Adjusting to Injury

After taking a week off from running Taber tried to go out again on Monday and came back extremely discouraged. His knee still bothered him so much that he couldn't even run a mile. He said I should run the marathon by myself because he didn't think he could do it. Well that just wasn't going to work for me. Call me sentimental but in my mother's day card this year he drew a picture of two stick people crossing the Grandma's marathon finish line holding hands and that just did it for me. We started this together and I'm determined we're going to finish this together.

The only way that knee is going to heal is for him to stop running on it. So, I did a little research, talked to a few of my running friends and came up with a new training schedule that will build strength is his legs and give him plenty of cardio without actually having to run on his knee. He already had a personal trainer design a strength training program for him that would specifically target strengthening his legs and body for the marathon. So now he'll be doing 20 minutes on the elliptical plus his hour strength training program 3 times a week and and hour of cardio on the elliptical and stationary bike 3 times a week. On Saturdays in place of a long run he'll do an hour on the elliptical, 30 minutes on the bike, and 30 minutes walking on the treadmill with a steep incline. If he does this for two weeks he should be able to jump back into our running schedule on the taper down week before the race and if all goes well, we'll be crossing the finish line together.

He tried it out last night and for the first time since his injury he came home sweaty and smiling. He said it was the best workout he'd had in a while and that his knee felt fine the whole time. It was so good to see him back on his game. He even turned to me and said, "We can do this babe, we're going to do this." I know he's right. We may not have any record breaking times, but I feel confident that we're going to be just fine.