Happy Monday, party people! I have a quick update on my hip pain situation I wrote about in my week 7 marathon training update. The long and the short of it is that I am feeling almost 100% better and was able to complete my scheduled long run this weekend. Keeping in mind that I am NOT a medical professional but have had my fair share of minor injuries, I wanted to share the strategies I use to help keep my training on track.
- Understand that minor aches and pains are an inevitable part of marathon training. I can’t stress this one enough–marathon training is a lot on any body and little tweaks and pains are part of the process. Try to stay in tune with what’s going on, and if anything lasts more than a day or two, gets worse instead of better, or is a sharp pain (versus a dull/achey pain) then take the steps you need to in order to take care of it. Running through something painful will make it worse, not better.
- Do the easy things first. When something falls into the category of “beyond the daily aches and pains,” use your resources before immediately jumping to seeing a professional. More often than not, they’ll tell you to do the following, so if you’re feeling like it’s not serious it can help to try these things yourself instead of wasting time and money getting the same advice from a doctor:
- Take time off. More on this below.
- Ice! I keep a reusable icepack in the freezer and will bring it to work and ice on and off all day if I’m treating an injury.
- Take an antinflamatory–if you have concerns about this one, obviously check with a doc first, but last summer my doctor told me to take ibuprofen every 6 hours to bring down inflamation and it really helped both then and this hip business.
- Foam roll! I foam roll almost every day, but when I’m working with an injury I try to roll every morning and evening (as long as it isn’t too painful). Foam rolling is a really great preventative care technique. I have one of these for my quads/glutes/IT bands and one of these, which I use mostly for my calves.
- Stretch! I find both yoga and stretching to be really helpful for both treatment and prevention.
- Rest, rest, REST. It can be really, really hard to take time off from running, but taking extra rest days is absolutely essential to keeping your training on track. I took Thursday and Friday off last week and was able to complete my 17 mile long run pain-free on Saturday morning.
- Use online resources (with great caution). The internet can be a scary place if you’re injured–there’s lots of gloom and doom out there about “runner’s knee” and other vauge/unhelpful diagnoses for aches and pains. While I am super duper cautious about taking advice from Dr. Google, I was able to look up some helpful diagrams to zero in on which hip muscle was bothering me and find a stretch to target it directly. So use your resources with a heavy dose of cynicism, and always ask a professional if you’re at all unsure.
- Prevent it from happening again. It’s easy to get lazy after an injury feels better, but it’s even easier to re-injure something that you’re not taking care of. This is why, for example, I foam roll every day and do yoga twice a week even when I’m injury-free. Better to take the time now and not have to disrupt my training later on!
How do you listen to your body and prevent running injuries?
Linking up with Patty, Erika, and Marcia for Tuesdays on the run!
So… this update has to start off with a little bit of less than awesome news. During my run on Wednesday I felt something funny tweak in my hip, and since then I’ve been dealing with some soreness in what I think is my TFL (tensor fasciae latae). I was supposed to run a local 5k today but I’m going to take today and tomorrow off in order to hopefully get things back in order in time for my long run this weekend. Here’s hoping ice, foam rolling, ibuprofen, and stretching will do the trick!!
In order news, I had a lovely and relaxing long weekend in Maine with my mom. Even though she lives down the street it’s always nice to get to spend some really good quality time together, complete with reading, lake swimming, and some late season strawberry picking. She even set an early alarm on Saturday to take a bike ride while I did my long run! Be sure to 
We arrived Friday to pick up our bibs at the expo, which wasn’t much to speak of but it was a good chance to get a sense of where the starting line was. After a delicious dinner at the original 
Given the amazing conditions and the fact that I was feeling strong, I figured I might as well shoot for the moon and give a PR a whirl, especially as the showers picked up and despite the hard effort I wasn’t hot or sweaty. I picked a couple of strong-looking folks to pace behind and held onto decent paces–and then started doing math in my head which led to me believe that a couple of fast final miles would lead me to PR. I dug deep and ran a 7:09 and a 7:03 for miles 12 and 13. 
Despite my watch saying differently, I clocked an official time of 1:40:29–two seconds slower than my PR, 12th in my age group and 45th woman overall. Not PR-ing was a little bit of a letdown, but this race felt relatively easy and I’m pleased to see that I was able to hold onto my time without my brother there as a pacer, like he was at the 
Greetings from another week of marathon training–I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! Jeremy was out of town hiking the last of the 48 4000+ ft. mountains in NH (and he did it–YAY J!) so I had a quiet start to the weekend with a solo 14 miler. It definitely was my best training run so far this season–everything really just clicked for me and I felt strong and happy the whole time. It helped that it was a gorgeous morning with temps in the 60s the whole run. I’m really loving running on the Boston marathon route, since it takes me out into my hometown and works a few hills into my training.
I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing holiday weekend! I was thrilled to be in town after so much traveling–and doing my 14 miler on familiar turf didn’t hurt either (more to come in the weekly recap on Thursday). I finish up my first summer course on this week, which means I have one weekend of freedom without having to worry about school before my next class starts up. Of course, we’re going to be out of town–first heading to Portland, ME for a 
Hard to believe it, but I’m recapping the first full month of Chicago Marathon training! (Click here for my recaps of weeks 
After a busy couple of months of weddings, racing, and travel, I finally got up to my favorite place in the world this weekend–my family’s little cabin in Maine. My favorite thing to do up there? Absolutely nothing 🙂 Just a whole lot of sitting by the lake, reading, swimming, and hanging out with the fam. We actually had a little bit of unexpected excitement when we discovered a family of flying squirrels had nested inside our roof, so there was a lot of running around and some nasty clean out. Never a dull moment…
For me, the two most essential pieces of marathon training are getting in at least one “hard” workout and one “long” run every week. Beyond that, there is some flexibility–and you have to live your life and do what’s right for you. That said, marathon training is a commitment and takes a ton of time, energy, and planning. Especially at the beginning, it’s incredibly important to set yourself up for success by creating a routine of good habits. If you start off by skipping runs and slacking on workouts, you’ll pay for it later on (been there done that!) Like all good things in life, it’s all about finding the balance that works for you.
I absolutely loved 
Fun fact: I grew up so close to the Boston Marathon route that I could watch the race from my bedroom window. Other than the years I was away for college, I’ve spectated at pretty much every race. Even before running became a part of my life, I knew there was something really special about Marathon Monday. So when I had the opportunity to participate in this year’s race as a hydration station volunteer with my marathon training buddies (
Overall, volunteering was incredible. You get to be up close and personal with the race participants (I saw pretty much every runner friend I was looking for–definitely a first) and you’re providing a critical service. Everyone was so lovely and appreciative of our help!!
The nutty part is that the photo of him being carried across the finish line went viral 
Shorter and Faster 