Let me preface this post by saying that in early July I stepped on a rock while running in my racing flats and bruised/ injured my posterior tibialis tendon pretty severely. Severe enough, in fact, that once I came out of denial and finally went to see a doctor (6 weeks later, don’t be like me) she gave me a splint and said no running for 4 weeks. Luckily the injury wasn’t a stress fracture and had a pretty clear path to recovery.

Right where the arrow points is where the rock hit my poor tendon.

For the next four weeks I swam. Not only lots of laps, but so much water jogging was done. Easy water jogging. Hard water jogging. Intervals of water jogging. Don’t be fooled… because water jogging is HARD. Once I was cleared to start running (after 4 weeks and a few PT sessions) I was allowed to start in one minute increments. Then two minutes. Then four! Eventually building up to 20 minutes straight. This meant my longest run on ground within 2 months was about 10 miles before heading to Indianapolis for the Indy Women’s Half Marathon in mid September. Normally I’d be getting double digits twice a week for at least a few weeks before tapering down!

Knowing this wouldn’t be any type of PR race, I decided to head there the day before by myself, and fly back right after the race to still have some weekend time with my family. Once I got there, I found a YMCA and left my stuff to go and get a shake out run before I found some food. I decided on the best donut I’ve ever had… Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jelly and some handmade Tamales from the Indianapolis City Market. Worth it!

After lunch I headed to the expo, which was about a mile away. Since I was alone I made the (very unwise, as I’d find out tomorrow morning) decision to walk. The expo was really small, but also had everything you needed there. Then it was off to the grocery store for breakfast supplies, which was on the way to my Airbnb. Again, I walked. Don’t do what I did. Stay off your feet as much as possible the day before a race… even if you’re not racing it hard!

The rest of the evening I lounged at my Airbnb, ate pizza, set up my race outfit and watched Netflix. Not a bad evening!

Race morning dawned hot and humid. Great! I was hoping it would be a surprisingly cool morning, but it wasn’t. I didn’t even need my throwaway long sleeve shirt for my warmup jog. I left the Airbnb to jog over (it was about a mile from the start) and was already pretty sweaty by the time I got there. This wasn’t boding well. I finished up my warmup jog, hit the port-o-potties and awaited the start. The good thing was there were plenty of bathrooms and gear check was easy!

With my injury, but also being in the middle of marathon training (heyyy NYC!) this race was to be used more as a progressive long run. I was to start at just slower than marathon pace (about 7:50) and build to threshold pace by the end (7:00).

Start line! We started just as the sun was rising.

And… boom! Start! Miles one and two were right on the scheduled paces, but the effort already felt way too hard for how early in the race it was. The past 6 weeks, most of my workouts had been indoor… in a humidity and temperature controlled environment. Both of these were already effecting me negatively and I still had 11 miles to go! Mile three I slowed down a few seconds, while swearing my effort was picking up and assuming my pace was as well.

Try as I might, I couldn’t speed up. Each mile was consecutively slower. It became a “just don’t stop and walk” type of race.

It seems that my “bad” races these days have me finishing right around 1:50 in time. This is still a great half marathon time! In fact it’s faster than my first three half marathons! Even then, with my jog cooldown back to the Airbnb it was the first time getting into solid double digit mileage in months and I ran with no pain (even though I had my brace on!). That was something to be celebrated.

Just the fact that I could even run this race at all, no matter the outcome, was a celebration! I was healing and on my way to running healthy again full time.

Another state down, and closer to my goal! Next up is the NYC marathon!

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