My Chicago Marathon

These aren't fun to write when you don't have much of any good news to put in them.....

My eighth marathon, my second Chicago.

Prelude

If you read my Grandma's Marathon report you know I had a neuroma in my left foot that partially destroyed that marathon back in June (4:59:14). Shortly after that race I got my second steroid shot in my foot, had custom orthotics made and the foot seemed to be better afterward.

Being at the podiatrist I inquired about a prescription for my toe nail fungus that I had been growing for sometime, unsightly, but totally cosmetic. We decided to try Lamisil (Terbinafine) which puts a hurt on your liver so you have a blood panel done before they will give you the prescription. Liver function still intact, I got the script and started taking it July 5th. My podiatrist warned me that one of the side affects from the drug was diarrhea, and he was not kidding. I'm lucky to have porta-potties out where I do my training runs, they were needed early, often, and repeatedly. I read the side-effects disclosure that came with the prescription, didn't see anything worse than what I do to myself on a regular basis - so thought nothing of it.

During my training I just had this overwhelming lethargy - I just wasn't putting in any distances of consecutive miles without a walk break. I could run a mile fast, but then needed to stop. I could do two to three miles and be spent. I could piece together 10 to 12 miles taking walk breaks almost every mile or two and then go home and crawl back in bed for four hours. Then my lower abdomen started hurting. Randy thought I needed to do core exercises (which couldn't hurt) to strengthen the lower ab muscles, but the pain continued to grow and truncated any attempt at a long run. My training cycle was sucking big time.

I decided to see a doctor about my lower ab pain. Had a CT scan to rule out athletic pubalgia, also called the sportman's hernia or sports hernia. Luckily, no hernia, no stress fracture, no bone cancer. There were areas of bone degeneration, cysts in my hip joints (arthritis), bone islands, all kinds of good stuff. It was recommended to have an MRI to get a better
look. The MRI confirmed all of the above plus showed that I had degeneration of the public symphisis which is the joint in the front center of the pelvis which is comprised of cartilage. Doctor’s recommendation: 440mg of Aleve twice a day and 30 days of inactivity. I kept running.

About this time I decided to Google Terbinafine and see if I had missed something. Wikipidia had a long list of side effects – there was my old friend diarrhea, but further down the list was fatigue, decreased red blood cell count (anemia), muscle pain (myalgia), and joint pain (arthralgia). There it was, the quad-fecta. I stopped taking the killer drug that day.

The running slowly got better, the pain in my pelvis was still there, my endurance started to make gains – it was less
than seven weeks until the marathon.

I DNFed a 10K three days after stopping the drug. I ran the Chicago Half Marathon four weeks before the marathon and the neuroma that I thought was gone resurfaced around mile eight or nine, I finished the half, but not well. I looked at the Chicago Marathon as another training run, but my goal was to finally break four hours. My PR from the Mississippi Blues Marathon was 4:05:53

The Race

I lined up behind the four hour pacers in the open corral and stuck with them the first three miles. The pain in my pelvis was there from the first stride even with the Aleve. From there it was steady deterioration of pace and I knew by mile four or five this was going to just be a very long day.

That’s it – nothing more. Just steady, constant pain. Not excruciating, but ever present, clench your teeth and keep going type pain. After a while (mile 20) it was brain numbing. I walk/ran/walked most of the race. My foot (neuroma) never bothered me, no cramps, I actually finished and felt better than at the end than any of my marathons. I actually felt great afterward. A whole bunch of beers in the finisher’s chute, at the 27^th mile party, and then at the bar with the rest of the 365 crew helped a lot.

Oh, I finished at 4:50:03 – not my slowest, but it sucked. I did enjoy reading the tracking thread, nice to know Kenny was concerned about my running backwards, it felt like I was in retrograde.

The next three days the thighs were unusually sore considering they didn’t hurt at all after the race.

Next up: The Houston Marathon on January 15^th, oh, and a 10K in two weeks.

Pete B wrote:These aren't fun to write when you don't have much of any good news to put in them.....

Maybe you should have stopped right here, Pete.

Good venture on your cosmetic medicine.

Rest well, my friend!

Pete, with everything possible stacked up against you, you did a great job just getting to the starting line, and than managing to finish. You're one tough runner!

sorry to hear chicago was not what you trained for , you also had real hot weather. Rest up, and you are definetly due a great marathon soon.....................

Tough day. I admire your mental toughness to perservere.

I have to ask a stupid question; with all of the issues you are experiencing, is it realy wise to train for another marathon in January? Wouldn't it be better to take some time to heal up and then slowly ease back into training? I am concerned that if you don't deal with these issues, you will only get worse and possibly end up with some long-term chronic issues.

hey you finished and toughed it out! I am sorry about the pain for the whole race. I hope you get things cleared up so you can train well or at least even enjoy some pain free running soon!

Hey Pete,

Chalk it up as a learning experience. You finished undertrained, so can only get better from here. Nice time meeting you again this weekend, cheers!

Tough day for me as well...good job on surviving and it was great to see you (as always!).

You perservered and got it done. Congrats.

Hi Pete, congrats on finishing another marathon.
I have to admit that I am a bit concerned that you just keep going from race to race without letting whatever is ailing you time to heal. Maybe you should skip the 10K. Maybe take a month off. It may provide a real benefit in the long run. No pun intended.

Randy E wrote:Hi Pete, congrats on finishing another marathon.
I have to admit that I am a bit concerned that you just keep going from race to race without letting whatever is ailing you time to heal. Maybe you should skip the 10K. Maybe take a month off. It may provide a real benefit in the long run. No pun intended.

+1

Congrats on toughing it out but I know it is no fun when you have to run through pain. I had what sounds like a similar pelvic pain problem back when I was relatively new to running. It really got in the way of my training and made me think that I would never be the runner that I hoped to be. During that time I also developed an umbilical hernia. The time that I had to take off for the hernia surgery allowed the chronic pelvic problem to resolve and it has never come back. This was also around the time that I decided to ride my mountain bike on my recovery days in place of running. I wish you the best in figuring this out and congratulations again. It was nice seeing you at the dinner.

Glad you were able to tough it out and finish. I also hope that you can get some of the physical issues to resolve. Seems like there's always something after you hit a certain age that a person has to deal with. I imagine that's one of the things that make it a challenge and yet keeps a person humble.

Congrats on your race, here's hoping your next one won't be so difficult.

T Miller wrote:

Randy E wrote:Hi Pete, congrats on finishing another marathon.
I have to admit that I am a bit concerned that you just keep going from race to race without letting whatever is ailing you time to heal. Maybe you should skip the 10K. Maybe take a month off. It may provide a real benefit in the long run. No pun intended.

+1

Congrats on toughing it out but I know it is no fun when you have to run through pain. I had what sounds like a similar pelvic pain problem back when I was relatively new to running. It really got in the way of my training and made me think that I would never be the runner that I hoped to be. During that time I also developed an umbilical hernia. The time that I had to take off for the hernia surgery allowed the chronic pelvic problem to resolve and it has never come back. This was also around the time that I decided to ride my mountain bike on my recovery days in place of running. I wish you the best in figuring this out and congratulations again. It was nice seeing you at the dinner.

++1
Not trying to tell you what to do - you have WAY more experience in this than I do, but it does sound like you would be the PERFECT candidate for some non-impact cross training (cycling works well for many, including me). You may not be interested in the sport at all, but I do know that many long-course triathletes do less running than you'd think for the distances and speeds that they do marathons in, but replace a lot of it with cycling. Just an idea.

Anyway, great job on finishing another marathon - whatever you decide, I hope training gets a little easier for you and hope you had at least a little fun in
Chicago!

Jeff F wrote:Tough day. I admire your mental toughness to perservere.

I
have to ask a stupid question; with all of the issues you are
experiencing, is it realy wise to train for another marathon in January?
Wouldn't it be better to take some time to heal up and then slowly
ease back into training? I am concerned that if you don't deal with
these issues, you will only get worse and possibly end up with some
long-term chronic issues.

John Kilpatrick wrote:

T Miller wrote:

Randy E wrote:Hi Pete, congrats on finishing another marathon.
I have to admit that I am a bit concerned that you just keep going from race to race without letting whatever is ailing you time to heal. Maybe you should skip the 10K. Maybe take a month off. It may provide a real benefit in the long run. No pun intended.

+1

Congrats on toughing it out but I know it is no fun when you have to run through pain. I had what sounds like a similar pelvic pain problem back when I was relatively new to running. It really got in the way of my training and made me think that I would never be the runner that I hoped to be. During that time I also developed an umbilical hernia. The time that I had to take off for the hernia surgery allowed the chronic pelvic problem to resolve and it has never come back. This was also around the time that I decided to ride my mountain bike on my recovery days in place of running. I wish you the best in figuring this out and congratulations again. It was nice seeing you at the dinner.

++1
Not trying to tell you what to do - you have WAY more experience in this than I do, but it does sound like you would be the PERFECT candidate for some non-impact cross training (cycling works well for many, including me). You may not be interested in the sport at all, but I do know that many long-course triathletes do less running than you'd think for the distances and speeds that they do marathons in, but replace a lot of it with cycling. Just an idea.

Anyway, great job on finishing another marathon - whatever you decide, I hope training gets a little easier for you and hope you had at least a little fun in
Chicago!

Thanks all for your input (couldn't get the multi-quote thing to work properly, so I missed some of you) - I've been thinking about this the last day or two as the legs have gotten better but the pelvis still hurts a bit. It's been five days without a run now, the gear is stowed under my desk at work, and I am considering at least a two-week hiatus, maybe a little longer to see if there is some improvement. Houston may be the Marathon, the Half, or possibly being a spectator/volunteer, time will tell, but I am definitely going there to see the Olympic Qualification Marathons and have a great weekend.

I share your pain, Pete. A finish is a finish in my book.

That had to have felt like a lifetime...aaarghh! Congratulations on sticking it out...you are quite the man.

Wow, doubt I could have toughed that one out. Congrats on a gutsy finish!

Bummer Pete. Glad the beer helped though!

Congratulations!!

Way to gut it out Pete. Here's to better races ahead...hopefully for all of us!

Great job, Pete!