Halvsies.

I dearly love to run. I do not, however, fancy severe barfiness for hours after a mere training run. I went for my scheduled 17 miler yesterday and could not eat lunch. I mostly just wanted to nap for the rest of eternity. And barf (which I did not, in the end, do).

This I took as an indication that the 1.5 weeks I took off from an already short training period were 1.5 weeks I really needed to be ready to run a marathon (well) in a month.

I think I could do it. I mean, I did the 17 miles yesterday. But. I do not want to injure myself and miss out on running outdoors during the gorgeous Spokane summer I've been looking forward to all winter. Meeting my time goal for the marathon is also out; I averaged around a 10-minute mile for yesterday's run and completely spent my energy (although I feel really good today).

So here's Plan B (not abortion, but prevention!): I am signing up to run the Windermere's half marathon. Luckily, I held off on registering to see how I recovered.

That gives me a full month to get my 13.1 miles down to a time I'm happy with. And I'm setting my sights on running a mid- or late-June full marathon.

At the very least, I feel like I'm being kind to myself. Although, I have to say it's hard to concede that I haven't been committed enough (I had been slacking off on training before the injury), and that I'm not (yet!) fast enough, strong enough, or disciplined enough, given how completely I wrap my lifestyle and identity around being an athlete; particularly a runner.

So I'll take it as a lesson to only bite of slightly more than I can chew, rather than trying to prove some nonexistent superhumanity. "Time your injuries well" is an ex-marathoner acquintance of mine's motto: there's gotta be room in the schedule for injury recovery, lest one find oneself in the bind I have found myself in.