The Hard Way

"Marathon Training for Dummies" was already taken.

Before we left town this weekend, there were a bunch of tasks that had to be accomplished. One of them was that my car needed to get to the shop and then it would have four days to get fixed. When we were on our way back into town yesterday one of the ideas I had was to run to the shop and pick up the car today. A man on a mission ... a must succeed mission. Emergency pick-up would require diverting my main support elements' (ie: wife or "household 6") major resource (time) into getting my buttocks from some far off corner.

The plan took shape over night and I briefed Household 6 on the plan and route before I left the house this morning.

Dawn ... I was about 1 mile out when the morning light started turning the houses along Rainbow Avenue different shades of light blue. I soon found myself turning onto the Fort Bennings' extension of the RiverWalk. It was about now I thought that I was running too slow and sped up some. I would make this mistake a many more times this morning.

The Fort Benning entrance to the RiverWalk

At around mile 4 I was on track to beat 5 miles in 40 minutes, which has come to be a standard for me. Even on long runs. I like to hit the 5 mile mark then taper down just a bit from there.
At 5 miles I didn't taper. I kept going seeing how long I could continue at the better than 8:00 minute per mile pace.

Road to the Columbus Water Works

During Mile 5 I felt a pain in the tendon on my right calf. I had a similar injury more than 7 years ago in Ohio. But that injury was so severe in February of 2001, I actually turned around to see if I had been shot or something! This one was mild to medium. If I wasn't going to slow down, my body was going to slow me down!

Immediately I gauged my resiliency and willpower, with my ability to heal versus how bad the damage might be. No bumps, no redness and it was stretching out some. I took the next bench to check it out and grabbed a hit of Gatorade.

Then I kept running. Slower, but still moving. The pain slowly drowning out and the rhythm of my footfalls taking over into the tree lined paths. Must have been the Gatorade! Home mix, orange ... a tad bit strong.

Sunrise over Rigdon Park (about 7.5 miles out)

The only time it really gave me pain was when I would stop to take a snapshot, then start up again. The calf got a quick stretch and check each time and then we pushed on. ...All the way to downtown Columbus until I could not go any farther on the RiverWalk. There is a chain link fence at the end where they are working on it by a bridge.

Getting close to downtown!

The brick paths of the RiverWalk downtown

I went up the stairs and then lay down on a large field to stretch out. I still had about a mile to go to the shop, but it could wait. I performed every calf stretch I could think of and only one provided too much discomfort for me.

Me with Columbus in Columbus

I think that this is the first real problem I have had since beginning my training program, so I consider it a blessing that I am this far in and I can actually work through this problem with a little more attention spent on it. In hindsight, foot marches of the 12 mile caliber usually do more damage to me and I thought that I would have developed bad blisters or worse problems on the ruck march 5 days ago then I did. My right I.T. band and hip were out of whack, but they quickly readjusted and 2 days later were doing alright. I took a risk with the socks on the ruck march and succeeded with no injury.

So I guess tomorrow should be an easy recovery run, right?

Bottom line: 12.2 miles in 1:39:30 or an average 8:10 pace! (What ... am I thinking?)