Just a friendly reminder, it is the LAST DAY to enter my FlipBelt Giveaway! Don’t miss out!!

September is over.

I feel a little bad feeling excited about that, but it sure wasn’t my best month.

I figured I would share some of the highlights from September (the good and bad).


September Highlights
:

My Family Came to Visit

IMG 1710

I Narrowed my Marathon Selection Down to the Final Two

Marathon Selection

I FINALLY Sucked it Up and Cut My Hair

Hair Cut

I Learned to Set Non-Running Related Goals

Learned the Importance of Technology Free Running

 

September Lowlights: (just go with me here – I know that is made up.)

I Have a Femoral Stress Fracture

One Month of Unemployment

 

Great Product Reviews from September:

Honey Stinger Energy Chews

FlipBelt 

BIC Bands

 

Alright enough of that, time to move on to bigger and better things!

We said goodbye to September and now it is time to say hello to October!

Coming Up in October (Personally):
1. Traveling to NC for my husband’s first residency interview (Oct 7th)
2. Traveling to Chicago to cheer Wes on as he goes for a PR in the Chicago Marathon (Oct 13th)

Marathon Season

I love marathon season. Even if I can’t run – I will always love being his cheerleader!

3. Traveling to Washington D.C. for another cheering session for the Marine Corps Marathon (Oct 27th)
4. Job interview (phone interview scheduled for Oct 7th) – FINGERS CROSSED!!!
5. Cross training begins! (When my body tells me it’s ready)

Coming Up in October (Blog Related):
1. Sharing my cross training as I start my next stress fracture recovery stage
2. Several GREAT product reviews
3. Guest post from my husband
4. First video product review

Finally, I wanted to address a few of your concerns that I have received via email in regards to my recovery.

First, thank you for all the emails and comments! I love reading each and every single one.

1. Your training plan does not leave enough time to recover.

I realize that my training plan is an ESTIMATE.  I don’t know how long truly it is going to take me to come back from my injury, but I put together a plan to give me something to focus on. If it takes me 3-4 weeks before I can cross train then that’s how it will go. I won’t begin cross training until I no longer have ANY sort of pain in my leg.  I hope that it will be here in another week or so, but if it isn’t then that is OK.  I will be listening to my body and going slow I PROMISE. The last thing I want to do at this point is do anything that will hurt my body.

The only way I will have a chance of being ready for a May 2014 marathon is to go slow and completely recover form this stress fracture before I begin running again.

2. You should have seen this coming.

This is the comment I get the most in emails.  I want to give my opinion on this a little bit, for what it is worth at least.

In August as most of you know, I lost my job. I was averaging at this point about 45-50 miles per week. At this point I was really struggling emotionally and decided to use running as my focus and outlet.  I had already made the decision of my goal to qualify for Boston, but I saw this as an opportunity to really focus on this dream.

Tough Days

These pictures were taken the day I lost my job (left) and the day I knew something was wrong with my leg (right).

I went in too fast.  My husband warned me several times, but I was so mentally and emotionally drained from all that happened that I didn’t listen. (Yes babe, you were right!) He will love that. Running gave me an outlet and a joy that I needed, but I didn’t go about it the right way. I jumped from 45-50 miles per week to over 80. I tried to cut it down after my hip issue, but even running 70-75 miles per week was too much of a jump too quickly and wasn’t much of a cut down.

High mileage is not typically what injures people.  I fully agree with this statement.  The thing with high mileage is you need to be running most of the miles EASY. VERY easy.  You should not be running high mileage with a lot of speed work thrown in.  I knew I had to get faster and I knew I need to increase my base – why I decided to do both of these at the same time I will never know.  Looking back on it now I realize it was stupid, but at the time all I could think about was running and becoming even better.

Yes, I have learned my lesson.  I am mad at myself that it took a stress fracture to teach me that lesson.  I don’t think I can ever fully explain what running gave me during that first month or so of unemployment, but now that I have had time to think more realistically I see I went about it wrong. I know and realize that this injury was fully caused by my mistakes.

3. How are you going to change things when you come back?

The process of re-introducing running is going to be a slow slow process.  I have to use what I am learning from my mistakes and come back even better.

I will start out slow VERY slow and will stick to mostly soft ground in the beginning.

After I am fully recovered (yes, I have no idea how long this will be TOTALLY) I will work on my base. That means easy miles and VERY little if any speed work.

I will re-introduce speed work back in after a couple months.  When I re-introduce speed work into my schedule I will cut back my miles.

I will continue to focus on my core strength and make sure to do ab work at least 3 times per week.

That is what I have for now. It is constantly changing and honestly by the time I get to the point where I am running again, I will be able to see how my body is responding.  A very big key to my comeback is making sure I am listening to my body.

Again, thank you for all your comments and emails! Keep them coming! I love reading every single one.

What would you like to see on the blog in October? I love getting requests for posts from my readers!

Any big plans in October? Running any races? Brag a little!!

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