Today marks the end of November. I updated my little spreadsheet where I track miles ran and saw a number with two digits staring back at me in the monthly total column - 87. To be honest, it made me sad. November is the first month of the year where I did not log 100+ miles. My foot is still a little iffy but it's definitely starting to get better. I'm still icing it every day but I've been able to run short distances and it's no longer in terrible pain, just a bit of weird twinge. I'm calling it 80-85% healed. Over the weekend, I was counting miles and trying figuring out how many I should run because getting to that 100 number was feasible, just not necessarily smart. Then, I finally realized I was just being stupid. Why risk anything when it's finally getting better just so I can look at a number on a spreadsheet and feel happy.
On a completely unrelated note, yesterday I had to make a call to our mortgage company regarding handling of funds from a insurance claim. After the call, I found myself feeling like a complete idiot and wondered how I function in day to day life.
When we bought our house six years ago, I didn't have any clue about many of the details in buying a house. After the closing, I'm still not sure I understand half of the details involved in buying a house. After refinancing a mortgage to a shorter term and lower rate, there were still several things in that process that no one could explain very well. Either I can't understand or no one at any of these companies understand things well enough to explain either.
Anyway, after that whole process, it left me wondering why I didn't have the opportunity to learn more practical real life stuff in all those years of school and college. Calculus from high school doesn't really come in handy too often. All those deep, meaningful group discussions during literature classes in college aren't too helpful either. Why didn't I learn more practical stuff about mortgages, taxes, retirement plans and other normal daily life topics? Seems all that stuff I learned from my parents or on my own along the way.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
In Lieu of a Turkey Trot
I had to miss the local turkey trots, but I didn't mind. I still managed to run (for the first time in a week again) here:
It was glorious.
I went for the run after spending the morning doing this:
Then, I ate way too much food with the family and spent the afternoon doing this:
Not a bad way to spend a holiday.
My parents moving to a place that is 1/2 mile away from the beach - pretty sweet. Having to drive 8+ hours to get there, with three dogs in tow...not so much...but, guess it's worth it!
It was glorious.
I went for the run after spending the morning doing this:
Then, I ate way too much food with the family and spent the afternoon doing this:
My parents moving to a place that is 1/2 mile away from the beach - pretty sweet. Having to drive 8+ hours to get there, with three dogs in tow...not so much...but, guess it's worth it!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
The Good News...and the Bad
On Friday, I went to the podiatrist. At first, I feared it was going to turn into yet another one of those doctor visits I hate and the reason I tend to shun them off completely. Like a good patient, I filled out all the paperwork in advance. Once in the room though, the assistant girl started asking me all the same questions verbatim. About half way through, I was tempted to say, "Can't you just type this stuff from other those papers sitting in front of you?" I held my tongue though.
During the actual exam of my foot, I ended up confusing myself. As she was pressing and pulling on all different areas and asking me if it hurt, I kept saying no. At one point though, it was started to hurt but I wasn't sure if it was just if she was pressing really hard or if it truly felt different. In the end, I ended up being sent for X-rays to check for a stress fracture and a follow-up appointment today with instructions to stop running, ice it and use Bio-Freeze on it until the results came back.
I stuck to the rules. On Saturday, I spent 12 hours away from home acting as spectator and support crew for the JFK 50. It was a blast. At one point, our 'crew' outnumbered our number of runners but everyone knew quite a few people actually running so it was fun to try to catch as many as we could while still staying with our three actual runners whose stuff we had.
During the start of the race, one friend noticed a guy starting to run and carrying his bag of stuff. She offered to take it for him. All we had was his bib number and we were going to look for him along the course and if we couldn't find him, just take the stuff to the finish line. Turns out, the people he was with must have just taken off without him.
At the first stop where family/friends are allowed, we found all our runners and shortly after ended up finding runner 1076, mysterious green bag guy. I can't believe we actually found him but we ended up being able to catch him at each station as he was just a few minutes behind everyone else we were helping. This means he was able to change shoes when he needed, get whatever candy, food, etc. he needed out of his bag. He was quite grateful. The memory card on his camera was also full so we played photographer as well saying we'd try to find him at the end and exchange info.
I honestly had no desire to run JFK previously. It has become insanely expensive over the past few years and the thought of 26 miles on that towpath sounded terrible. We were on it for about 14 miles during Freedom's Run marathon and I was dying to get off it by the end of just 14 miles. It's flat and monotonous. I ran the Appalachian Trail section several times over the summer and enjoy it, although cussing at the rocks is inevitable. Therefore, I really didn't have it on 'my list'. Of course, that all changed after spending the whole day there Saturday. I'll probably have to do it.
Somehow we missed our group of people actually finish, ending up at the finish about a minute late. We were there to catch number 1076 though. After getting a photo, I attempted to scribble my number and e-mail on a piece of tape for him. Luckily, it worked, he was able to read the e-mail address and now has the few pictures we were able to take. Turns out his friends finished almost 2 hours ahead of him and I guess just ditched him at the start.
Over the weekend, my foot continued to feel bad. Just taking the dogs for a walk and it would start to feel funny again. I was fearing the worst. Then, today, I had absolutely no pain. Although, due to the rain, I actually haven't done anything, not even a walk. I went for my follow up appointment today and luckily there is no evidence of a stress fracture. She was going to give me an injection but I really didn't want it (although she did explain it to me and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be so it sounded better than my initial reaction of 'no way') but agreed that I didn't need it if I already felt it was getting better. Therefore, the good news is I'm probably just fine. The bad news is I probably should have just given it more time on my own. Lesson learned...again! What did I say in the last post about rushing off too soon? It had been over a month though...guess it just didn't really help that I continued to try to run on it for that long (and do a 50K).
During the actual exam of my foot, I ended up confusing myself. As she was pressing and pulling on all different areas and asking me if it hurt, I kept saying no. At one point though, it was started to hurt but I wasn't sure if it was just if she was pressing really hard or if it truly felt different. In the end, I ended up being sent for X-rays to check for a stress fracture and a follow-up appointment today with instructions to stop running, ice it and use Bio-Freeze on it until the results came back.
I stuck to the rules. On Saturday, I spent 12 hours away from home acting as spectator and support crew for the JFK 50. It was a blast. At one point, our 'crew' outnumbered our number of runners but everyone knew quite a few people actually running so it was fun to try to catch as many as we could while still staying with our three actual runners whose stuff we had.
During the start of the race, one friend noticed a guy starting to run and carrying his bag of stuff. She offered to take it for him. All we had was his bib number and we were going to look for him along the course and if we couldn't find him, just take the stuff to the finish line. Turns out, the people he was with must have just taken off without him.
At the first stop where family/friends are allowed, we found all our runners and shortly after ended up finding runner 1076, mysterious green bag guy. I can't believe we actually found him but we ended up being able to catch him at each station as he was just a few minutes behind everyone else we were helping. This means he was able to change shoes when he needed, get whatever candy, food, etc. he needed out of his bag. He was quite grateful. The memory card on his camera was also full so we played photographer as well saying we'd try to find him at the end and exchange info.
I honestly had no desire to run JFK previously. It has become insanely expensive over the past few years and the thought of 26 miles on that towpath sounded terrible. We were on it for about 14 miles during Freedom's Run marathon and I was dying to get off it by the end of just 14 miles. It's flat and monotonous. I ran the Appalachian Trail section several times over the summer and enjoy it, although cussing at the rocks is inevitable. Therefore, I really didn't have it on 'my list'. Of course, that all changed after spending the whole day there Saturday. I'll probably have to do it.
Somehow we missed our group of people actually finish, ending up at the finish about a minute late. We were there to catch number 1076 though. After getting a photo, I attempted to scribble my number and e-mail on a piece of tape for him. Luckily, it worked, he was able to read the e-mail address and now has the few pictures we were able to take. Turns out his friends finished almost 2 hours ahead of him and I guess just ditched him at the start.
Over the weekend, my foot continued to feel bad. Just taking the dogs for a walk and it would start to feel funny again. I was fearing the worst. Then, today, I had absolutely no pain. Although, due to the rain, I actually haven't done anything, not even a walk. I went for my follow up appointment today and luckily there is no evidence of a stress fracture. She was going to give me an injection but I really didn't want it (although she did explain it to me and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be so it sounded better than my initial reaction of 'no way') but agreed that I didn't need it if I already felt it was getting better. Therefore, the good news is I'm probably just fine. The bad news is I probably should have just given it more time on my own. Lesson learned...again! What did I say in the last post about rushing off too soon? It had been over a month though...guess it just didn't really help that I continued to try to run on it for that long (and do a 50K).
Thursday, November 17, 2011
What will she say?
After Fire on the Mountain, I took an entire week off running to hopefully completely heal whatever is going on with my foot. A week, as in 7 days, not 3 or 4 which is typically how I've defined 'a week off' in the past. By Wednesday, I'll admit I was itching to run but continued to hold off. This week rolled around and I pretty much knew there was still something going on with the foot, but decided to try a short run again. It's certainly not any worse but I can't say it's a whole heck of a lot better either.
I tend to be fairly anti-doctor all the way around. I tend to think most people go rushing off to the doctor way too prematurely. And, in my experience, even if I go to the doctor, I likely won't do whatever they tell me, won't take whatever medicine they prescribe and won't end up at whatever next appointment they suggest. I end up wasting a bunch of time and come out frustrated.
However, since I've been dealing with the whole foot problem for more than a month, I'm starting to accept the fact that there might be something else going on. The pain I have is in the ball of my left foot. I've actually had this once before. Same foot, exact same pain. It happened during a race I was doing as a way to get a long run in when I was getting ready for the Pittsburgh Marathon. That time, it went completely away in a few days and I got through the marathon plus an entire summer of running with absolutely no problems.
This time around, it started right after Megatransect. I thought the week off (4 days) took care of it, but I was in pretty bad pain by the end of Ragnar. I tried the whole rest and take it easy for the rest of the month just to get me through Fire on the Mountain.
This week, I decided to accept the fact there is something wrong and actually break my no doctor policy. First, I reviewed my insurance to see how it works. I'm not kidding when I say I don't really go to the doctor. I go once a year for the whole routine physical/womanly check stuff thing but that's it. After confirming that I can go to whatever doctor or specialist I want, I decided to make an appointment to see a podiatrist. My decision for which office to go to was easy. Pick the one that sponsors local races since you know the people there run.
So, I'll see what they have to say tomorrow and go from there. That's why it's a little quiet around here again!
On a positive note, I'm really looking forward to hanging out at the JFK 50 Miler this weekend, playing spectator and support crew. Good luck to all those running!
I tend to be fairly anti-doctor all the way around. I tend to think most people go rushing off to the doctor way too prematurely. And, in my experience, even if I go to the doctor, I likely won't do whatever they tell me, won't take whatever medicine they prescribe and won't end up at whatever next appointment they suggest. I end up wasting a bunch of time and come out frustrated.
However, since I've been dealing with the whole foot problem for more than a month, I'm starting to accept the fact that there might be something else going on. The pain I have is in the ball of my left foot. I've actually had this once before. Same foot, exact same pain. It happened during a race I was doing as a way to get a long run in when I was getting ready for the Pittsburgh Marathon. That time, it went completely away in a few days and I got through the marathon plus an entire summer of running with absolutely no problems.
This time around, it started right after Megatransect. I thought the week off (4 days) took care of it, but I was in pretty bad pain by the end of Ragnar. I tried the whole rest and take it easy for the rest of the month just to get me through Fire on the Mountain.
This week, I decided to accept the fact there is something wrong and actually break my no doctor policy. First, I reviewed my insurance to see how it works. I'm not kidding when I say I don't really go to the doctor. I go once a year for the whole routine physical/womanly check stuff thing but that's it. After confirming that I can go to whatever doctor or specialist I want, I decided to make an appointment to see a podiatrist. My decision for which office to go to was easy. Pick the one that sponsors local races since you know the people there run.
So, I'll see what they have to say tomorrow and go from there. That's why it's a little quiet around here again!
On a positive note, I'm really looking forward to hanging out at the JFK 50 Miler this weekend, playing spectator and support crew. Good luck to all those running!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Fire on the Mountain 50K
I had a few fears going into Fire on the Mountain. I feared my left foot wouldn't hold out for 32 miles. Turns out, I should have been more worried about my mind giving out. I feared I wouldn't be able to make the 9-hour cut-off time. When I mentioned this to a few other people, I don't think anyone believed me. Turns out, it wasn't that crazy of a worry. I made it, but barely! I feared I would be dead last. I had to face this one as well. However, it still feels better to be dead last than to give up.
Due to the ice and snow last week, the race was postponed a week. This gave me an extra week to deal with the whole foot thing. However, it gave me a whole another week to deal with the whole left foot thing. I ran, a little, but not much during the week, just enough to stay sane and keep me feeling like I had it in me to do a 50K. Sunday morning finally came around and I woke up at 3:45 AM, 15 minutes before my alarm was scheduled. Of course, due to the time change, this was actually a fairly normal wake up time which was nice. I ate a Clif bar, fed the dogs, drank some water and was just antsy to get in the car and leave.
I made the drive to Flintstone and found base camp fairly easily. Got my number and headed back to the car to wait since I was there pretty early. My sister called and was a little lost, fearing she wasn't going to make it in time. The busses weren't even there yet, so I told her she had plenty of time and went to get her number. Pretty soon, the sun was up and we were loading onto the busses to make our way to the start line. I have absolutely no idea where we were. I had only been to Green Ridge State Forest once before and hiked some trail but I don't think it was anywhere near the places we went for Fire on the Mountain. During the ride, I understood why this had to be postponed due to the snow/ice. These weren't really roads you'd want to be on in a school bus under icy conditions. Pretty soon, we were all assembled and we were off to make our way for a mile or so on the dirt/logging road before hitting the first trail.
Due to the ice and snow last week, the race was postponed a week. This gave me an extra week to deal with the whole foot thing. However, it gave me a whole another week to deal with the whole left foot thing. I ran, a little, but not much during the week, just enough to stay sane and keep me feeling like I had it in me to do a 50K. Sunday morning finally came around and I woke up at 3:45 AM, 15 minutes before my alarm was scheduled. Of course, due to the time change, this was actually a fairly normal wake up time which was nice. I ate a Clif bar, fed the dogs, drank some water and was just antsy to get in the car and leave.
I made the drive to Flintstone and found base camp fairly easily. Got my number and headed back to the car to wait since I was there pretty early. My sister called and was a little lost, fearing she wasn't going to make it in time. The busses weren't even there yet, so I told her she had plenty of time and went to get her number. Pretty soon, the sun was up and we were loading onto the busses to make our way to the start line. I have absolutely no idea where we were. I had only been to Green Ridge State Forest once before and hiked some trail but I don't think it was anywhere near the places we went for Fire on the Mountain. During the ride, I understood why this had to be postponed due to the snow/ice. These weren't really roads you'd want to be on in a school bus under icy conditions. Pretty soon, we were all assembled and we were off to make our way for a mile or so on the dirt/logging road before hitting the first trail.
We hit the first trail and started going down. It was a little rocky, a little technical but not bad. It was here where we started the first of many, many stream crossings. When I read on the website there could be up to three dozen stream crossings in the first half, I don't think I really believed it. Up to 36, really? Could that be possible? The first few we passed through were just tiny, easy to jump across, even for my short legs. By the third or fourth one, it wasn't even worth trying to jump over them, time to just start trudging through them. Soon, we started a pretty decent climb, followed by a pretty steep descent that I just shuffled and slid down.
We made it to the first aid station, about 5.5 miles into the day. I should mention that I didn't even wear a watch to this. I left the Garmin at home and couldn't find a regular watch so I just decided to just go without. The Garmin sometimes frustrates me in the woods so I thought I'd prefer not having it to distract me. Luckily, my sister at least wore a regular watch. It was kind of necessary in understanding that whole 9 hour cut-off thing that I was trying to avoid thinking about. Passed through the first aid station and at this point, still feeling fine.
The next section had a bunch more stream crossings. They kept getting deeper, and colder. A few went almost up to my knees. My feet started getting numb in this section and while I figured running was the best option to try and dry them out, I just started tripping from not being able to feel my feet very well. They were so cold. So, I walked a bit off and on through this part. Just when I thought I was starting to feel my feet again, through the water we went again. Pretty soon, we were at the next aid station. I was getting hungry and feeling my energy dropping so we stopped here and ate some pretzels and little bit of PB&J.
Next up, the green trail. During this section, I had a pretty big breakdown. I felt like I had no energy and I didn't really want to be there. I wasn't having much fun and I was fairly frustrated at myself. These trails were exactly what I expected for an ultra. They had a few sections you had to walk, but it was definitely runnable for the most part, nothing like what we had in Megatransect. I should have been prepared for this and should have been feeling better than I was. Everything hurt.
I broke out in tears, told my sister I didn't know if I could finish this and kept having an internal battle with myself because I really felt like I wanted to just quit. I was ready to get back to my cozy car, drive home and curl up on the couch and watch some bad reality TV. I had a Clif bar in my pack so I ate that. Kept moving, slowly, one foot in front of the other. At one point in this section, we also lost the trail. We didn't venture that far off it, we just could not see where to go next. It was probably a good five minutes just staring off into the woods, looking for the next marker. Eventually, we found it (it was obvious, we just went past it and the trail went to the left). Some other people caught up to us at this point (I thought we might be last already) and this combination seemed to give me a little energy boost.
Now, we were at the half way point aid station. I spent some time here eating and drinking. I do not think I was eating enough throughout the day. They had soda at this aid station so in addition to the normal PB&J square and some M&Ms, I drank some Mountain Dew. I have no idea when the last time in my life I've had Mountain Dew but at this moment it tasted good. We were only half-way through but the view here was worth doing this whole thing. So, I kept on moving. We were told we were finished with the stream crossings and the second half would be easier since a lot would be on logging roads and wouldn't be technical trails.
We attempted to run on the logging roads but everything on me just hurt so I walked more of this than I really should have. The roads were really hard so my bad left foot felt every sharp jab through my Inov-8 shoes. Walk a little, jog a little and repeat. This section was probably 8 or so miles total. A couple caught up to us along this point. The woman's watch was messed up and they feared they would miss the cut-off time as well. After some clarifications on what time it was and how long we'd be going and where we were, we all came to the conclusion that we should all be able to finish if we kept moving. I was really happy when we finally saw the sign for the turn back onto the trail. The jog a little, walk a little continued but it was a little easier to run since it wasn't as hard of a surface. Of course, we were also back on trail which meant it was just slower in general.
On the trail, we caught up with a guy who was really struggling. We weren't exactly sure where we were. We'd past a self-serve aid station a little while ago so we guess were were probably 24-25 miles in. I knew the next aid station was at 27 miles. He started walking and we continued on, agreeing we'd tell the volunteers at the next aid station about this guy. Looking back, I wonder if one of us should have stayed with him while the other went to the aid station but once we got to the aid station, we told them and a couple of the guys started walking back to find him.
After eating some more sugar and a few more salt pills, time to keep moving. The trail continued down but it started to get a little rocky and uneven, making it more difficult to run. Eventually, we seemed to be in a clearing again and could run. If you can even call it that, I was moving in some sort of odd shuffle type jog. The miles continue to tick by but they seemed to go so slowly. I just kept looking and looking for a field with cars, thinking we had to be there soon. We got to get our feet wet a couple more times with stream crossings too. Eventually though, we made it out into the field and jogged around the perimeter to get into the finish line. Crossed the line with a time around 8:48 and according the results, we were dead last but we made it! At this point, I was just done with the whole day, I grabbed a handful of pretzels, talked a bit with the few people remaining there, got a smoothie from the Sheetz truck, got in my car, took off my wet shoes and socks and drove home barefoot.
The day had me wondering if I'm cut out for ultras but I'm still planning on trying a couple more in the first half of next year. It was a bad day overall, but I worked through the mental battle to still finish it. I tried to cram a lot into this fall. Also, I've had no plan whatsoever. This whole year, I've been using the 'run when I want, how far I want' plan and it had actually been working but it may have finally caught up with me. In other races, I've certainly had the feeling where it would be easier to quit, it would be nice to be finished, but I've never had the feelings like I had this day where I just wasn't sure if I could actually finish.
Photo credits: Tri-State Runnur and Jason Griffith (thanks!)
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