A year to forget!

So far this year has turned out to be a year to forget! I entered the year dealing with Achilles tendinitis. Just as I thought things were headed in the right direction when I ran a comfortable 4:30 at the San Diego RnR Marathon, I took a bad step on a training run and the right ankle has been pretty gimpy ever since. I have been taking things very easy. Resting 5 days a week and running only on the weekends. Instead I have been doing sit-ups, dips, and bent over row exercises. But this past week, I aggravated an old upper back/right shoulder injury. I cannot turn or tilt my head without being in serious pain. I tried to do my regular run this Saturday morning and the pain became just unbearable a little past 1 mile into the run. I stopped dead in my tracks. Turned around and walked back home. Talk about confidence killer less than 2 weeks away from the Chicago Marathon. Looks like I'll need to revise my goals.

Even though I was in some pretty good pain, I managed to drag my invalid body out to eat endless shrimp with my friend for his upcoming birthday. I actually felt a little bit better stuffing myself with shrimp.

Red Lobster's endless shrimp - garlic grilled

Whenever I eat a buffet I usually skip the next meal, so I skipped dinner. It hurts to lay down, but I took a nap and woke up at around 11:30pm to watch the Berlin Marathon. It took a while to find a live feed of the race. There was one point last year where I was planning to run this race. Good thing I didn't. Too many setbacks this year. Also I don't want to run a big city marathon until I stop being a marathon maniac and let my body heal up. Running races while injured is not entirely fun. Anyways well... not too many people can say this, but I really enjoy watching the elites race the marathon. I can stay glued to the action from start to finish. It was a rainy race and Patrick Makau won the race in 2:05:08. It was pretty insane that the top 3 all ran a sub 2:06. The Boston Marathon winner this year finished sub 2:06. Looks like there's a new standard for the men.

This Sunday morning, still in pain I woke up to watch the 5th Avenue mile race. There are some pretty nice races in New York. I might go out there for a half marathon one of these years. I still kind of wish that I was running the NYC Marathon this year. I'll get to run it by 2013, hopefully sooner.