I spent the week with my product team in STL and much of the talk was on planning for AI. I work with some really smart people and the conversations were all extremely thought provoking. I don’t subscribe to any of the dystopian hype around AI but I recognize it will be transformational. I walked away from STL determined to adapt to the new world.

I had my first PT visit Friday and the message was along the same lines. I can actually run the Boulder Marathon at the end of the month, as long as I downgrade my entry to the 5K. I did that this morning. I’m super disappointed that I can’t run the full when I’m in the best running shape in over a decade, but participating in sports teaches you to deal with disappointment.

I’ve already rationalized it. I only registered for 4 marathons this year so that I’d have a path to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I already did that, in marathons 2 and 3. I don’t need to run a 4th to meet that particular goal.

My next race will be running the Colder Bolder in early December. That’s a 5K. I’ve never run all that fast in the 6 times I’ve run it. 21:55 was my best time in 2015. Now I have a chance to train for it and use the speed I gain to propel me to run faster marathons next year. I just need to adapt my training plans from marathons to a much shorter, but faster distance. My hope is that my overall marathon pace will improve as a result.

My diagnosis from the Boulder Run Physio team is Tendinopathy (tendon pain) and I was given a half dozen exercises to perform 3 times a week. I’ll add them to my strength training. And I’ll be able to start running again, starting out slow and easy and progressively work my way back. I probably won’t exceed 35-45 miles per week for the rest of this year. I’d been averaging over 50 miles. But I’ll leverage my VO2 max of around 50 ml/kg/min to improve my 5K running economy and speed. The Boulder Marathon 5k won’t be fast, but it will set a baseline for me to improve upon before December.

I can’t keep running like I’d been running, which will be a change to my routine. But by adapting to the situation, I could come out of this running faster by Boston.