2,400 Milligrams of Ibuprofen a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

I visited the doctor yesterday.  While the news is not great, it could be worse.  I have stressed a tendon in my lower leg as a result of participating in a half mile race about a week and a half ago.  You would think that running 30+ miles a week would allow you to run a half mile without sustaining some debilitating injury (especially as slow as the half mile time I turned in).  Well it turns out this is not the case, so I will store that in the memory banks.

Where does this leave the marathon?  Well the easy thing to do would be to thank everyone for their support and simply walk away.  I have rarely chose the easy route in my life, and I don't think I will start now.  Because running will only cause this injury to linger and most assuredly cause November 6th to turn out similar to my October 12, 2008 Chicago Marathon experience (at least in some small measure), I have to stop running for the near term (1 to 2 weeks).  I will be turning to my bike to try and maintain fitness as best I can while I work through getting my leg to heal. 

Couple this temporary set back with the illness I fought through a few weeks back, my mileage over the last three weeks has taken a big hit.  That said, my goals will have to change for November 6th.  I haven't really talked to much about my goals in my posts, but I had been targeting a pace of 8:30 per mile (3 hrs 43 minutes) prior to the last few weeks, and that is certainly off the table at this point.  That said, my goals as of today will be as follows:

1. Finish (under 6 hrs 8 minutes and 58 seconds would be nice),
2. Raise awareness and a few dollars for DII and Camp Delafield,
3. For no one in my family to pee their pants (or anyone reading this blog for that matter),
4. No vomiting, and
5. Relax, enjoy and have fun!

I have to tell you with all this running I look pretty good in those biking shorts!