Stopped

We are now at roughly 3 weeks of the marathon I choose on Maui, and I just took a full week out. And likely, next week will be -at least - cut in half.

That's not good.
But not as bad as it sound.

I am actually only really cutting one week of training, the last two weeks are what we call, the tapper weeks. Rest, transition and some time to build the will to run again. It is pretty common to overrun yourself during those intense race preparation and you come to the actual D-day tired and bored.

What happened ?

Well, my recuperation after my last long run did not end up as usually. It is typical to be sore and limping a bit the day after the long run. It is a serious hit on the body after all.
But this time, the pain persisted. Typical psoas sensitivy, right side, with flashes of pain, and some persistent limping. Nothing new. Like a clockwork, everytime I push, every time it comes to remind me to not to.

And this time, one of my blisters decided to not subside as well. I eventually decided to pierce it, and now, it hurts even more :)

Isn't my foot pretty ?
You see this blister. Well. It is painful actually.

Lessons:

- I am not yet cured of my psoas pain. Then I should not have stopped all my morning stretches, physical therapy exercises and strengthening of the core. The trigger is just higher, not relative to a couple of hours of running. Not too bad, but not enough, and still very annoying.

- I certainly over trained those last couple of weeks, or ran over my actual capabilities. this one minute drop, it looks like my fitness allows me to do it, but my body is not ready yet. Next time, I need to prepare one month before, and ease my entry into the very very long runs.

- I change both my way of running (Forefoot strike) and went crazy on super thin running shoes, i.e. "Racing Flats", i.e. Zero cushioning. "Vapor" they say. Well, I don't think my feet were ready. I rarely got blisters before those shoes, and I ran a lot too. My main issue is to find running shoes, shipped to Hawaii and in my size. Merrell makes good shoes, but they are very expensive on the shipping. They are out of the picture, I am switching to Pearl Izumi. They have a "natural" line of running shoes, do half-sizes (rare!) and can be found easily (so far) on Amazon.


Anyway, now I am left to cross-training, i.e. swimming and maybe some light surfing, until at least mid-next week. On top of screwing my training for the marathon, what I hate is that I am addicted. I did not run for 3 days now, and I really miss it. Not the long runs, I am not that masochist. But one hour here and there, at easy pace, that's good.
Very good.
Just have to remember this episode, and use that as a motivation for all the core exercises and yoga-stretching  practices. Who knows, it might help me to stick to it.
That's along post.
But, Hell, I am stopped.
Don't have anything else to do :)