I just switched my registration for the Mad-City Marathon from the full distance to the 10K. Although this may seem bad, it's for the best.
It seems that everything is happening to us in May. We started by closing on the house on May 4th. Two days later, we toured the bars on State Street with 40 friends, starting a mere two hours after getting the house keys. Through all this, I continued to train, despite tightness in my iliotibular band (ITB). Eventually, it got too painful to run, cutting off a shorter mid-week run because the pain was too much. The next day, I saw the awesome staff in the Sports Medicine Department at DeanCare. Doc told me things were sore, but not too bad. He thought I could just delay my long run (~18 mi) scheduled for that weekend and then stretch, rest and ice the area. Then we started to get the house ready for us to move in.
The original plan was to clean, paint, and construct new basement stairs on Sunday. Needless to say, we were a bit, umm.... shall we say...tired the the day after The Tour and thus got a late start. (We did get some shopping done, stopping at Home Depot, Sears, and Menards, all regular stops on the Road of Home Ownership. Many more repeat visits are to come., I'm sure.) We cleaned, vacuumed, and barely got started on the stairs that first day, a little dissappointed we didn't get more done. Now this is where life really gets in the way. A business trip to Detroit, bad weather, and a minor redesign of the stairs has pushed our backs up against the wall. Workouts have been minimal. A swim Monday morning and a run Wednesday morning is all I could fit. A three plus hour long run was out of the question, not only because of the lack of time, but also the soreness in the knee.
A quick look of the weeks to come before the marathon revealed not too much more time available to run. Thus, the decision to scale back right now, concentrate on the house and maintence training and think about a fall marathon. It isn't all bad. By not doing the marathon, I'll be able to compete in a sprint tri in Lake Mills with Tim & Nicole DeBoom (rumored to be there.)
Of course, the goal of the summer is to return to Racine and see if the weather cooperates this year.