Does a marathon training block ever go as planned? I don’t think so, but even if it does, will the race play out perfectly? No! We are talking about the marathon, the event that grabs a part of your heart and fills it with love or stomps it into a million pieces. A marathon demands respect, not perfection.

I’ve had a few glimmers of hope over the past week. A run where the spring and power in my right leg felt normal again. A “long run” of 11 miles which is the farthest I’ve gone in a month (though my leg didn’t feel great the rest of the day). And a hilly trail 9.4 miles where I kept my breathing labored for almost an hour straight. It was the fastest running and most hills I’ve done since my big glute flareup and I had no pain. The run gave me hope that I can run my marathon, less than 4 weeks away now, as long as things keep improving or at least don’t get worse!

I’ve missed a good 3 weeks of training, plus 2 weeks before the big flareup where I couldn’t get my workouts or long runs done the way they were prescribed. My last 4 weeks have looked like this:

4 weeks ago: 59 miles, 1 workout (10×2 min hard, 2 min easy) + half marathon DNF due to flareup.

3 weeks ago: 12 miles, 4 days no running, then all easy miles

2 weeks ago: 33 miles, all easy runs

last week: 54 miles! 11 mile “long run”, 9.4 hilly (800ft gain) trail miles at 7:37 pace avg.

I was really surprised to end the week at 54 miles last week and feel better than I have in 6 weeks. I’m feeling hopeful about being on that start line in just under 4 weeks, and it would be great to have a solid marathon performance, even if it isn’t as fast as originally planned. No buildup is perfect and this setback definitely set me back more than I expected. I’m just going to give this marathon the respect it deserves.