Back on top.

Will you believe that I've been offline for over 2 weeks? Eerie that it co-incided with my knee injury - it was very weird to be off running AND off the internet. I couldn't endlessly google knee injuries, couldn't endlessly lurk on your blogs or FB and I couldn't go off running either. The washing and ironing got done, a room that needed clearing out got cleared out - amazing what happens when you can't run or surf the internet.

Touch wood, I think that injury was just a warning shot across the bow. As in - this is not so bad, but you have to LISTEN TO YOUR BODY! Last year it was about 6 weeks before the Berlin marathon(I think), this year 4 weeks before Boston , but still. Perhaps I should be just a little more careful with myself when I'm tired and my muscles are tight. A day of rest might just have avoided this. Just sayin..

I followed my osteopath and all-round running Guru's advice to not run over the weekend after I hurt my knee - thereby missing most of a week's training. Besides getting to jobs that needed doing, I iced my knee, took glucosamine and massaged my knee with Ibuprofen gel.

10 days ago I went back to Jonathon who told me the swelling had gone down some. I did 4 easy miles the day before to test things and although I was not pain-free I did manage to carry on and through. Jon then revised my schedule for the week, reducing my speed session to a 6 miler session with 4x1200m repeats, my 11 miler to an 8 miler and my 20 miler to a 17 miler. The speed session went so-so - I aimed to get between 7:10 and 7:30 min/mile in those intervals but only managed on two out of the 4 intervals. My 8 miler was okayish - not painfree but okay. I took Friday off and met Sally on Saturday morning at 7am to do 17 miles. This, unbelievably for both of us, is the first time we've run together since we each lost our wheels in the course of the Berlin marathon. She's been injured (calf, shin and knee issues) and to see her hobble while she warmed up I couldn't believe she was doing this. We are both back to wearing our orthotics (I think we're both a bit superstitious about them - they're our blankies when we're sore) and in addition I put on a ChoPat knee strap I bought last time I was injured. And I don't know whether it was the orthotics, the knee strap, the much slower than usual pace for both of us (9:40 min/mile) or just the cracking conversations we always have but we did it. And it didn't hurt me!.

It's amazing. 2 weeks ago I was obsessing that I was slow and listless. I could feel that, for whatever reasons, I was not in the top form, mentally and physically, I was in last year for London. Having had a week off training and having faced, in my darker 3am moments, the prospect of not making it around the Boston course, I have turned a corner. Right now I feel that I might just be able to make it round the course. And that's just great. I am meeting so many of you out there - Greg, Jeanne, Emily and Meg and hopefully many more of you! - and I am so looking forward to being in Boston during such an exciting week and running in such a historic race and, generally, THAT I, PETRA, AM RUNNING BOSTON WILL YOU BELIEVE IT? that I think I can cope with the fact that my time will not be amazing. I know that many of you will be watching it online - I promise to beam and wave at every camera I see. I guess I'm truly not going to win this thing, but I'm okay with that.

To top things off, things have been going a lot better this week training wise and - as you can see by this blog - I am back online. I am smiling again - see?