It’s only a week until the Bluenose and it was a tough week of training. I started off the week by getting up early Sunday morning and heading out with a few friends to do a dry run of the half marathon route. It wasn’t planned, but we showed up at one guy’s house to start our run and we were all dressed in blue. We looked like a senior’s version of the Blue Man Group. The weather was perfect and we just ran at a pace 30 seconds a kilometer off our race day pace. There was not a lot of traffic and when we reached the park I was surprised that so few people were out on this beautiful Sunday morning. We finished up the run refreshed and confident we would have a good run in two weeks.

The run sounds great, so you are probably wondering why I said this was a tough week. Well, as great a day as Sunday was, Monday was just the opposite. I woke up Monday morning with a pain in my lower back. I am not a person that has back issues, so I was quite surprised and quite upset. It is never nice to have an injury, but less than two weeks to a run can be devastating. I took some ibuprofen and contacted my running partner. He is a pharmacist and recommended a back pain medication. For the next few days I was in pain sitting, standing, or sleeping. Finally Friday morning I got up and the pain was less intense. I figured this was D-day. With just over a week until the run I needed to try and run.

Venturing out, I chose a shorter 7.0km run. I started out slow, but as I got going the lower back felt pretty good, so I increased my speed to normal. I finished the run without incident and without much pain. I still couldn’t sit or stand for too long without discomfort, but I was able to run. The next two days I got up still in a little pain, but I was able to run short training runs without aggravating my injury.

I am not fully healed yet, but I am confident that next Sunday I will be out on the road, running through the city, on my way to finishing the Bluenose Half Marathon.

Keep Running!

Mark