As I wrote about yesterday, I am dealing with an Achilles injury.  I was hopeful that I could recover from it quickly, but that is not to be. I will not be running the Indianapolis Marathon this weekend.

When I woke up this morning, my Achilles was particularly sore.  It usually feels the worst, first thing in the morning and then improves throughout the day.  Today however, it refused to get any better and by lunchtime, I knew.  It was obvious that I would not be running any time soon.

It is never easy to pull out of an ‘A’ race.  I have targeted this marathon for months, and my training was going really well.  This makes pulling out even harder. There are times however, when you just have to do the right thing, and the right thing is not to run.

Now that the decision is made, I can focus on taking my time to recover, rather than trying to force a recovery in order to race.  I am going to rest until the pain subsides, and then slowly get back to training.  It is now ‘off season’ for me, so I have time.

I am sure that I will be pretty frustrated for a few days, but I am already starting to look forward.  A bigger focus on strength and conditioning is going to be important moving forward.  I think this will help me stay injury free next year.