The January Curse Strikes Again!

One year ago today I was boarding a plane bound for Orlando to run the Walt Disney World Half Marathon followed by a 7 day Caribbean cruise with some new friends. We ran the WDW Half in less than stellar conditions (Race Report) and then headed out on the cruise. We had a great time and I spent a ton of time on one of my favorite things...the Flow Rider. Day 6 of the cruise, on my very last ride of the trip, I injured myself...pretty badly. I had pulled a muscle in my groin called the "adductor longus" and it was quite painful.  Of course, this came at a very bad time as I was preparing to run my first marathon about 8 weeks later. I took a few weeks off of running an focused on swimming to try and keep my level of fitness up and did run the LA Marathon on March 21, very much under trained.

This year, I have been working out with Craig Moss and his Mount Gleason Runners since November and was preparing to set a new PR at the LA Marathon this year. Training has been going very well and have stayed injury free. Last Friday, I ran my scheduled 16 miles without incident, and other than being a bit tired toward the end, I felt pretty good. Spent a nice New Year's Eve at home with my wife and went to bed fairly early. On New Year's Day, my wife and I decided to go for a long walk to start the new year out right. About 1 mile into the walk, I noticed some discomfort in my right foot. As we continued walking, the pain got progressively worse. We stopped at Starbucks for a cup of coffee and I massaged it for a bit, but I could tell something was wrong. We made it back home and I immediately started searching the Internet for possible problems. I didn't feel it was urgent enough to go to the ER, but I did stay off of it until Monday. I was able to find information and it was confirmed by my massage therapist to be "Peroneal Tendonitis". Reading up on it, I found the treatment to be R.I.C.E., so after my massage on Sunday morning, I stayed on the couch all day long and iced it several times. It was very painful to walk, especially in bare feet. Upon reading further, I found that it can take several weeks to heal before you can resume activity. At that point, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach...the LA Marathon is just 11 weeks away, am I going to be able to run the race?

I got very depressed thinking about it and ever time I took a step and it was painful, I got more depressed. I guess for me, I just can't point to a specific point when the injury occurred, and that bothers me, although it can be an overuse injury and the onset can be over time. I sought advice from twitter and I got a referral to a good foot doctor here in LA, some good information on aqua jogging and a PT that has a lot of good info on her site, Athletes Training Athletes 
I have spent this week, icing and doing stretches on both the foot and the calf in hope of loosening things up a bit. I rode the bike on the trainer twice this week and got in the pool to not only swim, but try aqua jogging. I have to say that I think this program is working as I am no longer in any pain while walking. I will keep riding the bike, swimming and aqua jogging for the next few days. I may try an easy run late next week, but I don't want to push it right now.

So back to the curse...is it just a coincidence that I get injured in January, or is it that the "running Gods" don't want me to run the LA Marathon?? I don't know, but as I write this, I am more confident that I will be running the LA Marathon and return to training in the near future. I found this quote and I thought I would share it...

“I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. With the laughs, comes the tears…” – Walt Disney.