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I ran 16 kilometers today. That’s TEN MILES. I’m a little surprised myself! Since my lower back is still bothering me, I slathered on some pain relief gel and took a prescription anti-inflammatory before I went out. (I had to get special ones from the doctor because normal ibuprofen is a NO GO for my stomach.) It still ached a bit, but not enough to hold me back. I did 5:1 run/walk intervals for the first 90 minutes before switching it up to 4:1 towards the end. Halfway through, I stopped in a convenience store and bought a bottle of Gatorade. Carrying it with me was surprisingly less annoying than I’d expected! I discovered, though, that Gatorade makes my mouth feel all gummy and dry so I still hit every water fountain that I passed as well. At the 14K mark, I crossed the threshold into Longest Run Ever territory. (The 14K City 2 Surf was my previous longest distance.) In terms of cardio fitness, I am fully confident in my ability to run the half-marathon without any trouble. It’s like I’ve had a breakthrough with my breathing, and at my normal pace I finally feel able to carry on a conversation without huffing and puffing. It’s really cool, actually. (Although I still gasp like a fish when I swim. Odd, that.) I think the real limiting factors are going to be my legs, feet, and back. I’m feeling some real soreness on the outside of my thighs, which is probably a warning sign for IT Band Syndrome. (I don’t feel any pain on the outside of my knees, so I don’t think it’s too far along.) Two hours of pounding on pavement just, you know, HURTS. So I’m going to take it easy this week and try to recuperate. I’d like to do one more long run this weekend (hopefully 18K) before the race, but with my endoscopy on Wednesday I don’t know how I’m going to feel. I’m just going to bask in this feeling of accomplishment for a while…

(Actually, it’s more like “StomachBlog” at this point.) After a series of some pretty good runs last week, I went out for my 10K on Sunday and it completely SUCKED. Within five minutes, the right side of my lower back was seizing up and throbbing with every step. I still managed to do 9K, but only by stopping every five minutes to attempt to stretch it out. It killed. I immediately fired off an email to my physio, who scheduled me in for an appointment Wednesday night. When I got there, I gave him an update about my stomach ulcer and he immediately tied the two together. According to him, my body is probably “in a state of inflammation,” and he didn’t want do any serious massage for fear of making it worse. He did work into my sides a bit (above my hips), which was incredibly tense and painful. Oddly, releasing that tension made me feel better (in my stomach) almost immediately. He says they’re my “worry” muscles, and tensing them (from stress or from pain) might be contributing to the lower back pain. I went out for a slow 5K this morning, and the change was really noticeable. I did feel a bit sluggish through the last mile, but at least I didn’t have to stop and stretch at every light pole. Two steps forward, one step back…