8 WEEKS Till Columbus

    8 weeks left. Every time I say it I can't believe how fast time is going.  It seemed like yesterday I just started training for this race.  As of right now I believe I am going into this race in the best shape of my training and mentally more prepared than I have ever been.    This week had some high points and some very low points.

MONDAY:  As I was leaving work I noticed that my neck was bothering me.  Normally I would of used this day to just rest, but since I missed my long run from the week before I was in make up mode.  I headed out on my long run when I returned home from work and noticed my back and neck were going to hurt most of the run.  I pulled back and ran a very slow 15 miles.  The upside is I still got in the miles. The downside is my neck and back were in excruciating pain. Before bed I took a muscle relaxer and a pain pill to see if that would help.  It did help me sleep through the night but the pain was worse when I woke up on Tuesday morning.

TUESDAY:  After dealing with the pain all day at work I decided to go straight to the chiropractor and have him look at my back and neck.  When I arrived they took me in a room for a massage. This is the standard procedure here.  Now somewhere in the room there must of been some miss-communication, because what I said to the lady was:  "It hurts very bad and when I move my neck side to side the pain shoots down my back"   What she must of heard was "treat me like a rag doll and act like we are wrestling, the more pain you put me through the better I will feel."  This lady was dropping elbows on me like she was Hulk Hogan.  At one point I thought to myself do I tell her to stop or is this normal and I am just being a wimp. I still don't know the answer, but I can assure you this, next time it happens I am just saying pass on the massage.  The rest of the visit felt a lot better but when I left I didn't feel to much better.

WEDNESDAY:  As much pain as I was in I still decided to take a 6 mile run.  I actually loosened up on the run and was in very little pain.  My time was 51 minutes.  Unfortunately after the run when I was home the pain quickly came back and I was having trouble moving my neck at all.

THURSDAY:  Since the pain seemed to subside when I ran Wednesday I decided to run a 4 mile tempo run.  Once again the pain wasn't bad when I ran, but when I finished the pain was back and in full force.  I tried using a heating pad at night, but it didn't do much.

FRIDAY:  I decided to not run at all this day since Saturday I was running the Run Around The Square 5K.  I did do some light stretches that I thought would help my neck.  The pain wasn't to bad, but it was still there.

SATURDAY:  RUN AROUND THE SQUARE:  I will have a full recap of my race on Thursday for you.  When I woke up I felt pretty good and the pain wasn't to bad.  After I warmed up for a bit I felt really loose and was excited to see what I could do on the hard course.  It was humid that morning and I was sweating just from warm up and stretching.  I ended up running a time of 23:27. my pace was 7:23 per mile.  This is the pace I will need to be around for the Columbus Marathon if I want to get to Boston.  Here is the weird thing about this race.  I felt awesome the whole race. I held back a bit because I was afraid the trail would be slippery and I didn't want to risk falling and getting hurt.  I expected my time to be better, but with the humidity and hills I can understand why it was what it was.

SUNDAY:  Today is my wife's and I first anniversary. I was planning on not running anyway today since I have decided to go and get X-rays tomorrow after work about my neck and back.  I pray it is just a pinched nerve.  I will say this, It will take a lot more than this shit to hold me down.  So this week is going to have a long run to make up for this weekend, but I will stay on track.  Here are a few pictures of my wedding last year.

*Before I get to the pictures, please take the time to look at my 24 hour fund raiser page on my blog.  It is for a great cause and any donations help.