Otter Does Life

Marathon is a no go, but I feel awesome

Decided to do a test run tonight to see how my foot feels, and the verdict kinda sucks. Definitely something not right in there. Not sure what, but I’ll be calling my doctor tomorrow to talk about it. The good news is that it feels more like something’s just stiff, whereas a couple weeks ago it was absolutely fine except when it felt like someone had stabbed my foot. So, y’know, progress? Or something.

There’s a definite silver lining though. Y’see, two years ago when I had to skip what was supposed to be my first half marathon due to a late injury, I felt defeated. I’d really been looking forward to proving I could do it, and suddenly that was taken away.

Same situation two years later… yes, I’m disappointed and frustrated, but not defeated at all. I’m really just annoyed because I put all this time and effort into training and now I’m going to miss out on the race. But I don’t feel like I need to prove anything to anyone — even to myself.

What I realised tonight is that finally, I really do believe in my own abilities (at least in regards to running). I don’t know everything I can do, but I know I can do a hell of a lot, and that includes running a marathon. I’m a slow runner, but frankly, I’m an awesome slow runner. I can do — and have done — amazing things. I don’t need a shiny medal to tell me that.

Marathon at risk = me bummed

So I’ve been taking it easy the last couple weeks because my foot’s been quite sore when I run, and I’ve been hoping that not running for a while would help it not be sore. To a certain extent, it’s definitely not helping — my foot is sore in exactly the place that was sore before. The only question is, is it the same soreness? Or is it an artifact of the way I sit at my computer?

I had almost no soreness at all on my run a couple days ago, and I was pretty relieved, but it’s definitely been more sore since then. I’ve also been really focused on getting a lot of code done for the last couple days, which means more time sitting at the computer, and my natural “sit at computer and think” pose seems to involve leaving that foot kinda twisted.

Side note: I have no idea why I end up sitting the way I do when working on the computer. My posture isn’t bad so much as bizarre. OK, and bad. Every once in a while my brain will pop out of coding mode and I’ll notice how I’m sitting and be all, “What the hell? How did I end up like this?”

Anyway. I really, really, really don’t want to miss out on my first marathon. I’m going to be super pissed if I get out and run 10k and then have to drop out. I’d be even more pissed if I just sat it out and then realised that I could have run it anyway and I was just being a whiny mofo. So I guess I’ll go out and try to run it and see how far I get.

But I’m still pissed off. Stupid body.

Apparently I’m dumb

I’ve been avoiding weighing myself in for a while because I’ve known what’s coming and I’m embarrassed (and more than a little depressed) by it, but tonight I decided to make myself confront the ugly truth. I was prepared for anything up to 220, but I was hoping it would be no worse than 215… Frankly, even all the way up to 225 wouldn’t have shocked me (although I honestly might have cried at having regained half the weight I lost a few years ago).

207 lbs. Which, y’know, +14 from two years ago, so that sucks. But -5 from 3 months ago is… WTF? How the hell did that even happen? 

I’ve been interpreting my eating over the last few months as being the same patterns that led to me weighing over 260 pounds a few years back, and it’s been depressing the hell out of me because I damn well know better than to do that. But with having managed to actually lose weight anyway, I guess I need to re-evaluate.

What I think has really been going on is that marathon training has upped my metabolism far beyond what I expected. I know how much I used to eat when I lost 60 pounds in 5 months, and I was setting my expectations based on that (plus enough to offset the calories burned during runs — I’m not dumb!). But my resting burn rate has obviously gone up, so what used to be a great portion size is now significantly too small — so every time I tried to eat “properly” I was actually starving myself. I know from experience that if I undereat for too long, my brain gets dumped into stupid mode and I start inhaling any food I can find.

So, after the marathon, I’ll need to come up with a new diet plan to try to hit the same balance I found two years ago. Hopefully with this new knowledge I’ll be able to get it sorted out and get closer to where I want to be.

Edit: Oh, and I might as well do 4n4 while I’m at it! Starting weight 207, need to lose 8.28 pounds. I now have hope that I can do this! And it would sure make me happy to be back in Onederland… :-)

I haven’t forgotten how to run!

I’ve basically taken the last two weeks off to try to avoid aggravating my sore foot, but I’ve found that most of the time when I take a break, the first run back kinda sucks, and I didn’t want that to be the marathon! So I went for a quick 3k run this morning.

First thing I noticed was that as soon as I put on my newer running shoes (the ones I’ve done all my training with) my foot started to hurt. I guess that answers that question! So off came those shoes, and on came my older shoes that I did most of my running in last year. They’re still in good shape, and don’t seem to cause the same pain in my foot, so I guess I’ll be using those on Sunday. :-)

I started out pretty strong but I was pretty wiped out by the end. I think I’ll go for the same sort of run tomorrow to see how everything feels, then it’s three days off and then the marathon. Eep!

6 days…

6 days from now I’ll be finished my first marathon. I’ll probably be asleep, actually. Probably in a lot of pain. Possibly sunburnt, although I will certainly remember sunscreen this time.

Looking forward to it.

I no can haz exercise :-(

Well, maybe I’ll go for a super-short bike ride tonight to pick up the monsters. But that’s it. My foot’s not hurting any more but I’m not going to take a chance on hurting it 10 days before my marathon, so no running for me. Middle of next week I’ll probably try a couple short runs just to remind my body that, yes, I do still expect it to do shit. If I can stop being distracted I might go to the gym and lift weights tomorrow.

Speaking of distractions — I’m getting a ton of crap done in my videogame today! I’m very excited about this game. I’m getting close to the point where there’ll be some actual, y’know, game in my game. So far all I’m doing is generating a bunch of random terrain, which is a neat technical challenge and all but not much fun for other people to play with. It’ll be nice to get beyond that to the point where it starts being an honest-to-goodness game, even if it is going to be a pretty goofy game.

Ha ha, very funny universe

I swear, it feels like someone managed to put broken glass in my foot. Not when I walk (it’s pretty much back to normal now) but when I was running earlier? Hoo boy. 26k got cut down to 21, then 11.5 (plus 3k walk). I was fine for the first 10k, but then my foot started to twinge, and then it kinda went away only to come back big time later.

It’s in the middle of my foot, between the bones leading to the baby toe and the one beside it. Every step when I was running, it kinda felt like someone was taking their thumb and grinding it into that spot as hard as they possibly could.

Luckily (maybe?) there’s only two weeks left until the marathon, and it’s time to start tapering anyway. So instead of tapering I’m going to just stop running for the next two weeks and hope it goes away. Unless anyone has any better ideas…?

Anyone from Seattle…

Anyone from Seattle (or knowlegeable about Seattle) know of any races from Aug 31 to Sep 2? I’ll be in town for PAX, and it would amuse me greatly to do a race while I’m there… :-) So. Any ideas?