Uh, so remember just a couple weeks ago when I said I’m Back in the Game ? Yeah, well apparently I was lying.

Sadly, I can’t seem to get my knee pain under control, so I’ve been staying off the streets again and doing 100% of my running in the water.  (I logged TWO HOURS in the pool on Saturday….talk about wrinkly hands)

But as much as I’ve come to enjoy my time in the pool, this injury is frustrating, frustrating, frustrating. 

I go back to see my physical therapist this week, so hopefully he can figure out what’s going on.  Meanwhile, I’ll keep waterjogging and doing the elliptical. 

There’s a lot of questions going on in my head about the marathon in (ugh) 5 1/2 weeks.  Should I consider my race entry fee a donation and forego this marathon altogether?  Should I avoid doing any road running until race day (my doctor said she’s had friends do this with success)?  Should I do a jog/walk method?  Should I cut back to just the half marathon?  To me, there’s a HUGE difference in the jump from 13.1 to 26.2 miles.  I could run a half marathon today with this injury and not have any worries.  Sure it’d probably be painful, but I’d be done in 2 hours. 

Husband suggests that I should stick with the full marathon and just take my precious time. Walk when I need to, stop and do squats, don’t worry about the clock.  [He seems to have developed a keen understanding of how my mental state and 'pleasantness to be around' are affected in a negative way if I don't follow through with a running goal.] 

My concern with trying to run long training distances now is that I’ll hurt my knee worse and not be able to run the marathon at all.  But if I can just take it easy until then, I’m okay with running through the pain for 26.2 miles and fully recovering the rest of the summer.  I just need to keep focused on getting myself as prepared as possible to run for over 4 hours, without actually running that far beforehand.

Besides, I can make my new goal to just beat my current marathon PR (an awful 6 hours and something) and still come out of this feeling somewhat happy. Simple enough, right?  Ha.