magic number 8

It would be so easy for me to be bummed out or upset with last Saturday’s run, but I’m not going to. Because tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, and I’m always thankful for every run and this one is no exception.

Going into Saturday’s run I might have had some negatives stacked against me. For one, I barely ran all week. I can count how many times I ran on one finger. Even a couple of weeks after my big race, some fatigue was still lingering. My warm and cozy bed was too powerful to overcome so I opted to skip my loosely scheduled workouts for more welcomed shuteye.

Now, this decision to miss these workouts wasn’t just due to my warm and cozy bed. I was concerned about my left foot, and I was nervous about running on it. While I didn’t experience severe pain, swelling, or discoloration from rolling my ankle at Ray Miller, for the time being, I’m a little more conservative with my 50 mile training since the magic number is down to 8 weeks until race day. Right now, it’s not an injury. It’s a slight hinderance and annoyance, but not an injury.

A week after Ray Miller, I decided to run 8 miles with my group. Around mile 7, I could feel a slight ache coming on, not so much around the ankle part, but around the heel. Once I hit mile 8, it became apparent this could potentially become worse. Seeing as this happened, it didn’t exactly make me want to jump out of bed and immediately start running in the days following. People can run through all sorts of discomfort, but I know when discomfort is just that, and when discomfort could be a sign something is wrong.

This past Saturday, the group was set to run 16 miles, and on Friday, the internal debating began. Should I run 16 miles? Should I not? In my head I wanted to, but my body was telling me “Hang on there. Not so fast.”

I CAN DO THIS is what I kept telling myself. But come Saturday morning, I wasn’t so sure. One mile at a time is what I needed to focus on. Although I couldn’t help but focus on how absolutely beautiful the day was. However, it got quite mid- to high-80 degrees warm. 

For most of the run, I felt okay. Once mile 7 rolled around, I started become more aware of how my foot was feeling simply because this was the mile marker where I started to feel something the week before. My foot felt fine.

The magic happened at mile 8. Aha! This was the discomfort threshold. However, the fact this discomfort surfaced a mile later than the week previously, tells me, something is healing. And that’s a good sign.

At mile 8, I knew I had to make a decision. Keep going and run through whatever I was starting to feel, or stop. Making the decision to stop was difficult, but deep down I knew it was the right decision. We have to be smart about these things. I have to be smart about these things.

The short term goal here was to finish 16 miles. However, my long term goals are not to have this get worse, to feel 100% (currently lingering around 92.8%), to get through the rest of the season in one whole piece, and to complete my 50 miler in January. That’s what I need to think about.

Yes, I could be bummed I had to cut my run short, and I could be upset I didn’t finish the 16 miles. But, 11.94 miles are way better than zero miles, and 11.94 miles is what I’m thankful for! Because I got eight weeks until my next big race and every mile counts.

Thank You for reading and Happy Running Thanksgiving!