#34 - DNS and End of Season

I have decided to pull out of the Pinhoti 100 or some might call it a DNS. I was REALLY looking forward to this race, and I've been told its a beauty. Not a very nice end of the season but a must due to an ITB issue for the past two weeks. The worst part about it, is that I had been feeling great before it happened.

It all started when I decided to run the Scotiabank Marathon as a long training run. Things went well generally during the race, running just under 3:15. I had planned to run a bit slower, anywhere between 3:20-3:30, but at the 8k mark I saw the 3:15 bunny and I felt good so I decided to run with the group. It was wet that day but it was not downpour and no issues, except for some pain on my quads from 30k onward.  It was an effort for sure, but not a total drain. I was tired and my quads hurt a bit during the following day. I did my Yoga and Monday, ran a short and easy 8k on Tuesday and felt tired but with no pain on my knee (maybe just a twitch but I thought it was just an issue of being a bit tired), then on Wednesday I ran an easy 12k and my knee was bothering all the run and I had to stop about 1k from the end because of a sharp pain on the outside of my left knee. I rested the next day and felt much better, did some spinning on Friday still feeling good so I decided to run on Saturday. I ran an easy 15k feeling some pain on my knee but nothing major and when I finished I had very little discomfort. At this point I was saying to myself, no problem. Soooo, I went out on Sunday morning for a longer run ~20k and had a terrible run, I started feeling pain from the 20min mark and my leg literally seized with 2-3km to go and I had to walk it in. It even hurt to walk. Deep inside I knew what I had from day one, but I thought it might go away fast. I've had ITB a long time ago, but at that time I never ran as much as I have during the last 3 years.

Trying to keep some hope alive I took Mon-Wed off and I ran 5km late Wed night to see if I felt any pain. I didn't feel a sharp pain but I felt a twitch and this is a 25min easy run and the next morning I feel some discomfort. I'm thinking now there is no way I will finish a 100m race with this pain on my knee. The 20k was a complete pain fest on Sunday and I could not even walk by the end, I can't even imagine how it would feel 50k into the race let alone walking through the night in cold weather, and that is if I even get to the night portion. I still held some hope coming into this past weekend since I ran 7km on Friday with only a minor pain but as soon as I passed the hour on Saturday the pain come back so I stopped and called it a season.

Like Anton says, running 100m is hard on a good day but running 100m on a bad day (or injured) is impossible.

Its definitely not the way you want to end a season and I'm not feeling really good at the moment. At least I can say to myself I had a pretty good year with no major issues (until now) and some cool races in awesome places. I need to get well for next year, for some reason I think its going to be even harder!