I have to be honest with you, my week started great and turned horrible.  For the first time in 6 weeks, I finally got to see my training group with the Running Room.  It's been a slow and painful recovery from my hamstring muscle incident - and I was finally given the OK to run again. 

Quin, who is one of my trainers from the Running Room, ran super slow with me on my first run back.  Turns out she actually had a bad chest cold, so she was more than happy to go at a slow pace. It felt so great to be out running again - the sun had set, the weather was warm and the air was still. Sensational!

From the get-go, my knee felt tender...but I pushed it. We ran for about 5k and then I started to feel pain again. It felt just like the first time. It was bad decision making on my part. I was told to "try" jogging for 10 minutes - NOT run for 5k.

I walked the rest of the way home.

The next day my knee felt ok - so I went to meet the group for hill training. I got about 7 strides into my warm-up run and stopped. It's that bad...again. I'm certain that all the healing I've done over the last couple of weeks has been compromised - we'll see what my physiotherapist says tomorrow. I know I shouldn't feel embarrassed, but I do. I've never felt like I couldn't do something. I don't like the feeling.

So, here I am sitting in the office trying to convince myself that I'm making the right decision. I'm going to listen to my body and give it the recovery that it's clearly screaming for. I'm leaving the training group that I'm currently in and opting out of the Ottawa marathon. I'm not quitting - just re-working the goal.

My plan is to start a new training group on May 25th and run the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon in Toronto this coming fall. I don't want to blog about training with the Running Room training clinic and not get to spend any actual time training with them!

I'm going to take these next 2 months to prepare my body for marathon training, again. I'm going to spin, swim and practice yoga 6 days a week. 

Side note: now I get to continue this blog through the summer months!

Hopefully this is the last time I write about injury.

When you decide to make a major goal like running a marathon, you're inevitably going to hit a few roadblocks along the way. Never be afraid to side step - before you know it, you'll be right back on the path.

I'm sure some of you can relate...