the agony of defeat (or da-knee)

My very cute cousin Jeannean and I before the race on yesterday. As bad as I look compared to her, things only went downhill from here. Jeannean ran the half-marathon while I ran the full. (Not that Jeannean couldn't have done the full but she is in training for an Iron Man Triathlon and a full didn't fit her training schedule). Jeannean finished great in under 2 hours. I didn't finish at all. Those of you following my blog know I suffered a hip injury in January. It has never healed and I believe that led to problems with my opposing knee in the last couple of months. The knee pain has gotten progressively worse but I kept training for the marathon. I used a lot of ice and ibuprofen. A couple weeks ago it got too bad to run on so I moved my training into the swimming pool. For the first week, I was feeling no pain going down stairs and I thought the swimming pool trick was working. However, this past week the pain resumed. I was still hopeful I could just get through this marathon that I have trained so hard for. I had my knee taped on Friday night and Kevin gave me a Priesthood blessing. The first 7 miles went well. The knee hurt but nothing I couldn't live with (I always ignore the hip pain because it's not as bad). Then I hit the steeper up and down hills. The downhills took their toll on my knee and it really started hurting in earnest. I struggled onward until my run became more of a lopsided shuffle. By mile 14 I was done. I had to walk to mile 15 where I could get aid. I called it quits when I couldn't make my knee bend and climbed in the medical transport. It didn't help any that the wind was blowing extremely hard in my face and I managed to scratch both corneas (darn gas permeable contacts). I have never had to quit a race before and it took an emotional toll. I will admit to shedding a lot of tears (and not just the ones caused by my scratched corneas). I was so disappointed. It was also frustrating after the months of training. Not at all how I wanted this race to end. Today I think I'm done crying. My knee only hurts when going downstairs or after sitting for long periods of time. My eyes are still in pain and distress. I can only manage to get one of my contacts in and I woke up every 2 hours last night needing eyedrops to relieve the pain. My physical pain will heal. My mental/emotional pain will probably be a great learning experience that will be helpful at some point. Some day I will probably look upon this as a good learning experience -- just not yet.