The Mental Challenge

So yes, some of you may have read about my fall during my 18 miler (read previous post). But let me tell you, with all of this pain in my knee, that was half the struggle. I kept thinking in my head "Why in the world did you sign up for a marathon?" And then...the greatest..."Rachel, you are running 18 miles. This isn't 26.2 with hills. You still have 8 more miles with hills in your marathon." I know...take it one chunk at a time. But seriously, what was I thinking?! I asked Amanda this as my brain started to sidetrack from the main goal and she said , "It will be much better when your knee isn't hurting." Well, given the fact that my knee is hurting, I think I'm stuck with biting the jaw (which you should soon look for a trip to the doc for "jaw pain" as I have been biting it pretty hard) and running through it. Well, Amanda then said something along the lines of "it is fun and we can do it." I don't remember exactly what was said...but I was so frustrated with my knee and feeling sick that I said "We are crazy." Officially crazy. Who runs 26.2 miles for fun?! And especially when your knee feels like it should be sawed off!? Oh yes...this crazy one here. Yep...I'm not stopping.

And yes...I went to the doctor last week because my physical therapist was sick and decided to use the time wisely. The doctor took a look at my knee and said, "Yep, you are still okay to run, you just have chronic tendonitis" and then he mumbled something about how he could shoot cortizone in my IT band and it might help but that he couldn't do anything for the pain in the front of my knee. So I chose to opt out of the cortizone and continue through the pain. Which as you read, was pretty much pain-less until the tail end of my 18 miler. But when the pain sets in...it isn't like a gradual pain. It is more like...bite your jaw as hard as you can pain. Actually, I don't know where the jaw thing started. I never used to bite down hard on my jaw but I guess I've never really experienced anything like this. The doctor did tell me to scale back on my miles, but I don't think he realized I only have a month left. And I'm already scaled back quite a bit. So I guess I'll just trudge on. And come to really dread that 20-miler creeping up in a few weeks...

But nonetheless...I will be happy when it is all done.

If I can still stand.

I sound like such a drama queen and honestly...I'm not. I'm just chronicling my journey and figure that someday when I run completely pain free--I can be extremely grateful.