After more than a year of fundraising, I had reached my required goal of $6,000 for Children of Peru. I had entry into the London Marathon of 2018. I had consistently trained, starting slow, at six months before race day. Having raised so much, I didn’t want risk anything. I needed to complete the race, and I needed to complete the race in 2018.

About two months before the race, I started to develop sharp pain on my thighs. Prior to London, I had run eight marathons, and I’ve never had this kind of pain before. I thought I could just power through it. I kept training, and the pain kept increasing. It got so bad that I would feel sharp shooting pain on my thighs every time I started to run. I was faced with the dilemma – train and power through it, but maybe not be able to finish the marathon, or, take a break, let whatever mysterious ailment heal, and be able to finish the race, albeit much more slowly. I decided to take a break, because I just didn’t think I could finish the race with pain that strong.

I took about a week off, and tried a slow run. It felt better, so I slowly eased back into it. About two weeks before the race, it was still nagging me, so I went in to a running store. I know, I definitely know, that you are not supposed to change anything about your running shoes or routine so closely to race day, but I was desperate. The woman at Boulder Running Company told me that while yes, I shouldn’t alter my running routine so closely, it would be okay because what I was needing to do was minimal. I told her where my pain was, and thought maybe shoe inserts would help align my feet better and relieve some pressure on my thighs. She assessed my gait and noted that I have mild pronation, which basically means that my knees shift inward, slightly. Aligning my knees might help relieve the thigh pain I had been experiencing. She fitted me for some inserts, and they felt pretty good. I even went a step further and let her talk me into shock-absorbing sandals too. I was desperate. With my purchases in hand, I felt that I was ready for London. I ran a few miles here and there in the week before I left, and I felt pain free. I thought this could work, but I was a little hesitant, because I hadn’t been able to do a whole lot of running in the new shoe inserts.

Running and pain is nothing new to me. I first started running in high school I was a distance runner in track and also ran cross country. Over the course of my high school years I developed shin splints. If you’ve never had shin splints, consider yourself blessed. For me, shin splints feel like sharp knives carving into your shins as you hit the ground with each step. This pain was so strong that though I powered through it in high school, I quit running upon graduation. I gave my legs basically a more than ten-year hiatus before I started cautiously running again in 2010.

When I was looking for running shoes this time around, it was recommended that I try Mizuno Wave Riders because of my history of shinsplints. I bought my first pair in 2010 and had been using them ever since, with no recurrence of shinsplints.