From Broken Foot to BQ

Last October I set a massive PR in the marathon. Riding that high, I rolled into an intensive half marathon training block with the intention of breaking that record and a fall marathon.

And then it happened. After multiple weeks of high stress in my life, I pushed too hard on one long run. Looking back, I know the moment that it happened, but was willing things to be ok.

A week or so later, I was officially diagnosed with a stress fracture in one of my metatarsals.

This was devastating. Not only was I in the best shape of my life, running my was stress relief and things in my professional life were really deteriorating.

Unable to really walk, in pain, and grieving the loss of my running season and only outlet, there were some really tough days. The utter darkness and cold of those first couple of February weeks perfectly matched my mental state.

Little did I know that this was the thing that would reinvigorate my running and make it possible for me to achieve a dream I didn’t think would be possible for another few years.

I threw myself into focusing on the things that I could do. I had two goals 1. To maintain as much fitness as I could, and 2. To get stronger. This meant regular cross training sessions (ya’ll I aqua jogged for almost 2 hours a couple of times!!) and strength training. Once I was able to weight bear again, I started slowly adding walks and some strength exercises to load my foot.

Then came the magical day when I did my first ‘run’ back. I was fairly conservative and waited a full 8 weeks to return. Stepping on that treadmill and running for one minute was overwhelming (I may have teared up a bit).

Over the next couple of months, I carefully rebuilt my running mileage, first with run/walk intervals, then full runs, much slower than my normal pace.

Because of the injury and my history with longer training, I decided to do a shorter marathon training block of 12 weeks, focusing on building mileage with limited speed work. Most importantly, I prioritized recovery, nutrition, mobility, and continued strength training, knowing that these foundations are what would keep me healthy.

Six weeks out from the race, I ran an expected PR in a half marathon. That was my first indication that maybe I was in better shape than I realized. I had always intended to run this marathon conservatively, not pushing the pace. But an idea began to form in the back of my mind, maybe, just maybe I could PR. A few weeks out, I started calculating what a BQ pace would be. I still had doubts that was remotely possible.

Then it looked like the marathon might not happen. With the federal government shutdown, the Marine Corps Marathon had a ton of questions marks around whether it could proceed

And then everything came together. They made the call that it was officially on, the weather forecast was looking perfect, I had the quintessential taper where everything feels terrible, and an amazing carb load filled with bagels. I decided I had to go for it because I had nothing to lose. There was a time earlier this year when I didn’t think that I would even be running this race.

I started just behind the 3:35 pacer figuring I would just hold on as long as I could. And then a little after mile 10, as I settled into a comfortable pace, I slowly started inching away. Each mile, I told myself I would just hold that pace as long as I could. The miles ticked by and I kept expected that pacer to pass me. But they didn’t. The number of miles left dwindled, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking ‘the wheels could still fall off.’

At mile 25 I knew it was going to happen. Running up the massive hill (it probably only seems like that to someone who has run 26 miles already), I could see the finish line and the clock. When I crossed the line, the clock read 3:34 and change and I knew that my chip time was faster. There’s some quality photos of me flexing as I crossed realizing how strong this season had made me.

And there it was, a 7 minute PR from last year and a Boston Qualifying time.

Here’s what I learned from that experience: more isn’t better. The fundamentals and foundation are just as important, if not more so than the training itself. We are always more capable than we believe ourselves to be. Coming back from injury can actually make us stronger and better runners.

Most importantly, I have come to appreciate and love running more than ever!