I’ve been having on-and-off lower back pain for the past few months. Joel and I have been working on various exercises to strengthen it, and we’ve been laying off the heavy, heavy weights as to not injure it more. The week of Christmas, I did halfsies on my mileage. The last time I ran was 3 miles last weekend, which wasn’t even half…but it was too dark to run the extra 1.5.

It’s a week before my half-marathon and I’m freaking out. I woke up New Year’s Eve day (the day after our workout) in pain so intense that it was pretty difficult to walk. I was supposed to do 7 that day, and I didn’t. I haven’t done any other cardio either so as not to injure it further. (This was actually really weird to get used to. Now that I shouldn’t be doing cardio, I’m dying to do it!) I’m supposed to do 10 tomorrow and a recovery run and a 5-miler next week.

To run the full amount tomorrow? Half? Skip the runs next week? What should I do?