I’ll keep this brief. Tomorrow is the Army Ten Miler. I have been registered for this race the past couple years, but have not gotten to run it since 2012. It’s one of my favorites, so while I”m feeling a bit fraught about the decision to run, I’m generally pretty excited. Generally.

I’ve gone back and forth all week about whether I should do it, trying to figure out the best (race)course of action for my ankle, body, and fitness, going into the NYC Marathon (on Nov. 1). On the one foot, if I abstained from Army, that would give me five solid weeks of recovery for my ankle bone between Giant Acorn sprint tri (race report almost finished, remember what I said before? It was awesome!) to potentially get the bone all the way or most of the way healed. (Heeled? Podiatry puns, it’s [almost] too easy.)

On the other foot, the thought of running 26+ miles with only a 10k and a 5k under my race belt since August absolutely terrifies me. So between that and giving in to my very strong desire to actually run the races I’ve paid for this year, I’m Army Ten-ing in the morning.

It’s totally possible that this is the wrong decision, and will make things worse for New York. My ankle has been a little achey yesterday and today thanks to rain and low barometric pressure, which has me nervous. But it is also totally pain-free when the weather cooperates and felt fine during Nation’s Tri and Giant Acorn. (Plus, the rib I broke when I was 16 still hurts in low pressure and before thunderstorms, and I’m pretty sure that’s healed up by now.)

The plan and challenge tomorrow will be to go slow. I’m going to turn off coaching on my Nike + app and I’m putting together a playlist with slower BPMs than I usually gravitate to. (I’m totally running to Hamilton the musical on repeat, let’s be honest.) If I don’t hear the judge-y Nike lady telling me how slow I’m going, and I keep my cadence chill, I think that will give me the best shot at pain-free success tomorrow and on through Nov. 1.

The pain will likely be ok (by which I mean, not be at all) during the run thanks to adrenaline, it’s the next couple days that will render the verdict on whether Army was a good or bad idea. If it feels alright after, the big question then becomes, do I try to run at all between now and NYC? I think the answer is still no, but I’ll play it by ear after tomorrow.

Till then, it’s off to an early pastaliscious dinner, early to bed, and at dawn, we ride! (We take an uber to Pentagon City and carefully jog ten miles while cranking musical theatre.)