Right from the start. Unable to run for a minute ----> To a Marathon.

scriba

Wow, Pageant Messiah, it's my first time checking back in ages, and I'm astounded. Fair play to ya! Sorry you're having injury problems at the moment, but you're doing so well, don't lose heart if injury conspires against you this time. Well done, and fingers crossed for you for the end of the month.

Pacing Mule

Friday

Got out for a small (can't say quick) 5k Friday morning. The pain in the leg is a lot easier to push through when you're confident it's muscular rather than a fracture.

That said it was tough going - I feel like I've lost months of fitness. Needed a couple of walk breaks inbetween. I know it will come back a lot quicker than it took to get there in the first place but it's still a bit of a shock to see how far behind I am !

Today

Went out for a long cycle today instead of a LSR to give injury some more time to heal. Haven't been on a bike in 2 years so this may not have been a good idea ! 3.5 hours later I had myself a sore ass and very sore thighs which obviously haven't been getting a workout when running. Was close to a standstill towards the end but good news is 3.5 hours of cardio with no issues. (I know it's not as intense as running cardio but it's a big step on the road to recovery)

blockic

When ya heading back to the physio PM?

Pacing Mule

blockic wrote: »

When ya heading back to the physio PM?

Hoping to get back on Wed if things work out.

Pacing Mule

Sometimes it does feel like the Gods are against this !!!

Caught a head cold / sore throat, runny nose, severe man flu on the cycle on Monday. Have felt rotten since.

Back at phsyio today. I have official blessing to run the marathon from her with a couple of conditions attached.

1) I most likely won't be able to run for the entire thing and might need some walk breaks or indeed finish the thing at a walk. 5 hours may not be too realistic and I have to accept that. (Done - will do my best though to hang onto 5 hour pacers and see what happens on the day)

2) The more worrying part - once marathon is done I'm looking at 2-3 months off running. The injury will develop into a stress fracture if not fully rested. No running - but can cycle / swim etc to keep up cardio. (This is a bit of a pisser but even if I don't run the marathon I will still be advised to do the same 2-3 months break just starting now rather than November)

Need to allow a couple of days to shift the cold - feck all point trying to run through it but am hoping to get out on Friday for a run. Plan is to run a mile then walk for 5 minutes - then run another mile and see how things go. The concept here is to allow a walking break in to gently ease the muscles back in.

zooming

PM I know its hard, but look at all the positive work you have done to achieve so much in a year. You are amazing!!!!

blockic

Delighted you've been given the all clear to run it! I'll go back and carry you to the finish if i have to!!*

Don't worry about the time, finishing is the main thing!!

And about the 2-3 months off after, its wet and cold and miserable in the winter anyway, the fire is way more appealing with the feet up. Sounds like a good result to me!

*may not be able to carry you as i'm a weakling.

Younganne

Pageant Messiah wrote: »

Sometimes it does feel like the Gods are against this !!!

Caught a head cold / sore throat, runny nose, severe man flu on the cycle on Monday. Have felt rotten since.

Back at phsyio today. I have official blessing to run the marathon from her with a couple of conditions attached.

1) I most likely won't be able to run for the entire thing and might need some walk breaks or indeed finish the thing at a walk. 5 hours may not be too realistic and I have to accept that. (Done - will do my best though to hang onto 5 hour pacers and see what happens on the day)

2) The more worrying part - once marathon is done I'm looking at 2-3 months off running. The injury will develop into a stress fracture if not fully rested. No running - but can cycle / swim etc to keep up cardio. (This is a bit of a pisser but even if I don't run the marathon I will still be advised to do the same 2-3 months break just starting now rather than November)

Need to allow a couple of days to shift the cold - feck all point trying to run through it but am hoping to get out on Friday for a run. Plan is to run a mile then walk for 5 minutes - then run another mile and see how things go. The concept here is to allow a walking break in to gently ease the muscles back in.

PM, my first marathon was in 2006 - 7hrs 27mins i walked it with my sister who i had 2 drag bring by the hand from mile 18 becasue she hit the wall there. It was a very difficult last 8mile

Forget about the 5hrs pacers and just set off at your own pace, do your plan run 1 mile, walk 5min and keep this up the whole way, don't be tempted to change it and run 2 mile etc if the plan is 1 mile and if you keep this up you will get to the end comfortably

Start the strategy now and use it for all your runs between now and the marathon no matter what the distance, thaere fore your body will get use to speeding back up into a run after the walk break.

You are one determined guy so fair play for getting to the point where you are going for it!! Forget about afterwards,that will look after itself and theres alway "aqua running" if you really wan tto keep the running going without damaging the foot any more.

As for the headcold, letit clear if it has reached you throat or gone to the chest, if its just in the head its no harm to go out, fresh air will do it no hard

stay positive and you'll have a great experience and come back more determined for the next one;)

Pacing Mule

Younganne wrote: »

PM, my first marathon was in 2006 - 7hrs 27mins i walked it with my sister who i had 2 drag bring by the hand from mile 18 becasue she hit the wall there. It was a very difficult last 8mile

Forget about the 5hrs pacers and just set off at your own pace, do your plan run 1 mile, walk 5min and keep this up the whole way, don't be tempted to change it and run 2 mile etc if the plan is 1 mile and if you keep this up you will get to the end comfortably

Start the strategy now and use it for all your runs between now and the marathon no matter what the distance, thaere fore your body will get use to speeding back up into a run after the walk break.

You are one determined guy so fair play for getting to the point where you are going for it!! Forget about afterwards,that will look after itself and theres alway "aqua running" if you really wan tto keep the running going without damaging the foot any more.

As for the headcold, letit clear if it has reached you throat or gone to the chest, if its just in the head its no harm to go out, fresh air will do it no hard

stay positive and you'll have a great experience and come back more determined for the next one;)

I hadn't considered a run walk strategy for the marathon at all to be honest. (Although a walk up clonskeagh hill might be wise !!!) I will give it some serious thought. My danger is that I would run the 1 mile at a time too fast - will do the maths on it and see what it looks like. Thanks for the advice.

zooming

It would be BRILLIANT if you could do it after all your hard work. Forget times and enjoy it

docjewel

Love your determination PM. Just remember if you go with Younganne's strategy(which is really a good strategy to consider) or whatever strategy you decide to go with you will have to be very disciplined with it especially at the start,as have you probably saw from the 10 mile & half marathons done alrady it is so easy to get caught up in all the hype,head off too fast etc.Not long to go now so fingers crossed we'll be lining up with you at the start line

Pacing Mule

Cold / chest cleared up a bit so I went out for my first run of the week and if I recall correctly my fourth run in the last 3 weeks. It as it turned out was the longest run of the last 3 weeks too - a jaw dropping 12km

I stuck religiously to the physios instructions of running 1.6km then walking for 5 minutes and repeating. Good news is the leg held up reasonably well. Bit of discomfort but nothing that would stop me running. Chest was giving me a lot of trouble by the 8k mark - lots of nasal drip unfortunately = lot of coughing and spluttering so I headed for home. Didn't want to push things too far too fast (although just over 2 weeks to the marathon isn't the best place to be holding back trying to get the fitness levels back up) I found myself counting down the metres to the walk breaks which also isn't a great place to be.

But all in all - 12k done - leg still runnable on and progress made.

zooming

are you on the taper now, i really hope you get to the start line!!

Pacing Mule

Hi zooming. Thanks for thinking of me.

Basically I went out for another run on Monday and lasted less than 5k as the calf muscle on the other leg started acting up.

Was at physio this morning who had me within a couple of inches of crying at one stage :pac: She reckons I overcompensated for the injury and put too much pressure on the right leg. My calf and whatever the muscle is called that runs into the tendon underneath were "like rope" so took a beating to loosen them up.

Call it an enforced taper but yes am tapering.

Pacing Mule

Got up today and could feel a big difference in the right calf. Well done physio ! Left leg still sore but an improvment is an improvement !

Decided to run home from work today. 8.5km total distance. My thought process was to see how the legs held up running at marathon pace. I set off determined to run the entire distance without stopping. It was important to me psychologically to do this ahead of the marathon so that I could feel somewhat prepared and fit On the way back about 6k in there is a hill of Clonskeagh proportions too so it was a bit of a test I had set myself up for.

So I set off determined to break through whatever pain and out of breath barrier I needed to break through to get the job done. Turned out though that there wasn't much of a barrier to break through. Yes the left leg was sore, yes the hill was steep, yes it was my first run over 2k without stopping in a month but it didn't feel like a great effort to make it home. In fact there were brief glimpses of running bliss - where there was no pain at all and everything felt very very comfortable - dare I say it even enjoyable. Turned out to be a fraction slower than 5 hour marathon pace but that's the least of my concerns at the moment. I made it home in one piece and had an hour on my feet non stop. Happy days.

blockic

Super PM, delighted. keep it easy to save up the energy for race day!

Pacing Mule

Got out yesterday for my last LSR before the big day 14k in total - slight walk breaks on a couple of occasions but averaged out at bang on my original goal of 5 hour marathon pace. Leg still sore and things felt a bit heavy but delighted to have knocked out 1/3 marathon without any major issues. Confidence is steadily coming back to me. Stubborness is all well and good but it's nice to have a bit of confidence too.

I'm back at the physio in the morning for a bit more work on the injured leg. The injured leg has caused a bit of a row here at home. :eek: Mrs Messiah overheard me talking to the doctor today who had rang with the official results of the X-Ray last week. Turned out that the radiographer put a note in it advising an MRI. Now the reason he/she did so according to my doctor was because MRI's will pick up a stress fracture easier than an X-Ray. I've also apparently got a small anomoly near my heel / tnedon area which may cause discomfort. The MRI part makes perfect sense to me, radiographer covers themselves off by stating that an MRI would be advised if a stress fracture is strongly suspected but that doesn't mean that they have seen a fracture, that my leg will snap etc on Monday which Mrs Messiah is concerned about. So concerned in fact that Mr Messiahs mother got a phone call and also got involved - (guess that makes her Mary here on Boards. ) Anyway the family think I'm a lunatic and are afraid I will finish it in an ambulance. So I am not going to be mentioning ANY pains in the legs until after Monday.

blockic

Pageant Messiah wrote: »

Anyway the family think I'm a lunatic and are afraid I will finish it in an ambulance.

Sure we've known that all along! ...we're almost home...this time next week you'll have started your 3 month running holiday!

Pacing Mule

blockic wrote: »

Sure we've known that all along! ...we're almost home...this time next week you'll have started your 3 month running holiday!

You know something - I can't see myself sitting it out for 3 months. It's already irritating me thinking about it !!!

zooming

Good Luck for monday PM, you can DO it!

drquirky

I have no idea why I stumbled across this log- but it kinda fascinated me as I started to read it. PM - with all due respect, you are being very silly attempting to run with the injury issues you are now suffering. I'm not sure why would think its a good idea to run w/ a possible stress fracture but let me tell you a little story to put things in perspective.

In 1997- I was a competitive distance runner at a University in the States- I was running 80 miles a week at the time and picked up a nasty pain in my shin. I completely ignored it and ran a very important race on it- turned out that it was a stress fracture and it became a full fracture mid race. Not good f'd me up for months and to be honest probably ended my competitive career - luckily I'm back running over the last few years but you need to be a lot smarter about this than you are acting now. It is not particularly heroic to end up in the medical tent or in an ambulance. Your lack or running experience will not help you on the day and you have nowhere near the milage you need to make this a remotely enjoyable experience.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I get really frustrated when people don't respect the marathon distance. Rest up now, get a good base under you and run it next year...Just my 2 cents but I think someone needs to bring a dose of reality to you instead of all the "you can do it" posts that the rest of the log has...

theboyblunder

+1

I perhaps wouldnt put it as strongly, but I also think you are risking your health doing this. For a person hoping to run a marathon very soon, having to take walk-breaks in a 14K (not an LSR for a marathon runner at any level) run is not a good sign. Neither is strong pain in the shin area.

This is not elitism, its genuine concern.

Please consider either pulling out, or walking the whole thing. I know its disappointing, and you will have told people you are running, but I think you are ignoring the signs here

1. You are injured
2. The injury threatens to fracture your shin bone.
3. You are a novice who has missed too much training

think about walking it, and good luck, whatever you decide.

blockic

drquirky wrote: »

Just my 2 cents but I think someone needs to bring a dose of reality to you instead of all the "you can do it" posts that the rest of the log has...

Good to hear your experiences and are very much welcome.

We have been through all the worst case scenerios a number of times with PM (many over in novice forum) and he knows what the consequences are, believe me we have tried!!

So just to be clear it has not been 100% 'you can do it' posts in relation this.

This race is obviously very important to him and no one else can make the decision for him.

So we are going to back him on whatever decision he chooses, after he has taken all the opinions into account. That is the reasoning behind the 'you can do it' posts above. (well mine anyway)

Pacing Mule

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I do appreciate them and understand the motivation behind them.

I posted this in the main mentored novices thread already ...

I truly believe the leg is not fractured. It's painful but not excruciating agony or anything approaching it. Physio is happy for me to do it. Family doctor is aware I am doing it. (happy might be too strong a word ) There will be plenty of rest etc after. I'm happy that I'm not taking any major risk. At the end of the day we all know our own body's limitations etc. I know and believe I can cover the distance on Monday and it's not as bad as those around me fear.

But if I'm wrong and I feck this up I will hang my head in shame and report back here to serve as a warning for next years new enthusiasts.

I think the one thing that perhaps is being overlooked here is my "running" pace is not much faster than a walk. I would have been aiming at a 5 hour time pre injury so I was never going to be putting myself under the kind of duress and stress that someone aiming for 3.5 or 4 hours would be under. I have an enormous respect for the marathon distance - if I didn't there would be no motivation to do it - no great sense of achievement afterwards. Hand on my heart if I was aiming at a much faster time I'd have called it a day weeks ago. It wouldn't be possible to put an injured and under trained body through that distance at that pace and expect good things to happen.

I've made a calculated decision, based on medical advice (from doctor and phsyio - and bearing in mind x-ray said no stress fracture) and on listening to my own body to go ahead. I'm not even aiming at 5 hours anymore - if it happens great - if I need to walk the last half so be it. If I need to bail out mid race then I will.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I don't see this as a big risk or hopeless case of stupidity that some people do - nor do I see it as an heroic feat and triumph for stubborness / mind over matter that the opposite extreme viewpoint might see it as. It really isn't that drastic a situation IMHO. I may well be wrong but I will be the first to hold my hands up and post it here if I am.

Pacing Mule

blockic wrote: »

Good to hear your experiences and are very much welcome.

We have been through all the worst case scenerios a number of times with PM (many over in novice forum) and he knows what the consequences are, believe me we have tried!!

So just to be clear it has not been 100% 'you can do it' posts in relation this.

This race is obviously very important to him and no one else can make the decision for him.

So we are going to back him on whatever decision he chooses, after he has taken all the opinions into account. That is the reasoning behind the 'you can do it' posts above. (well mine anyway)

Thanks blockic - I very much appreciate the support and the reasoning behind it is the same I'm sure for most of the group.

blockic

Pageant Messiah wrote: »

I think the one thing that perhaps is being overlooked here is my "running" pace is not much faster than a walk. I would have been aiming at a 5 hour time pre injury so I was never going to be putting myself under the kind of duress and stress that someone aiming for 3.5 or 4 hours would be under.

This is the big difference between drquirky situation and your own. drquirky would have put alot more stress on his leg running at a competitive level.

As you said, if you have to (and likely) use a run-walk-run strategy then so be it. A completed marathon is a completed marathon.

And only you yourself knows how bad or good the leg is at the end of the day.

drquirky

blockic wrote: »

This is the big difference between drquirky situation and your own. drquirky would have put alot more stress on his leg running at a competitive level.

As you said, if you have to (and likely) use a run-walk-run strategy then so be it. A completed marathon is a completed marathon.

And only you yourself knows how bad or good the leg is at the end of the day.

Wow- some of the misinformation here is astonishing! Actually- when I did that to myself, I was just under 130 lbs. I would argue that my fitness level at the time as well as weight actually put LESS stress on my legs than someone who attempts running 26.2 miles on 16 stone w/out training for weeks as it says in PM's log! Also- stress fractures are not diagnosed by X-Ray but by MRI. So the X-Ray being clear means absolutely nothing in this case.

I am making no judgement about anyone's weight or fitness level- I merely use them as numbers to prove a point- that PM is taking a very real risk by running. I'm certainly not saying that his leg is gonna snap in 2- I just think that its very silly to be taking chances with something like health. I cannot understand why people run the marathon with no training. By all means PM go and give it a shot on Monday but its gonna be absolute sh%t running it. You will hit 16 miles and feel completely awful. Not sure why you are completely ignoring every experienced runner on this forum's advise but whatever- go for it.

menoscemo

drquirky wrote: »

Wow- some of the misinformation here is astonishing! Actually- when I did that to myself, I was just under 130 lbs. I would argue that my fitness level at the time as well as weight actually put LESS stress on my legs than someone who attempts running 26.2 miles on 16 stone w/out training for weeks as it says in PM's log!

I'd agree with this; also when running fast you actually put less stress on your joints and bones because your foot is in contact with the ground for much less time. Faster runners also tend to have a more efficient stride meaning less impact forces.
When it comes to joint and bone issues I would imagine it is actually the heavier/slower runners who are more at risk......

Pacing Mule

menoscemo wrote: »

I'd agree with this; also when running fast you actually put less stress on your joints and bones because your foot is in contact with the ground for much less time. Faster runners also tend to have a more efficient stride meaning less impact forces.
When it comes to joint and bone issues I would imagine it is actually the heavier/slower runners who are more at risk......

Makes sense to be fair.

Oryx

Ive only skimmed the last posts in this log, and the following saying comes to mind:

If you can't be a good example, be a salutory lesson.

I can see that come hell or high water, you are going to line up and start this race. That kind of determination is powerful and can be a good thing. But there is a fine line between being strong and being stupid. I know that because I have crossed it only recently.

I won't wish you good luck, but I will wish you good sense. If it gets too much out on the course, know when to call it a day. You want this, but don't loose sight of the fact that this is not the end of something, but the beginning of a long running career if you do it right.

See ya on the start line.