So way back in April I signed up to run the Hospital Hill Half Marathon here in downtown Kansas City. It has always been one that I have always wanted to run because it is such a challenging course. I mean, this is no flat course, just hills, and the very last mile of the 13.1 you run is a straight up incline. We are talking running up a flight of stairs kind of incline. So I was excited to start training for this race.
But then, shortly after my last 5K race, I started noticing significant leg pain on my left leg during my long runs. First it would start around mile 6 and it would hurt so bad that would have to limp/walk the rest of the way home. And then it would happen sooner and sooner and before long I couldn't even run a mile without this unbearable pain. I would come home from my morning runs just in tears from frustration and worry. I finally saw my Dr.(who is a runner himself) and he scheduled an MRI for my leg. I ended up having severe swollen IT band and have to have physical therapy and do a lot of stretching to help get my leg back to normal. I am so very thankful that it wasn't anything worse and that this is easily fixed, but it had me really worried about running this race.
After meeting with my Dr. and discussing my many options he ended up giving me a steroid shot in my left knee and told me to just take it easy on my race. As long as I kept up with stretching 3x a day and did my daily strength training, he thought that my leg would be just fine for the run.
We woke up Saturday morning at 5am and it was completely down pouring outside. I kept checking social media to see if they were going to postpone or cancel the race but they kept saying the race was still on. I wasn't at all worried about the rain, just more nervous about the thunder and lightning than anything. Since we had to drag our four little children out with me(seriously they are the most amazing cheerleaders I could ever have!!) Wayne just dropped me off in front of the starting line. That way he and the kids can go get breakfast and stay dry till I got closer to the finish line. They ended up postponing the race till 7:30 but finally it kicked off and we were on our way!
Since the weather was so crappy they told everyone at the starting line that if you only wanted to run the 10K and not the full half that you could and you would still get all of your finisher stuff. That sounded so incredibly tempting to me since I was so worried about how my leg was going to feel for this race. I seriously took off 2 weeks of running with just a few short and easy runs in between. So I just decided that during this race I wasn't even going to look at my watch to see what pace I was running. I was just going to listen to my body and just take it as easy as I could and finish.
And you know what? This was absolutely one of my favorite race. It went by so extremely fast and I felt amazingly great the whole time. Mile 10 is usually the time where I am done. All of me. And I am just begging myself that you can do this for 3 more mils, for 2 more miles... But this race, I felt great. My knee would ache from time to time but nothing too bad and I never stopped once. I even finished in 1:51:02 which surprised me. I thought for sure it would take me over 2 hours. But I am proud that I was able to accomplish this goal!
After the race I immediately went and had my leg stretched out and iced it for as long as I could. I get to start physical therapy next week and I am excited to get back to my running routine. I really have missed it!
And rest assure that I am in no hurry to run another half marathon anytime soon. I think my body is telling me that I might need to slow things down a bit. But that doesn't mean that I wont be running another 5K or 10K anytime soon either! ;)
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