So we are now supposed to be in the taper period of our training. But given that I've missed a bunch o' runs, I personally am in my panic period. No, not really, but I was feeling a little slacker-y given that I hadn't done a long run since January. So this past Saturday, while everyone was scheduled for 8, I decided to try a longer run. The first 8 I did with my group, and was feeling the pain, but it was pretty tolerable. I did 4 more miles along the Great Highway, and they were a struggle. It was probably partly the mileage, but I think a lot of it was the fact that I was running alone. Whatever the reason, by the end of the 12 miles, I was pretty much doing the hunchback run, i.e. running without bending one knee. I had wanted to do 14 or 16, but fortunately, that last bit of common sense running around my head prevailed, and I stopped. After that I spent a good 15 minutes standing in the cold cold ocean to ice down my legs.

My chiropractor has determined that I have weak hip flexors, and this is contributing to my IT band problems. She reasons that the IT bands have to tighten to compensate for the muscle weakness, and this makes them rub more against the bone, causing the friction and the pain. So she's given me a series of exercises to do, and they seem to be working. I feel much more stable when I run.

At this point, I'm feeling pretty good about things. As my coach pointed out, there's nothing I can do at this point to significantly improve my race day performance, so I'm now I'm basically where I'll be on race day. I think I have the endurance to do the race, and I've accepted the fact that this will be a painful marathon for me. But hey, "pain is weakness leaving the body", or some other No Fear slogan.

Anyway, I am definitely getting psyched about the marathon. It's less than 2 weeks away!