Sad times for Mark

We have been gearing up around here to run the ING Hartford Marathon or 1/2 marathon October 9th. Mark was planning to run the full, and Abram and I are registered for the 1/2 marathon.

I am recovering well from my stress fracture and I am feeling strong. I ran my first post-fracture 6-miler today, and it was actually fun. No music or anything! I was just enjoying the beautiful morning with no distractions.

Mark is another story. After his recovery period from the Newport Marathon, he jumped right back into a training program for Hartford, and was back up at 70 miles a week before too long. He was really doing well, and then about 2 weeks ago, he just had a terrible week. His week would have been a good week for me, but for him, it was terrible. His speed and leg turnover just wasn't there, and he couldn't figure out why.

Then about 10 days ago, he started hobbling around like an old man with a severe pain in his lower back deep inside of his....well....gluteus. He did turn 42 last week, but that's not old. He actually took some days off of running, which he has never done before. He tried running again twice this week, and I happened to see him coming home, and noticed a severe limp and short stride. I told him he had better go see a doctor, because he looked like I felt when I discovered I had a stress fracture. He did go see a doctor, and yesterday he had an MRI.

Diagnosis is--he broke his butt. Literally. A sacral stress fracture. This type of stress fracture is extremely rare, and usually only seen in long-distance runners training 70 or more miles a week.

His plans for Hartford are up in the air. No marathon for sure, but it is 7 weeks away, and it is possible he may run the half with whatever is left in him after recovering, swimming and lifting weights for the next 7 weeks. But I don't think he could run in a race and just be in it to finish. He would push himself to go fast, and that wouldn't be good. Poor Mark.

Now the plan is that both of us will run the Houston 1/2 Marathon at the end of January, and Mark will train hard once he is better for the Boston Marathon April 19th. That's the one that really matters. I think Mark would be having a harder time with his injury if he had been counting on Hartford for his BQ. But he's got it, so that takes pressure off of trying to pull out a miracle for Hartford.

So now I get to have a swimming buddy for my 5:30am swims. That's not a bad thing.