Marathon Training--I am SO F****D

When I decided to sign up for the LA Marathon, new date, new route, I was already at a date which would be considered to be at the edge of when one should start training. And then I waited another week because I couldn't really believe I signed up for another marathon. I don't really love running. I like its effects; physical conditioning, cardio, weight loss, etc. I know there are other ways to attain each of those but running is straight forward and simple. I also like the event itself. And I like being able to say I can run a marathon.

Then I got serious and caught a cold, which is still lingering ever so slightly. And the latest dilemma has been trying to find the right shoes for my messed up, over-pronating, Morton's toed, tired and beat down feet. First I got shoes that were 1/2 size too large, which caused hot spots, then I switched to an "motion controlled" shoe to help resolve some of my running issues. That ended up in the blisters becoming hot spots.

At this point, I was beginning to realize that come hell or high water I needed to get my long runs up to the right distance, in order to be ready for the marathon.

Hell came.
I went on a 14 mile run yesterday. Up to that point the longest I had run since the marathon last year was 10 miles which I did with little effort a couple of weeks ago. I taped up my feet but shortly into the run I could tell I was going to have blister issues. I pushed on. The first several miles were tough to get into but when I hit the halfway point I was feeling good. In fact miles 6 to 10 happened with little effort. Then I started to hit the wall. Miles 12 to 14 killed me and unfortunately only got me to the bottom of the hill on the way to my house. That last uphill mile which I didn't count in the mileage because I was no longer running or jogging, took me 22 minutes of painful limping.

When I got home, my feet had blisters the size of silver dollars. I had chaffing on both inner thighs and a bit along my waistband and I basically tottered around like an old man for the rest of the day. According to one of the training schedules I have, I should be hitting mile 21 on these long runs by now.

Oh boy!!!