Taking a little break

After my somber post, I figured I should keep you guys in the loop about what I'm doing instead of leaving you hanging. 

Good news:

Last week I got ALL my miles in!
The week before that I only missed a couple.
Both weeks I did 12 miles on the long-run - that's definitely the farthest I've actually "run."  At the Princess Half-Marathon I walked a good portion of mile 9/10.

Bad news:

The reason I walked those parts of my half marathon was because my back was freaking out on me.
Which it is starting to do now.

I've actually been noticing lingering lower-back pain for about the last three weeks - ever since our mileage passed the 10 mile mark.  I start noticing fatigue in my core and lower-back around/after mile 8 or 9. 

My 12 mile runs were a big of a wake-up call, as I spent the last four miles dealing with very real lower-back pain.  This past Saturday, I had to stop every 100 yards or so during the last two miles to stretch out my back.  It felt like it was one wrong move away from spasming and laying me out on the pavement. 

I've emailed the coaches and team physical therapist with the Marathon Training Clinic to get their input.  For now, I've decided that taking a few days off definitely couldn't hurt.

I assume this all has something to do with the abdominal diastasis (or separation) leftover from my cesarean delivery back in 2008.  My lower-abs are still about two finger-widths apart in the center - which has me wondering if I've got the basic core strength one would need to train properly for a marathon.

I could spend all kinds of time worrying about worst-case scenarios and freaking out that this could ruin my hopes of doing a marathon on 10.10.10.  But I won't.

I started this whole journey to do something postive for my body, heart and mind.  Facing the truth about where my body is really at and doing the best at my "next step" is part of that journey.  Whether that means a few days of rest and then back into the training with some tips for developing my core strength, or whether that means readjusting my marathon timeline, I'm still learning and growing through this process.