Down to my last saving throw

So (both of) our frequent readers may have noticed that I've been missing from this blog for a while. That largely comes down to two things: work (including the business surrounding switching jobs, which I recently did) and injury.

I was going to make a detailed post about all of the trials and tribulations of my injury, but let me just give you the short version. Based on my basic internet self-diagnosis, I seemed to have run into a case of good old runner's knee right around Christmas. That led me to take a few weeks off. When I tried running again, I was only able to get through about three miles before it started acting up. All my training has since been switched to a stationary bike that I bought, which doesn't bother the knee at all.

So here's the revised plan for the marathon... Continue training on the bike until close to the marathon. The week of, go out and feel out the road a bit. If the knee seems alright, give the marathon a go, with survival (not a good pace) being the mantra. That's my last saving throw for the Tokyo marathon. If I know it's not going to work out beforehand, I'll pass off the number to someone who can actually run it and maybe I'll ride around on my bike from point to point in the marathon to cheer on Joe (and get in some cross training to boot). If things are looking OK up to the marathon but the knee gets choppy during the marathon, I drop out at the first sign of trouble and turn towards my next race. Otherwise, I suppose I just might actually muddle my way through the whole darn thing.

Riding the bike feels like cake, so I've been making my bike sessions longer than my running sessions would be, assuming a slow 10-minute-per-mile pace. My shortest bike sessions are maybe 1:15:00, and I try to do them every day since I don't really feel like I need the off days. On Sunday, the day when Hal had us doing our longest 20-mile run, I sat on that bike for 3:50:00, which was actually the first time I ever felt sore on it. (I figured that 20 miles at a slow 10-minute-per-mile pace would have been 3:20:00, so I just added some more on top of that.)

And that's basically my revised pace for the marathon; rather than the 9-, 8-, or even 7-minute mile pace I was striving for previously, I've now been relegated to the middle of the bell curve (according to the data from last year, at least) with only a hope to even get a 10- or 11-minute mile pace. That puts my marathon time in a range from approximately 4:20:00 to 4:50:00. If I do pull that off, I suppose it's not horrendous, but it's much worse that I had hoped.

In any case, keep your fingers crossed...