Storm the Dam Marathon Report

I ran a marathon! I really had no desire to ever run one because I have no desire to run 26.2 miles on pavement, but this was a trail marathon so I decided to go for it. I did not really have the training in place to do one, but Jason assured me that we would take it slow, just another training run, and he would get me to the finish line.

Rick and I stayed in El Dorado Friday night because the race started at 6:00 am. Yes, that's right. 6:00. A.M. I got up at 4:00 because we needed to leave around 5:00 to find the race, get a parking spot, get everything ready, etc. I think we actually left around 5:10, but still had plenty of time. We got there, finally found the start finish area (it was dark. I think there were signs but you couldn't see them) and waited for Jason and his daughter Carina to arrive. When they got there we talked to them, met a bunch of their friends from Wichita, and took a few pics. My friend Joanna arrived and we talked for a minute and took a pic. She was doing the half marathon (her first!!) but came an hour early to see me start.

Rick and I before the race. Isn't he a good man to get up that early and come hang out at a race for 7 hours waiting for me? He's pretty fantastic. Oh, and by the way, he ran the 5K and did a great job! I was so proud of him.

Joanna and I

And we're off! We started out on some pavement and then ran through some grass, then onto some dirt/gravel farm roads on private property. The first few miles went by fine. We were doing 4 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking. It was working nicely. The plan was to eat something every 30 minutes to keep our energy up. That was working ok at this point. We went on past the first aid station because we both had everything we needed as we had handhelds. Eventually we got onto some nice single track. I loved it! Running through the woods is my happy place. I was loving life. At the second aid station, probably near the 5 mile mark, I downed a whole cup of gatorade. This turned out to be a fatal error. My stomach immediately got angry. I also consumed some more chews at that point, so I just felt full and sloshy. Not good. We had some more single track that was mostly downhill, then popped out of the woods. Oh look! The dam! Wait. There's a mowed path up it. Straight up. It's steep and long. Is it too late to back out? Yes? Ok. Onward and upward!

We finally got to the top of the dam and started running across. It went on and on and on. My stomach was ok for a bit but I still just felt incredibly full. The next time it was time for fuel I only ate about half the chews I normally would. Besides the food being an issue, we also hit a part of the dam with big rocks that just tore us up. It was exhausting.
Going across the dam

Finally we were off the dam and at the next aid station. We refilled bottles and I grabbed a couple of grapes thinking real food might help. It might have if I would have had more than one. They were sour and dried my mouth completely. No thanks! At this time we entered a horse trail. Basically it's a prairie with a path mowed through. It was kind of tough because it was uneven, but due to the grass you couldn't really see the holes. I still felt pretty good here. We came out of the prairie onto some gravel road for maybe half a mile or so, then hit the next aid station. After that, more prairie. We went uphill for a while and at this point my stomach was very unhappy. I was really struggling. I knew it would pass, but still whined. Jason kept reminding me to just stay calm, breathe, and run. It would go away. It did and I felt great again. At this point I also knew I'd see Rick soon because we ran two loops and he would be at the halfway point. I did well the next few miles.

When we got to what we thought was half a mile left we decided forget the intervals and just run. We ran, and ran, and ran. There's the 13 mile sign so we're almost done! Wait, where is the end of the loop? Are we lost? Why are we still running? And running. Our watch passed 13.1 a while ago. It turns out, the half marathon loop was almost 14 miles. For some reason this pissed me off beyond belief. I'm already running 26.2 miles and you're going to add over a mile by the time we do both loops? No bueno! It just ruined me mentally. We finally got to the start finish and Rick and Carina gave us everything we needed for the second loop. I did not want to go back out. At all. Quitting was not an option for me though. After we left the turnaround I told Jason I needed to apologize to Rick because I was really bossy and just told him what to do and didn't even thank him.

Helping us get ready for another loop

After we left the start/finish my stomach was rebelling and threatening to do a volcano move. I just kept going and stopped eating. Jason suggested I switch to eating every hour and see if that helped. It did! Another issue right after the halfway point was that a blister was forming right between the last two toes on my right foot. At first I thought maybe my sock was just bunched up so I took off my shoe to check. Nope. A blister. It bugged me the whole time! Eventually I started stepping differently because it hurt and that started affecting other areas. Fun! I was also a lot more tired on this loop so we started doing 3/2 intervals. We hoped to keep that up as long as we could. Jason told me no matter what we were not walking more  than 2 minutes at a time. It was getting much warmer and we were draining more water so we filled up at the first station. I also ate some pretzels here and my stomach was ok with that. Whew! Running, running. Whining. Walking. Whining. That became the theme of this loop. Also, dreading the dam. DREADING IT. Have I mentioned we were in last place? We were.

When we got to the second station we asked for ice and thankfully they had some. The first half of the course the water wasn't cold, but was ok. The second half it was warm. It was also getting warm outside and there was very little relief from the heat. We didn't see much shade at all. Mostly running in open prairie, on gravel roads or that long run across the dam. Speaking of the dam, I made it up the second time! Mile 18 and we had a really steep climb! Hey! Maybe this is why they call it Storm the Dam? Though I can assure you there was no storming as far as I was concerned. As we were going across the Dam I thought we had switched to running 2/2. Then Jason said something about switching to that at mile 20. I'm thinking "hmm. Weird. I thought that's what we were doing." I didn't say anything, kept going. He was keeping time by the way. He just told me what do do all day and I did it. Right before mile 20 he mentioned going to 2/2 again. I asked what we had been doing. We had still been doing 3/2. No wonder those 2 minutes seemed sooo long! I wanted to keep doing 3/2 as long as I could, so we decided to keep doing that.

We had been playing cat and mouse with a guy and finally got ahead of him for the final time at the end of the dam. Yay! At the aid station at the bottom of the dam we asked for ice again. No go. Warm water it is! If I have a complaint about the race this is it. When you are running in the sun for hours and it's pushing 80 degrees cool water is important. We asked at every station after that and none of them had ice. Anyway, back into the prairie. I started feeling really good through here. At one point I even decided to run 4 minutes instead of the three. Yeah, reading that makes me feel like a wimp. Whatever. It was a big deal at the time! We came out of the prairie, onto the road, and then came to the next aid station. Refilled bottles, drank gatorade, at pretzels. They pretzels really seemed to be working for me.

When we crossed the road we started running north. The wind had really picked up and was out of the south. This just crushed my spirit. I was done. I started getting upset and whiny. Not too far into this crap and we dropped to 2/2 intervals. A couple of times we walked an extra minute. Jason seemed to be doing great, so don't think he needed the breaks. It was all me. One time I asked if I had to run. He said yes. I asked what if I cried, would he let me walk then? He let me walk :) Finally we got to the last station and knew we were almost done. I kept going. The last part of the race has some more single track and I was happy to get back in the woods and on the kind of trail I like. Very close to the end we got to a place where we had done a little loop in the first half and people were standing there pointing us away from it. We asked if we had to run it and they said no. Yay! They had evidentally realized how much extra mileage it was adding and they didn't make us run it. Hallelujah. That meant we were on the blacktop in the home stretch! We were maybe a tenth of a mile from the end when pain shot through my foot. The blister popped! Oh, the pain. I kept going though. Limping.

Coming in the home stretch

We're done!!

 The race photographer told us to make muscle arms, so we did. I fear it looks a little like we were too tired to hold our arms all the way up!

Jason and I after we got our medals. I was so happy!

Sitting in my chair, finally!

So, that's the overly long story of my first marathon. I could have at least doubled this, but I was trying to make it less than a novel.

What's next you ask? FlatRock. After that? We'll just have to see.

Magical, Miraculous, Magnificent Porta Potties

Let me start  by saying, normal people would probably never tell this story. They would hope no one ever found out. I'm clearly not normal because my first thought after this happened was that I have to blog about this. Before you read further, this is way TMI. I warned you. Don't blame me if you keep reading and wish you hadn't.

I was on my long run this morning enjoying life. I felt good, the weather was perfect, I was happy. All the stars aligned and my run was just about as good as it could be. Right before I got to mile 8 I had to go to the bathroom. Bad. I had to go off and on the first few miles, but it always passed. No big deal. Keep in mind, I ALWAYS carry toilet paper on a run. Always. Today I did not. My first though was "oh no. I'm going to have to call Rick to either bring me toilet paper, or just come get me and take me home to go." I kept going because I didn't want to do that. I really wanted to finish this run. I knew if he took me home it would be really hard to get back out there and finish. If he brought toilet paper it would be hard to not get in the truck and go home. So I kept running, hoping for the best. It didn't get better. Finally I decided I was just going to have go and sacrifice my underwear to wipe with. There was a car coming down the road so I thought I would do it after it passed. By the time it passed my stomach felt better. Whew! I can keep going.

I kept running and bit by bit I felt better. Thank goodness! I'm not going to have to do anything gross. I felt like if I could make it to mile 10 I would be happy to just call it a day. At mile 10 I felt pretty great, so I kept running. I got about half a mile and up ahead a saw soemthing blue with a white top. Is that a porta potty? Surely not. I'm way out in the middle of nowhere. No way. I kept running. OMG. I think that's actually a porta potty. Maybe I'm hallucinating. I mean, this is nuts. Run some more. Ok, that's a porta potty. I know I was praying for a bathroom but I'm fairly sure God has more things to worry about than my bathroom needs. I got to the porta potty and realized there had been an auction there yesterday. Ahh, that explains it! It's in a field, on the other side of a barbed wire fence. I have no problem crossing one, but thankfully there was a gate a little ways away. What's a little trespassing when you really have to go?

So I'm in the porta potty doing my thing. I heard a vehicle. I'm close to the road, so I assume it was going by. Huh. That vehicle is really loud. Do I hear voices? OMG. People are out there. Do I wait inside and hope they go away? What if it's the company that brought it coming to pick it up? They aren't leaving. A dog had been following me and it was scratching at the door, giving me away. This is horrible. I finally decided to just go out, apologize and hope they aren't too mad. I stepped out and there is a man and woman grinning from ear to ear. I said "I am really really sorry for trespassing. I've been running a long time and really needed the bathroom and it was here." They weren't mad, they thought it was hilarious. The lady said "I'm glad it was here for you!" Phew! I'm not getting shot, the cops aren't being called. Yes, this is embarrassing, but I don't know them and I feel so much better! I talked to them for a minute about the dog that was with me and ran off. As I'm running away I hear "Huh. Never would have expected to find someone in the porta potty this morning" followed by hysterical laughter. Yeah, it was probably the most embarrassing moment of my life, but I finished my run, so I can live with it.

For anyone that knows the microwave story, my husband said he can finally forgive me because I now know what it is like to be that embarrassed. Finally I'm forgiven!! If you don't know that story, ask me sometime. It's terrific.

Storm the Dam is less than a week away! Bring it.

~Mel

Curse You Flint Hills!!

Good news! I ran 18 miles yesterday, which is my longest run post-hysterectomy. Bad news: I ran those miles on a really tough route. If I were being honest, I'd say that's good because I finished and am stronger for having done it. I'm going to need a few more days of recovery before I really feel that way though. I mentioned in my last post that I met Jason Dinkel at FlatRock. He has been very encouraging and has been helping me stay motivated to run these last few weeks. We are doing the Storm the Dam marathon together in two weeks (not sure what I was thinking when I signed up for that!). Last week I was texting Jason and complaining that my trail would likely be flooded and I would have to do my long run on the road. He said I should come to Cassoday, KS and run 18 miles with him on the Heartland course. I get sick of running alone and wasn't looking forward to a run on the road, so I thought it sounded like a fabulous idea. I did no research about the course. I just knew it was a gravel road. I also knew it was in the Flint Hills, but that didn't really worry me.

As Sunday approached I kept an eye on the weather. It was supposed to be in the 80's and windy. Hmmm. I'm a wimp in the wind. Still, I went! I got up early and drove to Cassoday which is about 2 hours. When I got there we drove out to what would be our halfway point to stash a cooler with water and gatorade. Tony Clark is the RD for Heartland and he had told Jason we might encounter some bulls, so we thought we would have to drive further and do an out and back in the middle of the course. When we got to 9 miles we hadn't seen anything that worried us, so we left the cooler and drove back to the start/finish area. As we were driving out I could tell the wind was pretty strong, but I was determined. We started out going right into the wind on a little section of blacktop. Thankfully that didn't last long and we were on the dirt road.

The first 6 miles or so were pretty uneventful. We were doing run/walk intervals and I felt really good. I noticed there were a lot of hills but they seemed pretty gentle and I was happy to be out there. The wind was mostly blowing across us and we didn't have to run directly into it much. It was brutal when we did though. Eventually, rolling hills and 20 mph winds are going to take a toll though. Funny story here. The wind was so strong out of the south that it blew the sweat off whoever was on the south side of the road onto the person on the north side. It was really cloudy a few times and once I thought I felt it starting to rain. I said "Is it raining?" Ummm, nope. It's Jason's sweat hitting me. We switched sides because he felt bad so then I'm assuming my sweat was hitting him. Ahhh, the life of a runner.

I think it was about mile 7 that I started feeling the hills. They also got a little steeper at this point. By the time we got to the turnaround I was really feeling it. We drank a gatorade, refilled my pack and his bottles, and took off. UP A HILL. Really? We stashed the cooler at the bottom of  a hill. We continued on and hadn't gone very far before my pack felt like it weighed 100 pounds. It was just killing me. We stopped and dumped some water and oh, the sweet relief!! Kept running, more hills. More wind. I was so bummed because I really wanted a good, strong run and all I felt was miserable. Thankfully Jason kept chatting and encouraging me. We still had 6 miles to go when I was just done. I wanted to cry because I was so disappointed with myself. I really felt like a complete running failure. This is the point in the run where I would normally call my wonderful husband and he would come rescue me. No chance of that here! That is really for the best though. I have to quit doing that.

You can see the Cassoday water tower off and on for a few miles at the end. It's torture! You know it's there and that's where you will end up, but I swear a few times it felt like we were moving away from it rather than toward it! We finally made it though. It felt so good to be finished. We walked a lot more than I wanted to and at the end I wasn't sure how I was going to manage 26.2 in a couple of weeks. I'm still not sure. I'll do it though. Race day helps a lot and hopefully the course will be a little less challenging. If not, at least I'm better prepared than I was before I did this training run.

Next stop: Storm the Dam Marathon!!

Pacing at Flatrock 101K

This weekend was the first ever FlatRock 101K! Obviously I'm not in any shape to run it, but I wanted to volunteer. First, I could see some of my friends that I don't see often. Second, I think it's good to help out at a race when you can.Third, it's practically in my backyard, so why not? Friday night was the pre-race spaghetti dinner and though Eric (the RD) said I was more than welcome to go, I didn't think I would because not being in the race, I thought it would feel odd. Then a few of the runners commented on a pic I had posted on facebook of a water crossing on the course (more on that later!) and said I should come. Since they didn't think I would be intruding I decided to go. As Rick was out of town, I took the boys with me. We got there, ate, and waited for my friends Candi and Amber to arrive. In the meantime, Ken Childress arrived with his wife Dana. We visted for a bit. Candi and Amber came and we chatted, and then Epic Ultras Blogger Zach Adams came over and chatted with us. Ken said he didn't have a pacer for the race and I volunteered to pace him from Oak Ridge to the finish, which would be around 10 miles. I'm not far out from my surgery, but I knew we would be moving slow and I wanted to run that far that day anyway, so I thought I would give it a shot.

Saturday morning I got up and cleaned house. Started packing stuff we won't need in the next few months (have I mentioned moving? yuck) and fixed lunch for the boys. I decided to head out to the Oak Ridge station where Dana was working and see how everyone was doing. It was fun seeing the runners come through. They seemed to be doing pretty well at that point, but they still had a long day ahead of them. I checked on Candi's times in and out of that station and she was so fast! I was so excited for her. After awhile I decided I should quit neglecting my children and go home. Not long after that I found out Candi was about 5 miles from the turnaround for the second time (again, so fast!) and that Amber was at the highway waiting for her. Since that spot is about two miles from my house I thought I would go hang out with Amber and wait and get to see how Candi was doing at the turnaround. She was starting to get tired, but looked amazing.

Back home again and got the boys ready to spend the night with their grandparents. I went and dropped them off, came home and ate dinner. I then went out to Oak Ridge to hang out, help out and see how Ken was doing at that point. He had been pretty tired earlier in the day, so I told Dana I'd pace him all the way from the turnaround to the finish. For those that don't know, this would be a 25K. Ouch! I was excited though. I saw Ken at Oak Ridge and we told him I'd pace him from the highway. We talked about how long it would take him to get there so I would know when to be there waiting. I hung around a while longer and talked to Dana and Jason Dinkel and his daughter. Jason has promised to run the FlatRock 50K with me in the fall, which would be awesome. I'm slow and sometimes out there by myself for hours. Having someone with me would make a huge difference I think.

I got to the turnaround, got everything ready, and waited for Ken. Tony Clark (to get an idea of his awesomeness, check out this video) was working this station and I visited with him and the other guy (whose name I don't know) while waiting. I saw a couple of runners come in and they were definitely tired. Eric called Tony to check on things and told him he was sending a guy named Luke to sweep the course with the last person. I'm thinking: Crap. Who is this random guy that Eric is sending out here? I am going to have to spend several hours in the company of someone I've never met and who might very well be creepy and weird. And have I mentioned it will be the middle of the night in the woods? I'm thinking Ken isn't in good enough shape at that point to save me from someone, and I've sent my pepper spray with Amber during the day. Lovely. BTW, Luke, if you're reading this, sorry I had such mean thoughts about you! Luke arrived and seemed nice enough. Ken finally rolled in and we got him ready to hit the trail one last time. I think it was about 10:30 pm when we started.

It has rained and rained here and from being on the trail earlier in the week, I had a decent idea of what we were in for. Lots of mud and water crossings. Within half a mile I knew I needed to stop and tie my shoes tighter or I was going to lose one to the shoe sucking mud. We were mostly walking with a little of some zombie shuffling thrown in. We came to the first water drop and Luke said that he had agreed to break it down and carry it to Oak Ridge. Ok, maybe this guy is nuts! I couldn't let him carry it all alone, so I started out with one water jug and one milk crate, while he carried two jugs and one crate. I would like to pretend it weighed a lot and I'm really strong and awesome for carrying it, but that isn't really true. It was light. It still got really heavy after carrying it awhile. I switched hands off and on, then didn't think I could carry it anymore. I mean, I could, but we still had a long way to go and I'm not in good shape and I'm a wimp or something. I handed it over to Luke who is now carrying three jugs, two crates, the bungee cords and a bunch of flags. Ok, guilt washed over me at this point. He carried it all for a while until I couldn't handle the guilt anymore and took one jug back. Yeah, I'm nice. I still let him carry everything else.

I'm not sure what time we cruised into Oak Ridge, but I know I was glad to get rid of the extra weight. I had to go to the bathroom, which was lovely. I got as far away as I could and hid behind some trees. The world is your bathroom on a trail run. Too bad there are no actual bathrooms. I had some peanut m&m's and talked with someone about the food that would be at the finish. I was already hungry by then. We took off out of there with 10ish miles to go. Woohoo! We kept walking and talking and walking and talking. Earlier in the night Ken had told a story that was super creepy and I'm not gonna lie, I was freaked out a good portion of the first several miles. It was dark and scary in the woods. At some point I stopped being scared. Also, Luke turned out to be a very nice guy and was easy and fun to talk to. I suspect they both wished I would shut up, but if I didn't talk I was going to fall asleep. I started this thing a good hour or more past my bedtime. My back started hurting pretty bad but it's not like quitting somewhere along the way was an option. When we got to the next water drop Luke and I opened up all of the jugs of water to let them empty so that the person that was breaking down the station didn't have to. Ken went on, so we ran to catch up. It was so fun to run through the dark! It felt like we were going really fast, but we probably weren't.

Back to walking and talking and going through mud and streams. And more mud and more streams. Did I tell you guys it was muddy? Shoe sucking, slippery, sloppy mud. Everywhere. This trail is hard all the time. Add in night time, exhaustion, water and mud and you're in for a good time. Despite it being hard it was fun. My back was really killing me and with maybe a mile to the last aid station I asked the guys if they thought the last aid station would have ibuprofen. Ken thought so and Luke said he had some pain stuff if I wanted it. Because sure, taking medicine from someone you've never met seems like a great plan in the middle of the night when you're tired and in pain. I took it and it really helped. We FINALLY got to the last station. I tell you, between those two aid stations seems like the longest on the course every single time. I think we had 3.5 miles to go at this point. We weren't moving fast and it was getting colder outside so I was really chilled by then. And this is the understatement of the year, but my feet were wet. I started dreaming of warm, dry socks.

More walking, talking, shuffling with a little running thrown in. A couple more bathroom stops. We're almost there! I could feel the excitement building in Ken. I was excited for him. I was happy to have helped and was a little intimidated by him and Luke and their accomplishements.

Finally, the blacktop!! We turned our headlamps off as Ken thought it would be fun to sneak up on them. We started running. Wow, this road seems long! Still running. I swear I smiled the entire blacktop. We got to the finish and Ken had his moment of glory. I was sooo happy for him! I had my biscuits and gravy that I had been thinking about and we sat around and visited for a little bit. Dana took me back to my car, I took a bath and went to bed. I slept a little over two hours before the boys got home. Then we had to go to Iola for a couple of baseball games. Oh my goodness I was tired.

I really had a fabulous time. Ken and Luke, thanks for letting me hang with you and for telling me your stories and inspiring me to become a better runner. You guys are great!

Sorry for the really long post.

Edit to add some pics

Here I am at Oak Ridge with Dana, Jason and his daughter Carina.

 

 

Me and Ken at the bench 2 miles from the trailhead.

 



Happy running everyone!!

~Mel

Still Alive

So.......I haven't blogged for a really long time. Really long. The last time I posted was about the 50k that I didn't finish. Lots has been going on since then, but not a lot of running.

On Feb. 28 I had a hysterectomy. Not sure what else to say about this, except my head was pretty messed up about it for a few weeks before, which had an effect on my running, and I definitely couldn't run after. I didn't particularly want to talk about it, so I just didn't post at all.

I've been back to running a little over a week. It's going pretty well. It's obviosly not as easy as it was before the surgery and I'm definitely not running as far, but I'm running, so I'll take it. The only race on my horizon right now is the FlatRock 50K in Septemember. I really wanted to have a great race there this year and not just finish it like I did last year. Maybe cut some time off. This long break may have ruined that for me though. Adding in some time I may need to take off this summer (more about that in a minute) and it looks like maybe another "just finish it" type of race. What will be will be I guess. I will bust my butt when I can and hope for the best. Is it too much to hope that we have a really mild summer? No super hot? Yeah, I thought it probably was.

In other huge news, for those of you that don't know, my husband got a new job and we are moving. I'm happy he got a new job and happy to move, but I suspect it will put a damper on my running at some point. I will just do what I can. I know last summer my training was horrible and I still finished. Maybe this year I won't skip a bunch of long runs in favor of sleeping in my air conditioned house :) If I still run as much as I can and only take off when I have to, I'm probably still doing better than I did last year.

I will try to post here more often. It helps keep me accountable! Tomorrow I'm running on the trail with someone and couldn't be more excited. It's always fun to run with others.

Psycho Wyco: Only 10 miles?

I'm not really sure where to start with this post. I didn't finish the 50K at Psycho Wyco, but I know I did the right thing by dropping out at 10 miles. I've been fighting a cold for weeks. I've been sick off and on and have no energy. Every run the last two weeks (of which there have been very few) was a miserable slog. To be honest, I probably should have never started this race, but I was signed up and determined.

I woke up Saturday morning with a bad headache but was hoping it would go away. It didn't. The first couple of miles of the race I was really battling nausea. That happens when I'm dehydrated but I knew I wasn't. Still, the course is a lot of fun and I was actually enjoying myself. The first half was muddy but not too bad and I was settling in for a long day of running. There are a couple of tough parts, but nothing I couldn't handle. Then you come to a long grassy hill, then some blacktop to an aid station. Still doing ok! After you leave the aid station you have a loooooong steep climb up some blacktop. I went up it eating a brownie from the aid station, so I didn't hate it too much. Then we entered the woods again and I just hit a wall. The nausea was mostly gone, but my head hurt and it was like every bit of my energy had evaporated. This doesn't usually happen to me until after 10 miles and I had gone somewhere around 6 at that point. Someone had passed me right after we entered the woods and I made it my goal to keep up with her. This probably pushed me to go faster than I really wanted to go, which was good. Still, with every mile my head hurt more.

We hit the three hills section of the course and I didn't think I would make it. Thankfully the very nice lady that had passed me was with me and she was amazingly encouraging. I told her my head hurt really bad and she asked if I needed some electrolytes. I knew that wasn't the problem because I had felt bad before the race and it didn't feel like dehydration. Having much experience with that issue, I know what it feels like for me. I think I was maybe 2 miles from the end when I started getting blurry vision. Then the nausea and headache symptoms kind of came together for me and I realized I had a migraine. I had been bragging to my husband that I hadn't had one for a really long time just a few days ago. I've been pretty stressed lately and sick and it all came together to ruin my day. With a mile left to go I knew I wasn't going to do the second two laps. Could I have finished? Maybe. Probably. Would I have enjoyed it? Not a chance. Every step sent pain shooting up my back into my head. How many steps is in 20 miles? My back, shoulders, neck and head were killing me. When I got to the start/finish area I found Libby. I immediately started crying. I was tired and in pain and done and so disappointed. She sat me down, gave me a drink and some food and did the best she could to encourage me. I really evaluated how I felt and just knew it wasn't my day. She walked to the finish line with me to tell them that I was dropping. I still got a medal! The cool thing about this race is that if you drop down at the end of a loop you still get a medal for the distance you covered.

I called my mom to come get me and went to Libby's car. I was so tense and couldn't relax and just hurt everywhere from my waste up. I whined to her for quite a while and when my mom got there we got everything loaded in the car and they took me to get some excedrin migraine at Wal-Mart. My head finally started feeling better but everything else ached. On the way home I started getting chills and body aches. It felt like the flu. I spent the rest of the evening in bed feeling awful. I woke up this morning hoping that I would suddenly feel better, but that's not the case. I feel better than yesterday but still feel pretty crappy. I'm very disappointed that I didn't finish but it is what it is.

I'm actually realy happy with my time for the lap I did. I enjoyed the course and even enjoyed the mud. I definitely want to do this race again when I'm not sick. Maybe next year!

17 miles of mud and miserable shoes

Yesterday's long runs was one of my worst runs to date. My original plan was 15 trail miles because that's all I had time for if I didn't want to run in the dark and I really didn't. That trail in the dark freaks me the hell out. I mean, it has bobcats! At some point Friday night I realized if I ran to the beginning of the trail I could add 2 miles and I didn't mind running 2 miles on the road in the dark. The two miles ended up being 2.5, because I took a back road rather than the highway, which would bring my total to 17.5 miles. Yay!

The run started out great. I was listening to Another Mother Runner podcasts and loving life. The first section of trail is 5.5 miles. It was sort of muddy, but not bad. I was moving at a good pace and still happy. I got to Oak Ridge, which is where blacktop intersects the trail I had stashed a powerade the night before so I stopped to drink some of that and text Rick to let him know where I was. BTW, I have a funny story about the powerade stashing for later. After I left Oak Ridge it got MUDDY. Like, your feet weigh a couple of extra pounds muddy. Less than a mile into this part of the run I fell. I had to sort of walk down a rock as it's too big to go around. Due to the muddy feet I just skied down it. I landed at the bottom in a super deep squat, which hurt like hell. I hit one hand on the rock pretty hard and one shoulder on a rock next to it. I took stock and decided I was fine. I kept getting texts and thought it might be Rick so I stopped again. It was his hunting buddy trying to find out if they were going hunting.  I called the house to yell at dh to turn on his phone. I told him about falling and got a little weepy, b/c it still hurt and I'm a wimp.

I kept running and it just kept getting harder. The mud was so thick. I had to keep stopping to get it off my shoes because it was just weighing me down. My goal was to get past the road where it's easy to bail. The road is about a mile long and I can walk up it to blacktop and have Rick pick me up. I was determined to finish though and didn't want the option to quit. After you pass this road you are stuck. I got past it doing fine. About a mile later I fell again! This time it was just me not paying attention. I was actually on the smoothest part of the whole trail. I was looking around and suddenly I was flying. I turned my body and landed on my back. With my hip on a rock. OUCH! First I stopped my garmin and then layed there taking stock. Anything broken? No? Can I get up? Yes? Any blood? Nope. Ok, I'm good. But I'm tired. So I start crying. Good grief this sucks. Why do I run again? I quickly realized that's not helping me at all and jump up and start running again. By that time my feet hurt though. I got new trail shoes last week. At first I was a bit concerned they were too small, but after a couple of runs and wearing them around the house and running errands I thought they were fine. They weren't. They are way too small. They smashed my toes together sooo bad. They also rubbed a blister on my big toe.

With 4 miles to go I sat down on a rock to take my shoes off for a few minutes to sort of check out my feet and see if maybe I could lace them different or something. My toes had been smashed together for so long that I had to peel them apart! The last 3-4 miles of this trail are the hardest on the whole thing. Or the first 3, depending on how you run. Anyway, it was going to be hard. Lots of rocks and climbing and my feet were in so much pain. I decided to go back to the road and walk up it and have Rick pick me up there. The mileage would be the same but the terrain would be slightly easier. With 3 miles to go my feet hurt so bad I contemplated taking my shoes off and going barefoot.

When I got to the road I called Rick to tell him I would be at the top at noon, which is the time he was originally going to pick me up at the end anyway. I had called him when I turned around and told him what I was doing, but didn't make myself clear. I got to the top and he wasn't there. Hmmm. I had heard a bunch of sirens as I was walking up the road so I immediately freaked that something happened to him. He called right then to ask where I was. Ummm, at the blacktop?? He said, no, I'm driving down the dirt road and I didn't pass you. Crap. He's on the wrong road. He misunderstood what I told him. He's pissed. There was a fire and he needed to go help with it (volunteer firefighter) and now he's stuck on this really rough road and still has to come find me. He finally found me and we drove to the fire, which is actually on our way home. They weren't letting anyone through because the house was really close to the road and there was so much smoke you couldn't see through. DH jumped out and went to help with the fire and I drove home. I couldn't go retrieve my powerade bottle because that area was blocked off, but I promise I'm not just going to leave it. I do not litter!

Anyway, if you got through that novel thanks for letting me whine. I ended up with 17 miles for the day. Long, hard, painful miles! Next weekend I will do as many as I can before Adam's basketball game on Saturday.

Psycho Wyco Run Toto Run 50K is in three weeks. At this point I don't know how I will possibly finish, but I've done it before, so hopefully I can do it again!