It has come down to this. I have to defer the NYC Marathon.

The gist of it comes down to a couple of things. 1) The tendonitis in my foot may not be tendonitis but a possible stress fracture. 2) I had an emergency kidney stone procedure last Friday.

Those two things prevented me from running this past week and will keep me from running in the near future.

So, where to start. The easiest place is the kidney stone procedure. I’ll keep it short and sweet. On Wednesday morning I started to feel some pain on my left side that you know is a kidney stone when you are prone to them. The feeling is unmistakeable. It went away, it came back, it went away, and then it came back with a vengeance. I ended up in the ER and plans for the procedure were underway. Friday was the procedure, that went well, but my recovery was just as painful as prior to the procedure. The short of it, it left me weak and unable to run my 13 miles on Sunday.

One very sad foot (c) Stacey Cooper

Now on to the foot. My regular followers know that my foot issues have been ongoing for sometime. After the pain became so severe during the Bronx 10 miler I finally decided I had enough and made an appointment with a sports doctor.

It could be a possible stress fracture, or maybe not, but we will know for sure after we get the results back from my upcoming MRI. We need proof!

The short of this one is that I need to stay off the foot. So this means no running, which means no 20 mile long run, which means I would not have completed a single 20 mile long run this training cycle. That was also a run-on sentence. I apologize.

I had a feeling that I was going to have to defer the marathon just from the kidney stone stuff. The lack of energy I lost cannot be replaced and I knew I would be forcing something to kick in when it just could not. This of course would have created the potential for other injuries etc, if I were crazy enough to do that. I don’t think I am that crazy.

I had already been planning to take some time off from training after the marathon to rest up and hit the reset button when it came time to start training for the Miami Half and begin my ultimate quest of getting a PR there. Now, it just starts earlier.

I thought I was prepared emotionally for this prior to seeing the doctor but the reality is setting in — I won’t be running the marathon I love dearly.

It has been an up and down year emotionally and now maybe this is my other opportunity to heal emotionally as well as physically.

I’m reminded of the NYC2012 Marathon that didn’t happen. I put a lot on myself emotionally for that race. My mother had been ill at the time and spent 9 months in a hospital or a nursing rehab facility. I trained for that marathon. I know I did from my training log but I only remember two long runs and maybe a few runs during the week. In the end I think it was best that I did not run a marathon that year and perhaps this is for the best this year as well.

I’m already thinking about a spring marathon so if you have any suggestions for some perhaps in May, pass those on! I’m done yet!