Running drama continues

What a year it has been, back last Christmas I decided to run all of the marathons of Mnnesota and it seemed like a really good and doable plan to get my running back on track. Well, I got off track before the first one with the meniscus tear and have proceeded into all the marathons thus far in pain. I have added an additional goal to be pain free for all of the remaining ones at least at the start line :-). Here is my summary on the first 6 of 12:

1. Run for the Lakes - Meniscus tear 6 weeks ahead of it, had cortisone shot a few days ahead of it and used the Galloway method which got me to the finish
2. Lake Wobegon - Tried the same process but had too much pain and was afraid of doing more damage so I dropped at 18 miles
3. Med City - Dropped down to the 1/2 and hobbled through it with the hope that if it went well then proceed to Minneapolis
4. Minneapolis - Had knee surgery 2 days ahead of it so my plan was a DNS, then they canceled the race for thunderstorms.
5. Grandmas - Decided to try it with 2 short runs behind me, ended up making it but there was a bit more to the story no known damage done.
6. Eugene Curnow - Chose to not start to give the knee some recovery as I was having too much pain running trails.

Which brings us to my next marathon the St. Paul Urban Trail which is now just 2 weeks away. My plan was to start this one without pain and enough training to make it enjoyable.

All was going ok (although not great) as I worked my mileage up. During this training, I have come to realize that my knee pain is gone but occasionally I step funny and it feels like it wobbles which causes some intense pain. I am pretty sure this is by product of not having any functional medial meniscus left. I have been working to strengthen the muscles around it but it's still a bit of a learning process. Trail running is the toughest so Moose Mountain might take a little longer than I would like.

Well like I said all was going well until last Thursday I ran in Lebanon and then played softball. The run in LH tweaked the knee and then at softball as I was rounding third I landed on my left foot and had immediate pain in my heal. I hobbled on and finished the games but between the knee wobble and the heel pain, it wasn't much fun. Unfortunately the next day I couldn't bear any weight on that leg at all. I debated going to get it looked at but figured it would just waste my time. I was able to walk kind of by putting on a shoe. Without the shoe, no way.

Today was my first attempt at a run and it worked sort of, I am still not pain free by any stretch but I was able to run in LH using a run-walk method. I did have a few wobbles so that still needs some work and I tried to not let the heel hit the ground which may be a problem on longer runs.

So tomorrow I will try to run longer (somewhere between 12 and 20 miles) (amended on 8/10, wasn't able to run, biked 20 miles instead) and then continue to get into a daily running habit over the next week and then hopefully I will be able to do the marathon. Ideally I will be pain free by then and have just enough training to finish under their 6 hour cut-off.

One other thing, since Minneapolis got canceled which means I couldn't complete my goal of running all of the Minnesota outdoor marathons, I have decided to not run Bemidji and instead will plan to do the 50k at Surf the Murph.

That way I can start feeling like an ultra runner again. Of course I will need to finish it to get that feeling which means I have to get over these injuries and not have any more. That sounds so simple but for me has been so hard.