This coming weekend I am registered to race Ironman Kansas 70.3. My original goal for this race was to break 6:00:00. Unfortunately I am going to have to adjust my goals for this race since I am just coming back from an injury.
I am hopeful to have no problem with the 1.2 mile swim and the 56 mile bike portions of the race. The run is where I am going to have some decisions to make. While I ran pain free for the first time on Saturday since May 5 (nearly 4 weeks), my left knee is still not “normal.” My knee feels relatively normal while running, but afterwards, it feels wonky…not painful, just not normal.
After having a successful 3+ mile run on Saturday and another successful 1 mile run off the bike on Sunday, I decided to run for 50 minutes yesterday (Wednesday). I had no pain at all while running, but my knee is still not healed and back to normal. I am continually icing, stretching, elevating, getting ART treatments and resting when I can to help with the recovery process.
My “A” race this year is IRONMAN Wisconsin on September 7. I know that I want to be 100% for IMWI and because of this, I am going to play it smart and not push to regression or further injury.
How does this impact my upcoming race? Well…I am planning to start the race on Sunday, hopeful that I will successfully finish the swim and bike, but knowing that I may pull myself from the race at some point during the run to prevent further injury.
This does NOT mean that I am giving up on my goal of breaking 6:00:00 at 70.3 distance race. I WILL continue to work hard and achieve this goal someday…just not this weekend. My goal for this weekend is to not regress and set myself up to finish this racing season strong!!
Have you ever started a race knowing you may DNF?