injury!

I've been running marathons since 2003 and only once during that time did I have to abandon training due to an injury: in 2005 when I was doing an 18 mile training run for the NJ Marathon my knee gave out at mile 10 and I could not run for quite some time (months!). Guess what? I'm training for the NJ Marathon again and I got injured again! Am I not meant to run this marathon??!! I am hoping this time the outcome will be different.

What happened was this...I ran 18 miles on Sunday with no problems. On Monday I ran 5 miles and at around mile 4 I started to experience pain in the arch of my right foot. By the time the 5 miles was up, I was experiencing serious pain and was happy I was done. I emailed my running club and posted on Facebook to seek suggestions regarding what might be wrong and what I should do. I was flooded with responses and was so grateful to everyone who took the time to write. The most popular suggestion was that I had plantar fasciitis. That night (Tuesday) I followed up on everyone's suggestions and spent much of the night treating myself. Wednesday night my massage therapist squeezed me in. She concluded that my calves were really tight as was the bottom of my foot, but that it had probably not yet progressed to plantar fasciitis! She feels with proper treatment I can continue training. Woo hoo!

I decided to take a few days off from running while I am treating myself. I feel like I've gained 10 pounds! I haven't run since Monday. I wish I had time for a 3 mile run on Friday but I don't think I do. However, I am going to attempt a 3-5 mile run on Saturday and see how things go. If they go well, I'm going to attempt 13 miles on Sunday. Cross your fingers...

The NJ Marathon is 6.5 weeks away. I've come way too far in training to let an injury get in the way! We'll see...