You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run

I made the decision last night, before going to bed, to let myself sleep in this morning and get the rest that I know I’ve needed. And to rest my left hip. The decision was really made because of my hip.

On this past Sunday’s long run I pulled, strained, or just agitated my left hip. It wasn’t alarming or anywhere near debilitating, but I felt it. It was on my recovery run on Monday morning when I knew I definitely had some inflammation and persistent pain. I stayed the course and stuck to the training plan on Tuesday morning, which was a cornerstone 8 x 800 interval workout.

I’m three weeks out from the New York City Marathon and in my third and final peak week of this 18-week training block. And it was just a week and a half ago when I took stock and acknowledged that this has been the best training cycle I’ve had leading up to what will be my tenth marathon. I feel the strongest, most prepared, and most confident that I’ve ever felt leading up to a marathon. I’ve stuck to the plan exactly as it was designed (short of a couple missed easy runs in the early weeks due to my wife’s uncle’s funeral, and moving our daughter to college). I’ve “nailed” every workout, but there was no showboating. I was honest and aggressively conservative. 800’s at 2:50 have felt great, smooth, and with just the right amount of comfortable difficulty. I baked in some shorter and punchier intervals early in the cycle to test and stress different systems. I kept myself honest with my rate of perceived exertion (RPE) in the hill workouts. And I really kept myself honest in my tempo runs, which were all prescribed as a pace that I could sustain at effort for 60 minutes. But what has really given me the majority of confidence and happiness is the combination of volume and how I’ve felt during and after my long runs. I introduced and allowed myself to run a mile or two extra on my peak week long runs, which are generally 20 miles. In these recent peak weeks I’ve been running upwards of 22 miles, and I’ve thrown in anywhere between 2-5 miles of marathon goal pace pickups in the middle of those Sunday long runs. And I’d been topping out at 60-65 miles per week in many of those weeks whereas in previous marathon training blocks I’d top out at a little over 50 miles per week.

I’ve been diligent with warming up and cooling down before key workouts. I’ve given myself the time to do the prescribed drills before track workouts. I stuck to my supplemental body weight strength training twice per week. And, probably most importantly, my head has been in the right space. I’ve felt good mentally for the majority of these past 16 weeks. Even if a run or workout didn’t go as I’d anticipated, I’d accept it, and I’d always find the positives.

And that leads up to right here, right now. I have a pain in my left hip that could impact the rest of this peak week and the taper that starts next week. The final peak week is that last opportunity to gain the necessary fitness and confidence leading up to a big race where I’d lay it all on the line and let the stacking of days on days and weeks and weeks of hard work culminate into what will become the execution of a very specific and calculated plan.

Yesterday and today I could have pushed through the discomfort that I’ve been feeling the past few days, and the noticeable pain that I felt in my third 800 meter repeat this past Tuesday. And the stubborn side of me really considered it. But there’s a risk and tradeoff. I could have pushed through the pain for the sake of an easy 6 mile recovery on Wednesday. Those easy miles could have irritated and inflamed my psoas or piriformis (or whatever it is in my hip that’s prone to irritation and inflammation.) The pain and inflammation subsided significantly as I rested yesterday. And I very likely could have caused more pain, inflammation or worse, damage, today by going out on a dialed-back 45 minute tempo run. But I didn’t, and with experience and now-wisdom, I know that that’s okay, and it was the right decision for me. A Wednesday recovery run and a 45-minute tempo run today would not contribute significantly to my strength and fitness at this point. The risk outweighs the reward. I know that the possibility of further injury outweighs any fitness loss that might occur by intentionally taking two days off. I’d argue that any fitness loss as this point would even be marginally noticeable.

The confidence and strength that I’ve accumulated over these past 16 weeks allow me to feel okay about dealing with a setback. I was talking to Jenny, who has been dealing with two separate injuries during a single marathon training cycle, no run matters. Life happens. Things happen. We have to travel. We have injuries and setbacks and things will often just get in the way. It’s okay. Running imitates life in that in order for us to grow and improve, we have to constantly learn how to adapt and be conscious and smart about how we react to the things that happen to us. While we don’t want things to happen to us and we want our plans to always work in our favor, that’s rarely what actually happens. We have to control what we can and react and adapt thoughfully and intelligently to the things that are out of our control. And I think that acknowledgment and approach is paramount to being successful in running and in life.