Last year, I decided I was ready to mark “run a marathon” off my bucket list, which sparked my entry into the Chicago Marathon lottery for 2023. In December of 2022, I wasn’t selected, however, I found a charity close to my heart and was accepted to race for the Respiratory Health Association. So began my journey towards running a marathon. Nike provided Chicago Marathon runners with a 16-week training plan and after comparing this with other plans out there, I decided this was the plan for me. The weekly training plan consisted of three recovery runs with varying distances, a tempo run and of course, a long run to end each week. This weekly training plan ruled my summer from June on.
Training for a marathon during the summer was a learning curve for many reasons. One being the extremely hot and humid summer days we had. This resulted in a lot of adjustments for my weekend long runs. After a few runs in the late morning, I quickly learned I needed to wake up by 6am each Saturday so that the run would start by 7am, ensuring the heat and humidity was at a low for the day. This, in combination with accurately planning water stops and gel nutrition, lead to successful long training runs.
Everything about training was going great…until week 12. This week consisted of a 15 mile long run, our longest run yet. The run itself went smoothly and I was so proud to finish my longest run ever! However, as the day progressed I started to notice something did not feel quite right in my hip. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. After all, training for a marathon isn’t supposed to be easy and things can be a little bit sore and achey, right? The next few days my hip continued to be more irritated and I opted to take some time off from running and let things rest. After about one week, I went out for a short training run to test out my hip. Unfortunately, things still did not feel great and I knew something more was going on.
After consulting my coworkers, we decided it would be best to see an Orthopedic doctor to determine the full scope of the injury and if there were any options to help get me through race day. Dr. Czarnecki and his team at Excel were incredibly accommodating and were able to get me in two days later. Dr. Czarnecki had some concerns and wanted to get further imaging. The MRI confirmed one of my greatest fears, I had a stress injury/fracture of my femoral neck. This meant absolutely no running for 12 weeks and participating in the marathon was out of the question. My heart was broken.
Accepting I was not going to be able to run in the marathon I had trained three months for wasn’t easy. I was beyond disappointed I would not be able to run this iconic race with my Fitz Fam team. Slowly, I was able to transition my mindset from one of running a marathon to supporting my amazing teammates in their journey to complete their first marathons.
Race day looked a little different than I had expected, but it was an awesome experience nonetheless! Marathon day energy is such an amazing feeling and I had a blast cheering everyone on from the sidelines. Seeing my Fitz Fam members, Holly and Liza, finish this incredible race was all the inspiration I needed to determine I was going to run this race next year! I am on the road to recovery and plan to come back next year stronger and even better!
