile meltdown during my last marathon and how I didn't want that to happen for all 26.2 miles, because I knew I would never finish. Despite being half asleep, Carlo managed to calm me down and told me that I was making a smart decision. He is right, not running this marathon is probably the smartest decision I have made in a while, even though it was hard and it still makes me feel a bit like a failure.

Despite my choice to not run the marathon, I will still be going to San Francisco in October and running the half marathon instead. You aren't technically allowed to switch distances and I haven't found anyone who I could trade my marathon bib with for a half bib. However, I emailed a woman on Craigslist who has run the Nike Womens Half for the last 2 years and she says that once the race gets started, they don't care if you cross the half marathon finish line despite wearing a full marathon bib. We will see how it goes. I just want to be a part of this race and run with 20,000 other women that day even if I only do the half. I think it is going to be an incredible experience and I know I can be prepared for 13.1 miles and run a good race.

So I've learned a few lessons from all this, I have decided that I will not consider running a marathon again until:
- I move to a more runner friendly environment, both climate-wise and support/training group wise.
- I am consistently running 20+ miles a week.
- I have hit my goal weight, or have lost more weight.
- I give myself the time to properly train and succeed at achieving my marathon goals.
- I run a really fast half marathon of around 2:15.

Until then I will keep on running and trying to get better at the half marathon distance.