Weekly Rundown- Licking My Wounds
After my fiasco last weekend, this week was all about healing (mentally and physically.) For my ankle, I did what I do for every injury- figure out what I can do without pain and do as much of that as possible. Movement=Blood flow=Healing! I’m linking up as always with Kim and Deborah for the Weekly Rundown. Let’s go all the way back to the day after my race. Sunday After sleeping TEN HOURS on Saturday night, I woke up in my hotel bed. This day was all about packing up my things, loading up the car, and driving home. All easier said than done when you have an ankle injury! Luckily it’s my left ankle. I was able to get my shoe on over my swollen foot, which I considered a victory. And after a 3 1/2 hour drive through the pouring rain (I never want to see rain again) I made it home safe and sound. Monday When I planned this race months ago, I requested this day off work. BEST. DECISION. EVER. My daughter was off of school so I was able to sleep until 8:00. I rested with my foot up for a large part of the day, but I started moving it as much as I could- circles, tracing the letters of the alphabet- it didn’t want to move much to the side, but I did what I could. Tuesday Sigh. I might have been tempted to wallow for one more day, but my daughter had school so we were up at 5:30. After that, well, I might as well go to the gym, right? The good news is, I could put weight on my foot and walk very slowly. Moving it side to side was painful, but I taped it up and carried on. 45 minutes on the bike while listening to this podcast. They interviewed a woman named Angie Moses, who recently completed a 100 mile race. She said running is like a video game. Every time you try a new distance, it’s like moving up a level in the game. You might not beat the level the first time, but then you go back and try again- and you get as many tries as you need to complete that level. WELL. I liked that! I had to go back to work, and I was nervous about that (since I’m a massage therapist… I need to be able to move!) As long as I moved slowly and carefully, it was okay. Not ideal, but okay. Wednesday Let’s try some strength! I did upper body, abs, and decided to try the leg press machine. My foot felt a little achy, but I could do it. This felt good! Thursday Back to the gym, where I did 50 minutes on the bike. Unlike Tuesday, when I just pedaled to get my heart rate up a little and the blood circulating, I made this a harder workout with intervals. Have I ever mentioned that I hate the bike? I wanted to quit after 10 minutes but managed to stay on for 50. Friday Gym again, obviously. I did a lower body workout using machines. Normally I like free weights, but times like this are what machines are for! That felt good, and gave me a break from the bike. Saturday Off! Well, I had no choice. The gym doesn’t open until 8 on Saturdays, and I have to be at work at 8:45. I may be dedicated to working out, but I don’t go to the gym AFTER work- I have to draw the line somewhere. Sunday On tap- for something completely different, I’ll be… going to the gym. I am hoping to graduate from the bike to ANYTHING ELSE. We’ll see. Soooo… how’s that ankle feeling? BETTER. Being on my feet all day at work is hard, so I try to change up my position as often as possible. Now I’m able to raise up on the balls of my feet, and go into a (slight) lunge. The main area that’s still painful is the peroneal tendon, which goes down behind the outside of the ankle. I feel like I’m so close to being able to walk normally, and yet so far. But there was tremendous progress this week- let’s give it another week and see where I’m at! How was your week? Any good podcast recommendations for my gym workouts?
February Runfessions
Well, let’s see! In the past week I sprained my ankle, nearly froze to death, and DNF’d my big race. After all that, what more could there be to runfess? Oh, I can probably come up with a few things! Thanks as always to Marcia. What would we do without her monthly “runfessional?” The first thing I would runfess is that I haven’t really been missing running this week. I know! Who am I? I guess I knew I wouldn’t be running anyway (when I, ahem, thought I would be running 50 miles on Saturday) so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I’ve seen a lot of the bike at the gym this week…. but I’ll runfess that my good attitude might start to wane if I’m on the bike much longer. I’ll also runfess that I’m, er, enjoying my race “swag.” This race was minimalistic in that department. When I checked in I got a nice sticker and a cap. It wasn’t much, but that’s okay (I thought), I’ll be getting a medal at the finish. (oh, no you won’t!) What I did get is a lovely towel- the towel they wrapped around me at the aid station when I was shaking and shivering. Three hours later, no one could remember who it belonged to, and my aid station friend probably just wanted me and the wet, grubby, muddy towel OUT OF HIS TRUCK. So he told me to keep it. That’s it! Come back on Sunday for the Weekly Rundown, where you’ll hear more than you ever wanted to know about my ankle. What’s the weirdest race swag you’ve ever gotten? Header photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash
…And All the Rest
For a race I DNF’d, I sure have a lot to say! I’m going to start off with the story of Jonathan. For this race, we had to park at the finish and take a shuttle to the start. That bus ride to the start was almost thirty minutes long, and I sat next to a young man named Jonathan. I’ll say he’s 23 years old, because he told me he went into the military right out of high school, and has been in for five years. Jonathan was terrified. He told me he wasn’t really a runner, that he didn’t even like running, and had signed up for the 50 mile race because his friends convinced him. He told me the farthest he had ever run was 20 miles, and he didn’t know if he could complete the 50. I told him he absolutely could do it, and we discussed fueling strategies- he said he was so nervous he hadn’t eaten anything yet that day- and mental strategies we could use to get through the race. He kept saying things like “We have three hours to make it to the first aid station, and that’s ten miles- I know I can at least do that!” He had a piece of paper with all the cutoff times written on it. Finally we got there, I wished him good luck, and the race started. I saw him twice on the course-once I passed him, waved and gave him a thumbs up, and then when I was walking he passed me. At that point he said his hips hurt, but he was running and he looked good. Go Jonathan! After that I dropped out, so I didn’t see any more of him. The next day I checked the results. For the 50 mile race, there were 109 finishers, 16 DNF’s (sigh) and 14 DNS (Did Not Start.) I scanned the list of finishers, looking for Jonathan’s name. My eyes went down… and down… and there, at the very bottom, the last finisher was Jonathan. JONATHAN!!! He FINISHED! He was DFL- Dead Freaking Last- which in ultra running is a sort of honor. The DFL is the one out there the longest and presumably had to fight the hardest to get to the finish. Jonathan’s finish time was 15:40, twenty minutes before cutoff. When I think of what he must have gone through, out in the cold, rain, mud, for almost sixteen hours… the last four or five in the dark…I can only imagine this was a life-changing experience for him. My eyes well up with tears every time I picture him crossing the finish line. So… what’s next? As soon as she found out what happened, Darlene sent me a text: “50 miler near my friend in April. Maybe you will heal quick.” Yep… she gets me. Darlene was referring to a Florida race in early April, and there’s another 50 miler at the end of April that I’ve had my eye on. I’m thinking about doing one of those, but it all depends on how fast my ankle heals. The good news is, I think it’s a mild sprain. I can walk on it, slowly. It’s hard to move it side to side, but the discoloration is already fading. There’s still a lot of swelling, but it already feels better than it did a few days ago. I’m hopeful. An ultra in April is possible, but I’m not signing up for anything yet. My daughter said she think my injured foot looks better than the other one, because the non-injured one is so “boney and veiny.” I believe this is what’s known as adding insult to injury. And, what about Forgotten Florida? You might remember they had announced this was the last year this race would be held, which is one of the reasons I wanted to do it so badly. Apparently another group held an event in this area and left behind a lot of trash (WHO WOULD DO THAT?) so they said no more events. But… This race director donates a lot of money to the Florida Trail, and does a lot of work maintaining the trail system. Governor DeSantis intervened on his behalf, and convinced the powers-that-be to allow the race to be held again next year. I’m pretty sure I’ve never said this before but- thank you, Ron DeSantis! So….. will I try again? Honestly, right now I’m still trying to shake off some PTSD (the mud… the cold…) but in a few months I’ll probably be ready for redemption. Who wants to come down and run it with me next year??? – I’ll bring the rain ponchos.
Forgotten Florida 50 Mile Race Recap- Live and Learn
This definitely isn’t the race recap I wanted to write, or the one I thought I’d be writing. On Sunday when I shared that I DNF’d, several people commented that it was due to factors “beyond my control.” But I’ll be honest- I think most of this was within my control, and not just bad luck. Let’s get right into it, and talk about THE WEATHER. I’m not trying to make any excuses here- I’m just trying to explain my thought process. As you may remember, leading up to the race I was concerned about being too hot, but as race day approached it was looking cooler and rainy. Here’s the forecast the morning of the race: Okay- 66 degrees isn’t cold, is it? BACK ME UP, PEOPLE. I run in tank tops almost year-round. On New Year’s Eve, it was 49 degrees when I started my long run, and I was wearing a tank top. Of course, it was sunny. But 60 degrees at the start and cloudy didn’t seem too cold at all- actually, I was excited about it- and the rain wasn’t due to start until noon. There was my first mistake- I based my whole race, the race I had trained for and dreamed about for months and months, on a weather forecast. We all know forecasts aren’t 100% accurate, and this one wasn’t. The temperature hovered around 60 the entire time, and it rained steadily for almost the whole day. Here I am at the start. I wasn’t uncomfortable at all- maybe slightly chilly, but that’s the way you want to feel before a race, because when you start running you’ll warm up. That is, if you’re running fast. But the start of this race was very slow because there was a lot of technical single-track, which meant some slow running and walking in places. And… it started raining about ten minutes into the race. At this point, many runners stopped and pulled rain jackets out of their bags. Silly runners! (I thought.) You’ll be much too warm in those! It was beautiful though, running through the woods. I couldn’t take any pictures because I couldn’t exactly hold up an entire line of runners behind me while I got my phone out (“Sorry everyone, just hold on a second while I get some photos for my blog!”) It went on like that for a few miles, and then we emptied out onto a wider dirt path. After a mile or so we were back in the woods, and now there were some muddy areas, some of which had little “bridges” over them. Again no photos, because it was very wet and slippery, and I was just focused on staying upright. At one point I asked the woman behind me if she wanted to pass me and she said “no, this isn’t the time to go fast- this is the time for caution.” Here’s a photo I took a little later on, to give you an idea: At this point I was still feeling good and enjoying the trail. I did notice that my arms felt cold, but the rest of me was warm. At around mile 5 I took a Lara bar out of my pack, and I noticed that it was hard to get my pack unzipped and the bar open because my hands were so cold. Hmm. Around mile 8 we had a two mile stretch on a road. By this point I realized I needed to move faster in order to warm up, so I booked it. Of course that’s a relative term- at one point I looked down at my watch and saw that I was running around 9:40 pace. I passed so many runners on this stretch, and it wasn’t because I was feeling competitive or I was trying to make up time- I was simply trying to warm up. It worked, and I felt pretty good. When I got to the 10 mile aid station everything was still feeling good, except I was having a lot of trouble moving my fingers. The aid station volunteers refilled my water bottles, and I was on my way. Now we were back on trails, and it was dawning on me that I was seriously underdressed. I had a hat, gloves, and arm warmers in my drop bag, which I would see at the 30 mile aid station. Well, that was a long way away, but at least there was hope. I resigned myself to being cold for a while, and just tried to move as quickly as possible. It was just before I came to the next aid station, at 15 miles, that I twisted my ankle and fell. It wasn’t even on a super technical area- it was just grassy, and I guess I hit a little rut and went down. In retrospect, I think that my concentration and coordination were affected because I was so cold. Of course I’ll never know for sure, but I think it’s very possible that’s why I fell. I got to the aid station, and I knew my ankle was hurt but I couldn’t tell how bad it was. I had to ask the aid station volunteer to unzip the pocket of my shorts, take out my energy bar, and unwrap it for me, because I knew my fingers couldn’t do it. And then I continued on. I figured I would walk for a little until my ankle felt up to running, but after a few minutes I noticed something alarming- my teeth were chattering. I knew I had to run, so I tried it. Running didn’t seem to hurt more than walking- my ankle hurt either way. If this had been a flat surface I might have been able to run for a while. The problem was, it wasn’t flat. It was rooty, wet, and muddy. Every time I stepped down on an uneven surface (i.e. every other step) there was a fresh jolt of