2 Things A Marathon-Runner-In-Training Should Never Say

It’s been 1 week since I’ve ran.

And my achilles has been killing me.

No joke. It started a week and a half ago. I had a 10 mile tempo workout to run. I ran it hard. On the way back (around mile 6 or so), my achilles started aching a little. “That’s weird,” I thought. Once I finished, I was pretty happy with my time (1:04:20), but I realized it was a first run all year that I didn’t negative split. That was probably a bad sign right there. The next morning, I couldn’t walk down the stairs without pushing off on the wall on both sides of me for support. My achilles was SO SORE. I was f*cked. I iced and took it easy for the next few days.

Three days later on that Sunday (one week ago) I took part in the Winter BeGone Duathlon. My plan was to run it normally and see how bad my heel felt. As I think about my workouts a year ago when I was training for Ironman with my bad knee, I really feel like I didn’t push it enough - I feel like I used it as an excuse when I really could have worked through it a little more. Therefore, I really wasn’t that happy with the way I performed at Ironman. I was NOT going to let those same feelings interfere with marathon training. I mean, I’ll take it easy if I’ve hurt something as I try to make it better, but I will NOT use a sore ankle as a crutch for running a marathon time that isn’t what I originally wanted.

So, at the duathlon a week ago, my heel had some sharp pain before I hit the first mile marker. During the bike, it was fine. I don’t think I felt it act up - I don’t think it got any worse. Then during the final 10K run, it hurt. I got home and iced it. It was sore the next day, but not as sore as after the 10 miler (I think in large part due to the icing).

It’s been sore all week. I haven’t ran. I haven’t biked. I haven’t swam. Normally, a week in my tri-journal looks like this:

This past week looks like this:

Up to this week, my training has been spot on. Perfect. Nearly word-for-word from my training plan. Today, I’m missing an 18 mile run. (Wow, that was really hard for me to even write.)

I’ve talked with a PT briefly. She completely figured out what happened. She asked about when it first acted up: “Was it raining?” Yes. “Was it cold?” Yes. “Were there any big hills?” Yes, just before my heel started hurting. She figured it was an overuse injury, and she told me to massage it and stretch it. I’ve done that twice this past week. I don’t know how much it’s helped. I think I’m going to try running in a few days, with maybe a 6 or 8 miler. Beyond that, I don’t know. My training after that run depends on how that run turns out.

If you have any advise on how to work through this, I’d LOVE to hear it. Please.

Because this has been a pretty depressing post, and I’m known for being the “eternally optimistic guy with the short shorts, gross feet, and crazy high metabolism,” I’ll leave you with something fun. Just over a week ago, one of the schools that I teach at hosted it’s first ever “80’s Ball.” I was asked if I could take photos of the couples (think “bad prom” photos aesthetic). So some students made some make-shift backdrops of Cyndi Lauper, David Bowie, and Richard Simmons. Here I am in a few photos with some students of mine:

I went as an 80s track star. Can you tell?




Some of my group


We’re in a nasty 80s gang. Don’t be hatin’ or we’ll mess you up.

Yeah, they’re a pretty fun group. The strange thing is none of them are old enough to even remember the 80s. Whatever.