After Vegas 70.3 Worlds, I had two more races planned for the year. The olympic-distance MightyMan in Montauk, NY and the Rev3 Half Full 70-mile distance in Columbia, Maryland. Unfortunately neither of them happened for me.
Shortly after Vegas, I began feeling a slight pain in my left shin and knee. I started by working on it myself, thinking it was just muscle tightness, and easing up on my running for about a week but it only got worse. I went to see my Active Release Technique doctor about a week before Montauk and he sent me for an MRI to rule out a stress fracture. The test was on the Friday before the race and I wouldn't get the results back until after the weekend. I played with the idea of racing anyway, but not knowing if it was broken, I knew I had to let it go. Missing that race was a big disappointment but I still had hopes of making it to the start line in Maryland a week later.
On Sunday night I found out it's just shin splints. This news allowed me to fool myself for a week that I'd be fine to race the following weekend. I thought if I gave it another week of rest, I'd be fine by the following Sunday. I took a short, 2-mile jog to the doctor's office on Friday. We were going to apply some kinesio tape to help me run through the injury, but by the time I got there, I was almost in tears with pain. Game over.
My season began with an injury. After running the Boston Marathon in April, I discovered I had torn a muscle in my foot and was unable to run for about six weeks. I believe this affected my running all season, as I never quite got back up to the speed I had at the end of last year and going into the marathon. I finally felt like a runner at Timberman 70.3 in August, but I know now that doing Timberman only hurt me in Vegas, which should have been my real focus, it being a World Championship race and all.
What I need to remind myself of is that I also had some good races. Despite not running for about six weeks, I won my age group at Syracuse 70.3 at the end of June. I also won the Mighty North Fork sprint overall for the second year in a row (and a minute faster than the previous year). I won my age group by over 10 minutes (and set a new PR of 4:54) at Timberman. I had been trying to go sub-5:00 in a half ironman race for years and finally did.
I could dwell on the torn muscle, tick infestation, sun poisoning (see previous post) and shin splints or I could be proud of myself for the small victories in spite of all that. It's all a matter of perspective.
It's officially off season for me. The crisp Autumn air and falling leaves have me excited to do some leisurely rides on my road bike. No power meter, no agenda. I love running this time of year, but I also truly enjoy running in the winter and I think a few weeks' break will do my body good in many ways. Let's be honest...I can't worry too much about losing my run fitness if I feel like I never quite had it.
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