For many months now, my feet have chronically felt like I just finished a 12 hour work day, add a side of plantar fasciitis. I can’t even remember exactly when it first showed up. Maybe during Baltimore Marathon training, or perhaps just after. I continued training through it for Louisiana Marathon, then Atlanta, where I realized my feet were my weak link.
Committing myself fully to fixing my feet, I tried extra cross training. I Googled foot and ankle exercises, added them to my daily routine. Foam rolling became my new best friend, or at least a closely held fr-enemy. I bought new shoes and inserts for arch support. I compared Tiger Balm to Biofreeze to Aspercreme.
Much of it helped and I’d feel back to 85%. Sometimes the pain disappeared for a day or two, but then roared back again. Sometimes it moved around. It was hard to pin down. How do you address a moving target?
The Friday before my first of two scheduled twenty-milers for Missoula Marathon training, I was booked to facilitate a day-long retreat for a client of my consulting practice, Yes and Yonder. I love designing and leading this kind of day, where a whole team connects, stretches, sparks new visions for the future. It is meaningful work always. Yet it takes a lot out of me. The session was with a new client, and a dream one at that, which adds to the pressure. It also meant a full eight hours on my feet. Add a two-hour drive on each end of the session and it was a long day.
Here is a stress reading for me according to Garmin. This is the day before the retreat, and is pretty typical:
And now, the day of:
Considering I was already on the edge, I shouldn’t be surprised that my body rebelled. The pains from my feet moved up the kinetic chain. My whole left side body tightened up. Tendons on my ankle swelled. Sharp pains shot through my calf. Everything felt off, like maybe something had popped out of socket. This was no longer an ache to just run through. Something had to give. I needed recovery time.
At first I settled on two days, bookending my typical Friday off with extra rest on Thursday and Saturday. When my first short run back felt iffy, I took two more days off.
Rationally, I knew I had time for a small break without losing too much fitness. I had already put in a lot of hard training, including an 18-miler at only 3 seconds off of my A+ goal marathon pace. Still, skipping a few runs, especially a key long run, eroded my confidence. Was I sabotaging all my hard work? Could I still BQ after a break right at the peak of training? I actually wondered if I allowed this break so I had an excuse if I can’t make my race goal.
What an exhausting train of thought. I realized how easy it is to blow things out of proportion. I skipped 3 days of running, and shortened 3 others, for a total of of about 30 missed miles. This shouldn’t count me out.
I won’t know if it pays off until after the race, this gamble of mine, but I’m done second guessing the choice. Rest was the one thing I hadn’t allowed myself. This simple, beautiful thing that had been available to me all the while turned out to be the one thing I needed most. And I feel better than I have in a long, long time.