Timing & Overreactions

Since I'm a few days removed from my half marathon experience... & actually completing a race, I figured a genuine post-mortem would help get my thoughts in order about the whole thing.

Let's start with timing. My trainer has beaten it into my head that my completion time, on an incredibly challenging course, was very good. She also educated me about "time." I had no idea there's gun time versus real time. Gun time is how fast you ran from the moment the race started. Real time is the time your chip actually crossed all the designated measurement lines; it's the time you actually spent running against yourself. So last night, I went hunting for my real time.

Um.... yeah. My real time is 2:30:19. On an exceedingly hilly course that hurt to run. I know I had a different time in mind, but I'm pretty happy with this result. When my trainer tells me I did awesome, I know I did awesome. Initially, I was numb to the entire experience... & disappointed that I didn't walk away *uninjured (see "Overreactions). But now, I feel like I did awesome. I think I needed a couple of days to process the entire thing before I could feel anything about it at all.

Now let's talk about overreactions. As I just said, I was disappointed to walk away with an "injury." For the past few days since the half, I've had extreme & acute pain on the top of my left foot that prevented me from walking normally. In fact, it was so bad towards the end of the half I ended up reverting to a heel strike just to be able to finish the race. I let it slide on Monday, figuring I needed some recovery time. When I woke up Tuesday, I was in the same amount of pain & decided it was time to see a doctor for a "peace-of-mind X-ray." Yeah, I do that. I headed over to the clinic, got my X-rays, & [naturally] discovered nothing broken in my foot. In fact, the doctor thought the same thing I thought initially: the timing chip banging against my foot for 13.1 miles probably caused some  deepdeepdeep bruising. And since my skin rarely ever shows bruising, I couldn't physically observe the bruising. Doc gave me a different mix of pain meds (instead of the routine Motrin) & sent me home with advice to ice the area.

If you don't already know, then let me tell you: I hate/loathe/despise icing. My muscles don't really respond to icing. I always feel better after heat. This is the first time icing has actually helped me. I'm glad I did it. The new mix of medication has helped immensly. I woke up this morning with discomfort, not real pain. In fact, I even thought I could do a light 2-3 mile run today... which I will if I still feel okay by the end of the day.

Will I run Saturday in my next half marathon attempt? I don't know yet. Thursday is the deadline to transfer my registration to next year, so I've decided to decide tomorrow. I want to give my body as much time as I can before I make a decision I can't change. What I do I want? I want to run. I want to know what I can do without the ridiculous hills. I also want to run with a good body, which is why I'm giving myself the chance to feel better.

Also, I need to stop overreacting.  ;D