A detour and a slight rerouting prevents a derailment

I gave in today and saw Nanette the PT about my continued knee pain. I told her I had self-diagnosed myself with the IT band ouchy thing and I had been doing stretches, ice, NSAIDS, etc. but needed to make sure I was on track. She wanted to take a look to see if I was doing the right stretches.

You should be doing this. Check.
And this. Check.
And this. Check.
And get a foam roller and use that every day. Check.

So, I am doing everything I needed to do. Glad about that. She put another one of those cortisone patches on my knee. Remember those? She suggested getting a few more next week.

I'm laying off tomorrow. I know that if I can't walk down the hall without discomfort, then I do not need to be running 16 miles all over Shelby Farms. Or even 1 mile for that matter. So, rest it is. I'm ok with that. Because I know that I've got to back off when I'm hurting. I have got to listen to my body. There's just some pain you can't push through, nor should you. I've learned that.

George if you're reading this, you should probably quit at this point. Nanette also suggested that I alter my training plan a little bit. I can't run 5's and 9's during the week and then take on a long run on the weekend. My body just can't keep up. And it shouldn't take an entire week to recover from the weekend's long run. All I really want to do is run and have fun doing it. It shouldn't hurt all the time. Nanette said the main goal from this point forward is to help my body recover and stay healthy. She assured me I was on track and could remain on track even with this detour and rerouting.

Now don't get me wrong, George is a great coach. He is patient (Wow is he patient. He has probably wished more than once that he never talked me into doing this marathon thing....) and he is encouraging and I think he's proud of his peeps. He totally knows his stuff. He's a REAL. RUNNER. For Pete's sake, he's running the Boston Marathon next weekend. Again. And he's already qualified to run it in 2009 too. If you will remember, he says things like "a nice little 15-miler" and "I like hills". He's run 23 some-odd marathons in just 4 years. He. Is. A. Runner. And I'm not. And I'm not trying to say he's totally killing me with this training schedule. Well, maybe that IS what I'm trying to say.

The long and the short of it is, I am going to have to slightly rewrite my training plan to accommodate my body. If I don't, I don't think I will be able to hold up. I didn't enter this challenge as a runner. I didn't enter this challenge to become a runner. I remind all of my faithful readers what my goals are for the marathon: (1) to raise money and awareness for the Leukemia Society, (2) to honor and remember my Daddy, (3) to finish in a vertical position. And at this point, I am on track to do all those things.