I’m a bit worried the Long Beach Marathon. I went through a summer of training without any problems only to begin feeling new aches and pains in the last few weeks.

First came the mystery pain in my left knee. I still did my 20 miler and felt fine. I took 3 days off from running (I haven’t done that since I was on vacation in Yosemite) to recover from the run as well as ice and let Aleve do its work. I skipped the speed workout on Tuesday and marathon pace run on Thursday. Instead, I ran 3.5 miles on Thursday and 4 miles on Saturday. A week later, the mystery knee pain was past me.

I thought I’d be fine tackling the 21-22 miler I delayed until Monday morning. That run didn’t go so well. My stomach was a mess and halfway through my left hamstring started tightening up. I shifted my gait a little and kept going. I wasn’t worried about the pain at the time. I thought it was just part of the long run. I started worrying when the pain lingered after the long run soreness went away. My hamstrings tightened as I walked down stairs. I started limping around campus.

I went back to the plan that worked for the knee (icing, etc) plus massages with the Stick. I tried doing a marathon pace run on Thursday. The pace was manageable, but my hamstring started tightening up and I stopped a few times to stretch. I went out again for an easy run on Saturday. The pain was still there.

On Sunday I bought KT Tape to see if the compression would help me recover. I don’t have pain when walking or any bruising on my thigh, but the pain starts shortly after running. On Monday evening, I set out for a 10 mile long run in a nearby hilly neighborhood. Bad idea. Midway through, I wanted to quit and was mad I’d left my cell phone. I thought about toughing it out, but I didn’t want to risk an actual strain. Still, I was 3+ miles from home. I slowly ran and walked the rest of the way but only got in 8 miles.

As I walked home, I had a lot of time to wonder why this was happening and how I could have prevented the injury. Maybe I wasn’t running enough and was undertrained for the 20+ mile long runs. Maybe I’d run too many miles in my shoes and they were worn out (likely, I’d been using them exclusively since mid-May). Maybe I should have done some strength and cross training. Maybe I need to lose some weight. Maybe two weeks before a marathon is a great time to deal with an injury.

I don’t want to go to a doctor. Frankly, I’m scared they’ll tell me not to run for a while. I don’t want to skip out on the Long Beach Marathon.

So, I’ll stick to what worked for the knee (plus KT tape). If I run later this week, it’ll be short and slow. I might skip the last hour long run I have scheduled for Saturday. I’ve bought new shoes, but don’t know if a few miles in them will be enough to break them in before next Sunday (advice?). I also have a massage scheduled for the Thursday before the marathon.

I guess these last two weeks will just be a super taper. Oh yeah, did I mention I have a cold too? Rest is even more important now.

I’m running the Long Beach Marathon in four weeks. My training had been going well until Thursday. While at work, I started feeling some mild pain in my inner right knee. I’ve had knee pain before, but this pain was new. It wasn’t too bad, and I was able to do a marathon pace 6.5 mile run that evening without a problem.

The next morning it hurt again so I iced. It got worse throughout the day as I went to school/work and ran some errands. In the evening, we went to the Angels and Yankees game. Walking up and down the steep stadium steps aggravated my knee. When I got home, it hurt to change out of my jeans. I figured if I couldn’t bend my knee without wincing in pain, I probably should postpone my 20 mile run the next day.

I iced my knee, took Advil and rested on Saturday. In the evening, I felt much better and prepared to run early the next morning.

I ran my long run this morning and felt great, well as good you can feel running 20 miles. I followed pretty much the same route I did when I ran my last pre-LA Marathon long run (to the beach and back). It was cool and cloudy through 90% of my run. I felt great and pushed the pace faster than my normal long runs. I was running pretty close to my intended marathon pace, probably too fast for a long run. Still, I felt comfortable. I think it might be a good indicator of what I’ll be able to do on race day if all goes well.

Hopefully the knee pain is past me.

The Long Beach Marathon is 6 weeks away. This means I’m two-thirds of the way through my second round of marathon training. So far, I’ve been doing okay. I haven’t stuck to my training plan 100%. Who does? I occasionally skip a recovery run or easy 30 minute workout in the middle of the week. For my first few track sessions, I ran similar mileage on the road instead of heading to the track. I’m running everything faster. Not sure if that’s just because I’m improving or because I didn’t donate blood in the middle of training. Probably a little of both, but more the latter.

I wavered on running a fall marathon because I knew I’d be doing most of my long runs alone. For the LA Marathon in March, I ran all 16+ mile long runs (and one 10 miler) with the Students Run LA team at the high school in my neighborhood. I did my longest run with another SRLA team in the Valley. I really enjoyed training with SRLA, it’s one of the reasons I want to run the LA Marathon again. For those long runs, I didn’t need to do much prep work aside from fill my water bottles and bring my gels/chomps. I could have left those behind as parent volunteers staffed aid stations along the course, but I wanted to get used to taking gels and didn’t want to use up the students’ food/drinks. The coaches planned out routes that were both challenging and similar enough to the marathon course (or on the course) to get us well prepared. They also had tips on how to strategically run the race.

I also didn’t know if it’d be a hot summer or would be mild like last summer. Luckily, it’s been the latter and I’ve been blessed with cloudy skies for most of my long runs. This weekend was probably the hottest of the summer. I woke up at 5 to avoid the heat, but couldn’t avoid the sunshine once the sun rose. By the time I finished three hours later, I was a sweaty, salty mess. If this heat continues through September, I’ll have more pre-sunrise wake-up calls.

Yesterday’s long run was my second 18 miler. I ran the first 5 miles with Sean before our routes diverged. He ran 11 miles, a personal distance record! I continued on through Westwood, Brentwood and Santa Monica before heading back toward Palms. I ran almost the same route as last week at a similar pace (9:41 vs 9:44), but with more water stops. Long Beach is much less hilly than my long run routes, so I’m hoping the extra hill training will help me out on race day. In the winter, I was very sore after my 18 mile long run even with an ice bath. This time around, I don’t need much else than a massage with The Stick. Later in the day I was sleepy (even with a nap), but I still was able to dance a bit at my uncle’s party.

One thing that hasn’t changed from training in winter to summer is that I’ve still got a monster appetite after running for a few hours and burning nearly 2,000 calories. Like Winnie the Pooh, my appetite improves with some exercise. I thought it would be fun to document what I ate on a long run day:
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