feeling better about the marathon

I was kind of discouraged last weekend after my Saturday morning run.

My knee was bothering me from about mile six of an eight-mile run. I had been doing well for a long time, and now it seemed an old problem was back.

I got orthotic shoe inserts made six months ago. They put my feet in a correct position (since I seem to have been born crooked), to try to alleviate knee and foot pain. After a long, slow, adaptation period, I thought I was making progress.

But the pain has come back a few times. One morning in November, it was extremely cold, and we stood outside for an hour waiting for a race to start. My feet were frozen for the first two miles of the race. I attributed to the pain during the last mile of a five-mile race to my stride being off since I couldn't feel my toes!

It was fine for a few more weeks, but happened one other time prior to last weekend. So I was worried, and started wonder if I should even attempt a marathon.

But my short runs were fine this week. Normally, if it's more serious, the pain comes back within a few minutes. We signed up for the marathon this week.

And today, I'm feeling much more confident. Today's run felt great!

Our training schedule had us at 12 miles today. I hadn't run more than eight recently, and everyone else would have had a pretty big jump as well. We expected to cut it a little short and walk at the end.

I was happy with running 10 miles, walking back the final two. My knee was fine but I stopped running at 10 because I didn't want to chance it. My feet hurt, anyway, seeing how my body isn't used to this kind of mileage (yet)!

It was a great morning to be outside, partly cloudy, damp and fresh from yesterday's rain. Odd for January, it was quite warm, too -- 70F when it should be in the low 30s. A bit too warm, actually, with nearly 100% humidity.

Still ... much better than icy toes!