Looking for reassurance!
First a bit of background:
I'm training for the London Marathon on 25 April and then IM 70.3 Germany in August. I did 14 weeks of the Nomber O/S before starting an 11 week marathon program using the Coach Patrick Marathon Hack document. Training has gone well and my 5k time has gone from 20'30 in Oct to 19'35" (treadmill) at the last test on Easter weekend. The weekend before the last test (March 28th) I did my longest run of 21 miles at a 20 mile race as a 1mile warm up then 5 miles at LRP, 15 miles at MP, coming in around 90-120 seconds slow due to some (what felt like) some high winds. I'd had to move the longest run a week early as I knew I would need the encouragment of a race to knock out 15 miles at MP, and 3 weeks out was going to be Easter when there was no suitable races available in the area. I couldn't move it to 2 weeks out (my preferred starategy) as my darling wife insisted on going skiing for a week from the Saturday, so definitely no racing that weekend!
18 days from the marathon I pick up a grade 1 calf tear doing the warm up before a 4x1mile at MP session, I soidier through most of the session but fortunately had a physio appointment booked for that evening. She reckoned no running for 7-10 days....no problem, forget about the last longish run the day before skiing (12-14 miles I'd planned) and forget about the tempo and interval sessions in the skiing week.
I got back home on Saturday evening and on Sunday went for the 8 miler for planned in the doc for 7 days out and I can still "feel" the calf. Managed 2 miles at LRP and 6 at MP, but it felt incredibly hard, so now my confidence is shot to pieces. Calf was sore yesterday afternoon but feels okay this morning. Before this happened my vdot of 51.0 predicted a marathon of just under 3:08 and I was planning to run a sub 3:15. Now, I'm not confident my calf is going to hold out and I feel unfit! Is this all taper madness? I plan on doing the last week of training as in the doc, so 4 runs of 25-45 minutes long with a bit of MP thrown in and have a further physio appointment today. I've ordered some compression socks which will hopefully help, should get them tomorrow so can try them out a bit.
As an aside, because of the way that the training had to happen and then nothing for the last 10 days I've seen my CTL drop from 75 a month ago to a predicted 57 the day before the marathon, at least I'm going to be well rested!
Am I blowing this all out of proportion? Please tell me I'm going to be okay!
Comments
I would post this question on the Medical Forum...I think you'll get more answers about your calf and what to do with the upcoming race.
P
Thanks guys, I'll head over there.......
Get healthy first and decide which is your A-race. If the 70.3 is your A-race, I would approach the marathon very very carefully. ANY marathon at ANY pace is no joke and can do some damage to ANY one. I proved this last year being a knuckle head.
If the marathon is your A-race, then stand down hard and do nothing but work on your calf multiple times a day. If it is feeling better and you are confident you can run the marathon, I would adjust your race plan for a big negative split. If you go out fast and you calf acts up you could have a very bad (and long) day and potential do more damage. Instead go out even slower than you planned and don't even consider speeding up until mile 10 or so. Then only start to speed up to your goal pace if you calf is feeling great. You have plently of time in the last 6-8 miles to make up ground if you calf feels ok. Again, only do this if you your calf is ready for the race.
There is nothing wrong with dropping out and not running the marathon. You will have plently of other chance to run marathons, but you will regret it if you run when you know you shouldn't.