Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 8 — Broken Down?
I finished the 20-miler slower than I would have liked. I was feeling a little sore and tight going into it. I began to fall back from my 9:30/mile pace group around mile 9. I wasn’t in pain, just tired. Tight and heavy, really. I wasn’t concerned. I was only forty seconds slower by the end.
At the end was when something hurt. This was new. This wasn’t sore. This was different. Yet, I chocked it up to, well, just having run twenty glorious, goddamn miles. I guzzled water, I stretched, I ate a banana, I rode my bike home. At home, I stretched, I took an ice bath for ten minutes, took a nap. Katie and I hung out at the 312 Block Party at Goose Island for a bit before calling it a night at nine. All day, my right leg would blast with pain at every step.
The same thing on Sunday. Again on Monday. Tuesday. I could walk, awkwardly, cringing with pain, but I sure as shit could not run.
I managed to get an assessment with the PT I had gone to at the beginning if this thing when my hip and ass weren’t strong enough. She found nothing. My range of motion was fine. Nothing felt odd. Pre-scheduled massage scheduled for the next morning. After that, I rode my bike — because riding a bike gave me no trouble whatsoever — to have some X-rays taken at a Northwestern Immediate Care.
The peek at my bone didn’t reveal what I feared the most: a stress fracture. I’ve had them before. It would be the thing that would sideline me immediately. Can’t run on a stress fracture, and the only way to heal one is with time on your ass. Maybe on a bike.
So, here I am. Waiting, resting, and hoping that whatever it is that’s hurting my leg and has kept me from running, from losing one of the last three weeks of my training reveals itself. Because I need to know what the future holds. I’m meeting with an orthopaedic surgeon on Wednesday. Maybe he’ll be able to define the problem. If it’s fixable, I need to get going. If it’s not, if I’m unable to heal in one-and-a-half weeks, then I need to begin coming to terms with severe frustration and disappointment.
And get thinking on the best way to make up for it. People have given me money to push my physical limits. I can’t let something like my limitations get in the way of a commitment.
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