Pain: Apparently, It Is My Destiny

So, five weeks into my training for the Avenue of the Giants Marathon, in Humboldt County, CA and lets go through my list of resulting physical defects: dual shinsplints that feel like multiple fractures, near debilitating and stride altering lower back pain (caused by poor form while tree limb hauling), ITB syndrome in the right knee, runner's knee in the left, a multitude of dead toenails and one devastatingly fractured ego.  I believe that when you add all of these up and figure in that, somehow, I am still continuing to find ways to log 40-55 miles a week, there may be a lesson in perseverance. However, I am mostly searching for motivations to stop feeling so ticked off.

Honestly, the most frustrating element to these weaknesses is that they have arrived unfairly and undeserved. To explain, while I have eaten mostly unbalanced and not quite nutritiously for most of my active life, this time around, I have cut out most of the fat, astoundingly reduced sugar, significantly increased my lean proteins and have improved the quality of carbohydrates while drinking enough water to legibly write my first fand last name on the wall. Plus, after thorough consultation with both the Runner's World injury prevention issue and my friend Maria - the athletic trainer at the college I work at - I have iced, foam rolled, E - STEM ed, modified training and ibuprofen like a maniac with the wild hope of saving myself from these sufferings. Yet, carrying my four and two year old girls down the stairs induces enough pain to see stars.

But what am i going to do? I'll tell you exactly what I am going to do: I am going to get up tomorrow morning at 4:50am, after I have hit the snooze twice, put on the long sleeve, take my vitamins and pain killers, slide on my shin/calf compression sleeves, lace up the Asics, run the easy 6.25 that's on my training schedule and remarkably feel strong, energized and good about myself for the rest of the day.