Going into marathon training in early January, I foresaw this week -- the week before the race -- a lot of ways.
I saw myself as prepared, confident and ready to -- after a struggle of epic proportions -- conquer those 26.2 miles.
In fact, visualizing myself crossing the finish line was one of the ways I made it through many of my toughest, bitterly cold winter training runs.
What I couldn't have foreseen at the time, of course, was the uncertainty and anxiety I now would be experiencing because of a painful case of shin splints that struck just before a big 20-mile training run two weeks ago.
I made it through the run, but barely. My legs felt painful, heavy and dull, and I became uncharacteristically sick -- in the pristine front yard of a lovely home on the peninsula portion of the marathon route. (My sincerest apologies if that lawn happened to belong to you. Beautiful landscaping, by the way.)
I spent the rest of the day in bed and charted out a few much-needed days off, which I assumed would eradicate the problem.
Not so.
With the exception of two sorry 5-mile runs -- the shin splints have made it difficult to get into my stride at all -- I have spent the intervening days resting and obsessively icing and stretching my legs.
It's a runner's paradox: Stop running and allow my legs time to heal while losing what feels like all of the endurance I spent the past five months building up, or continue with training runs and risk potentially making the shin splints bad enough to keep me from finishing the race.
I hope in the long run (ha!), I will view my actions -- or, more specifically, inactions -- of the past two weeks as smart decisions that enabled me to reach my goal. However, missing runs so close to race day has taken a definite psychological toll.
In discussing various pains I have encountered during training in my last column, I wrote, "The ability to take these setbacks in stride is a difficult skill to learn, but one that was necessary to be able to continue with my training ... It turns out that not every little twinge is a complete crisis situation mandating a full-scale panic attack, although it can feel that way at the time."
I still think this is true, but it sometimes is difficult to maintain perspective and fight those pesky panic attacks, particularly with so little time remaining.
I'm confident I put everything I could into preparing for this race, and at this point I only can exert my best effort and be satisfied with the result.
In my first column on Jan. 11, I stated my goals for the marathon were "to finish somewhere in the middle of the pack without walking, collapsing or losing my breakfast." While my ability to fulfill the last of these goals may recently have been called into question, I still am cautiously optimistic I will be able to accomplish objectives one and two.
I hope to see you at the finish line on Saturday.
Record-Eagle copy editor and first-time marathon runner Claire Walters is chronicling her training experiences in a bi-weekly column as she prepares for the May 23 Bayshore Marathon. Readers also can follow her progress by reading her blog at blogs.record-eagle.com.
