Pre- Half Marathon - Part One Point Five

This blog is about my goals and my fears right? My ups and downs? Well for the past few days, I can't help but get this psychic flash to me on Saturday afternoon typing "Running FAIL" into my FB status :'( I am completely freaking over here, and for really no reason at all. I'm basically being a big fat baby about the whole thing.

It started with my feeling "off"...that "funk" I was talking about in the last post. For the past few days, I've felt this yuck coursing through my veins. Now not to get all TMI, but this was the week of the the Big P. Not necessarily the best thing to happen the week before a big race. Anyway, as my sweet, sweet boyfriend pointed out to me last night, my body's been expelling some pretty crucial stuff, iron being the main component. Even a minor iron deficiency would explain my fatigue (sleeping in till 10:30 and still feeling out of it??), as well as my mood swings and blahness. I bet I was already on the road to deficiency (I sound like such a delinquent!) Maybe I really wasn't getting enough iron? My protein comes from chicken, fish, nuts, and beans, which are good sources, but not like red meat, or apparently oysters would be. And I sure as heck didn't eat enough spinach and vitamin C to help with iron absorption. Being a longer distance runner now, the extra muscle gain and pounding the pavement (breaking blood vessles), is probably causing me to lose more iron than I was before my mileage started adding up. Add insult to injury with the Big P, and Katie, you've got yourself a Big P-Roblem.

Anyway, there's nothing I can do about that now, and being at the end of my Bye Week, I'm already recharging my "supplies" so to speak (I know I know GROSSSS). But this is definitely a lesson learned.

What do I do in the meantime? Well I don't run apparently. See, Problem B is this calf thing I've got going on. There's this "knot" type feeling in the space between my ankle and calf, on the side. I mean it feels just like when you have a knot in your back. I've iced it and rubbed it gently (gave it some wine and took it to bed?), but nothing really helps. Last night I was supposed to run an "easy" four miles. Within the first 50ft, I decided the run was DOA, circled the block, and called it a day...very depressed. I thought about running tomorrow, but maybe I should just not. A wise woman tells me that there's no way my fitness can suffer in a week's time. What's done is done and the most I can do now is make any potential injury worse.

Like I said in the last post, I need to stop with the anxiety, and start up the positive vibes. I should focus on the fact that perhaps this minor injury is a blessing in disguise and my running will be even better than I could've possibly imagined on Saturday. The race is still two and a half days away and maybe this calf thing will be on its way out by 8am on Saturday.

The thing I forget is that while I've suddenly become this distance runner and I'm able to run 14 miles, I am FAR from experienced having only a year of running at my back. I don't have much experience with injuries or races or training. I can always run another Half Marathon. This isn't the be-all, end-all just because it's my first. (I'm going to refrain from comparing this to losing one's virginity...oh wait I just did.)

Remember the "as long as I finish" goal? It's so easy to lose track of the whole point of this journey. If I worry too much, I'll completely ruin any fun I could have on race day. A few weeks ago, I imagined the Half with SUCH excitement! I could picture little running Katie, striding along the lakefront path with a huge smile on her face. Somewhere in the last week I lost that cool girl. I gotta go find her again.