Ironman St. George is only 4 weeks away and at this point I have felt pretty good about everything except the run. Until last night. I had a pretty successful run (9:22 average pace) in which I used a run/walk approach. I managed to do 6 miles and it was the least painful run I have had in a long time! This is also due to the success I am having with physical therapy (working on strengthening my glute medius).
But as I was running last night I remembered something I heard on a podcast about marathon math. Once you have hit the half way part of a marathon you start to do marathon math. Here is how it works. At 13.1 you are half way done, at 16 miles you only have 10 miles left; 20 miles you only have a 10 K; and then at 23 you are just over a 5K away from finishing. For me, setting these intermediate goals within a race really help me get past the overwhelming feeling you can get from thinking about running 26.2 (or more) miles. This marathon might end up being a mile-by-mile effort but hopefully I will be using my marathon math as well.
29 days to go…but whose counting!
I feel like I’ve been in the same boat as you! IT band issues which led to hip bursitis and basically no running for the last 6 weeks. My PT has had me doing glute med strengthening, hip flexor/piriformis stretching to no end! Two weeks ago, I started running again using the walk/run methods. I started out with 5 on, 1 walk, for 40 minutes. Now I’m at 10 to 1, and am able to get some longer-ish runs in without pain! Glad you are slowly getting better!
It is not an easy thing to fix especially if you aren’t willing to stop running! Best of luck!