I know Y’all have been on the edge of your seats with this concussion thing and the Chicago Marathon drama.  HA! I am sure Y’all have figured out by now that I AM running Chicago.  My Dr. would have an absolute fit if she knew about this but as far as I am concerned, “Ignorance is bliss.”

The Chicago Marathon is exactly 24 days away.

Normally, when you are training for a long distance race such as this, you want to leave yourself a good two weeks to taper.  Most runners are the walking dead by this place in their training and the taper, at first, is a very welcome thing.

This taper period soon turns into taper madness.  You get grumpy.  Fidgety.  You just want a good, solid, long run!  But, you can’t.  You need to go to race day with fresh legs and eager feet.  Theoretically.

This training period for Chicago has been plain out weird.  I came into my training period with only 6 weeks to train.  This 6 weeks included the two week taper.  In reality, I had 4 weeks to actively train for Chicago.  Not a lot of time.

Seeing as I was just coming off of running that 50K, I was doing pretty well as far as my distance training was concerned.  I was just plain out exhausted.  There really was no time to lose in getting ready for Chicago, so I jumped straight in to the tail end of Marathon training.

I took exactly two days of recovery between the 50K and beginning Marathon training.

Things were going great!  I felt strong.  No injuries.  Tired, yes, but that was to be expected.

Then two and a half weeks ago, things came to a screeching halt when I got that silly concussion.  What timing!  This was terrible!!!  I felt defeated.  Discouraged.  Depressed.

Chicago is next to impossible to get into.  What were the odds of me ever getting in that race again?  A lot of people didn’t understand my distress.  A lot of people did, though!  They motivated me.  Pulled me out of my funk.  My self indulged pity party.

I ended up sitting on my rumpatootis for exactly two weeks and just this past Sunday, I got up and ran an 11 miler.  Just like that.  I had to know if Chicago was a possibility.  This guessing stuff wasn’t cutting it.  I HAD to know.  I found out on Sunday, that yes, it was!

So, I am going to run it!  Bells and Whistles!  I will not be breaking an records or anything like that. I just want to finish before they shut off the clock. I can do that.

This concussion is not gone.  Not by any stretch of the imagination.  When I am not running, I am sitting.  I am still babying this thing…and will be for quite some time.

Today was my last long run for Chicago. 19 miles.  I should have gone further but you know what?  It’ll just have to do.  I will be starting my taper at the end of this week.  My FB friends will not be happy to hear this.  I start posting some pretty awful puns when I cannot run or am in taper mode.  If you are on my FB FL, I apologize ahead of time.  Kinda.  HA!