Pain.

At what point do you "run through the pain"? At what point do you "take it easy"?

Those are the two questions I have been asking myself since I ran 21 miles three weeks ago on September 4th.

For a while now, I have been experiencing pain in my right foot. I have decided that it is most likely plantar faciitis since I have pain in my arch and heel at times. It has been going on since July, at least, but I have not mentioned it for fear of it actually being reality if I say something. Silly? YES!!

Anyway, I have been working extra hard on resting my foot, wearing tennis shoes as often as possible with inserts, and stretching the area. I took a week off since I could not walk right for about 3 days. Since then, I eased into the running, and it has been going okay. At least, I can walk after my longer (+6 mile) runs. However, I am still freaked out by it.

I had 23 miles on the schedule for today, but I just could not mentally do it. Plus, my foot was hurting. So, I did 8 miles and then picked up 2 more with the dog for a total of 10 miles. Then, I mowed the lawn (about 20 minutes).

Luckily, my foot was not nearly as bad as it was on the 21 mile day, but it was still enough to freak me out. I really do not want to get hurt before the marathon, but I am scared that if my only 21 miler was on September 4th and race day is October 17th that the time is too far apart.

I am going to make the runs over the next three weeks SOLID runs, and I will most likely add to the miles for this next week since they assume I actually ran 23 miles today.

I will be okay, but I wanted to post this as a way of clearing my head. Thanks for reading!