My Road to Boston continues

I had my second appointment with my physical therapist and she said I could start running again! She had me run on the treadmill for about 10 minutes and I didn’t have any pain.

While I was running and walking at various speeds she checked my cadence and my arm swing. My cadence is around 80 foot strikes per minutes and I should be doing 90. The theory being that the less time I spend with a foot on the ground the less impact there is on that leg.

I was surprised to learn that some people have an asymmetrical cadence. This means that they spend more time on one foot than the other. They may end up with a cadence of 85 left and 80 right. I found this hard to comprehend at first but it does make sense. My cadence was even so I don’t have to worry about that.

In addition to my one legged squats she gave me some additional leg exercises to help with my leg alignment.

Tomorrow I will start with 10 minutes on the treadmill at a reasonable pace, probably my marathon pace of 9 minute miles. Then I will go on the elliptical for 30 minutes and do some core work.

Moving forward

I have a half marathon in 12 days. I may be able to get a few 5Ks in before then, but nothing close to 13.1 miles. I’ll have to use the next twelve days to build up my miles slowly. My Half PR is 1:45, but I will hope for a 2 hour half and no knee pain.

I’m hoping that my work on the elliptical has helped to maintain some of my strength and cardio. I’ll start doing my squats and lunges again and maybe some burpees. I’ve got to be careful.

My marathon training program is totally shot now. Even figuring in my elliptical miles, I am so far off from where I should be right now. It would not be safe to try and make up for lost time and miles, so I have to re-adjust my goals: I have to be flexible.

I had hoped to push hard and go for a Boston PR of 3:45. With my training scaled back considerably and the need for caution during the marathon I’m probably looking at a 5 hour marathon. Probably lots of walking.

This marathon will be more of a celebration of the race. My only goal will be to finish, be healthy and enjoy the experience.

Run well my friends!

Andy