A post I didn’t want to write

Image by zingersb via Flickr

This is definitely a post I don’t want to write. Framing it in a slightly more positive light, my body has given me a new goal race… one that is four months away.

In my last post about this, I thought I was good to run the Ottawa Marathon. After taking a couple of weeks to recover from what I thought was a minor sprain, I began running again only to have the ankle swell back up and be twice as painful as before. I went to a chiropractor, who sent me to a sport med specialist, who sent me for x-rays and a bone scan.

At this point, I still don’t know what is wrong with my ankle. The results from the scan are not in yet, and so I wait to see: is it a really bad sprain or a stress fracture in my heel?

The last couple of weeks have been a rollercoaster of emotions to say the least. I’ve been preparing myself for the marathon since last fall, building my mileage up over the winter before formal training started. Eight months later, I get a pain in my ankle and that’s all over. The Chiro and specialist’s thoughts on the cause include a combination of being given the wrong shoes (apparently I should be in a neutral, not stability shoe) and rolling my ankle last year (which was really minor, but apparently can compromise the stability of the joint). This combined with the intensity and frequency of training made for the unhappy ankle.

They both tried to be optimistic, but after another set of yes and nos last week, I made the call: Ottawa’s out.

My decision came down to two facts:

1. This is not the race I wanted to run.

I want my first marathon to be awesome, even if I’m pleading for death by the end of it. I want to step up to that starting line knowing I put every ounce of effort I had into preparing for it and that I couldn’t have done anything more. I want to run it knowing my body is ready and to be able to strive for the goals I set for myself.

With my ankle, I’d have to do 10&1s (at most), and there is a good chance I would have to hobble off the course part way through. Add to that the fact that I’ve missed over a month of training and this just isn’t how I want to roll with the marathon.

2. I’m not willing to risk longer-term damage to my ankle.

There is that missing fact — what is wrong with my ankle? I won’t know before Sunday and I’m not willing to put my potential to run long term on the line for one race.

So I called up the hotel and cancelled my room reservation. The man on the other end said, “are you sure you want to cancel? We’re booked solid and there is no way you’d find a room again.”

Sigh. “Yes, I’m sure.”

I’m still heading up to the Ottawa Valley this weekend to visit with family and will go into Ottawa on Saturday for the expo (for the $100, I’m picking up my race kit and getting my t-shirt… should also pick up some neutral shoes).

I thought I’d be angrier about this, but I’m not. When I made the call, I felt relieved in a way – that it was decided and I could just deal with the situation and not be at the whim of whether this healed or not; worrying about whether I could finish or not. I think it’s easy for non-runners to dismiss it as “just one race.” But when you’ve been training six days a week for nearly a year, it’s not just a race.

Next week, training resumes in one way or another, and now I start preparing for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon. It was my first half marathon, it might as well be my first full marathon. There are some other details about training for STWM that I’m excited about, but I’ll save those for another post.

Before I sign off, I want to wish and all those from the Beaches Marathon Clinic who will be running Ottawa on Sunday, and all my other friends who will be running it, all the best – tear it up, and I can’t wait to hear about it on brag night!