Only 13 days til the Marathon, will my feet hold up?

I'm in the back row 6th from the left, pink /white top.

I had a good week of training and running on my own and only missed Friday, but this was intentional. I knew I had my long run on Saturday and I wanted to give my feet a rest on Friday so I chose not to run the 2 miles that was on my schedule.

I also had EMG/Nerve Conduction Velocity on my feet. It wasn’t painful and very similar to the electrical stimulations I’ve had done in the past but much stronger. He attached three electrodes to various parts of my feet, calves and behind my knees and tested various muscles for patterns of electrical activity. All of this was recorded into a laptop. Science is pretty amazing. I won’t have the results until sometime this week.

I had hoped resting my feet on Friday would be enough to make it through my long run, 12 miles on Saturday. I set two alarms since I had to be at practice at 5am! All three teams, Central, East and West came together on Saturday for everyone’s long runs (my coach had us do ours last week because he wanted us to do a three week taper versus a two week taper (when you decrease your mileage before your event)). So I woke up at 3:45, and didn’t have to rush to get to practice. I started off okay, took the first bathroom opportunity that I had (finally learned my lesson) and progressed with my 5:1 pace. Thankfully no stomach issues or groin pulls, just a little twinge in my left knee that eventually went away but my feet are still not cooperating with me. I was about five miles in when I had to stop and try to stretch them or something. It just hurt so much. I’m not sure why the pain has progressed so much. As I was hobbling along, one of the coaches from the East Valley team caught up with me and asked if I was doing okay, she had seen me stop to stretch. I explained to her the problems I was experiencing. She had a very sympathetic ear and we ran/walked together for the next three miles. I will tell you that it really helped to talk to someone as I was running because it took my mind off the pain. She had said at one point, we prefer the runners to push themselves on race day then at practices and not being able to make it to race day. That was all I needed to hear to give myself an excuse not to run the 12 miles that I had originally intended. I know I will cross that finish line on June 6th, I have absolutely no doubts about that even if I have to cross the finish line on my hand and knees. I do wonder if I will be able run other marathons though. I guess time and the EMG/NCV tests will tell.

Thanks again for all your support and words of encouragement and Kate I'm so excited that I've motivated you to start running!