Pedernales Race

It was a great evening for a race. The rain we were getting off and on through out the day Saturday had the temperature down in the 80s, and there was a great chance of more cooling rain through out the night. Daniel and I left Chucky Cheese about 4pm, dropped our 3 treasures off with my mom, and headed out to Pedernales. We stopped at Target for sandwiches and Starbucks on the way. I had my favorite- Turkey with Brie on a roll and the biggest Carmel Frappuccino Light Starbucks makes. The race started at 7pm. Dan and I had plenty of time to get our tent set up, check in, change in to our running gear, and drop our bags off at the start/ turnaround before beginning our run.

I ran the first 5ish miles with my teammate Dalton. We were both thrilled with the weather and excited about the rain that poured on us for about 5mins after the first 1/2 hour. The midway aid station was 5miles from the start going clock wise, 3.5 from the counter clockwise direction. I dropped one bottle at this station and kept going, leaving the group I had been with behind. This next section of the course was the trickiest. Going clockwise, it was a great section to pick up the pace for a bit. If you felt like it, there were some good down hills to run hard. But this section was also very muddy for a large part. Not the slippery mud they have out west. This mud was true Texas mud. The kind that can suck your shoes off or make you several inches taller if your shoes stay on. The kind that has you jumping up in the air and doing strange leg kicks to hopefully knock a few pounds off your feet. Going up hill in on this part was a mind tackler. But running down it was a blast.

The first 23ish mile passed quickly. I was having a great time running in what was unbelievably cool weather for August in Texas. The rain clouds covered the moon at this point, but my lights were working great. And I was thrilled with how well I felt. No puckish feelings, my mind was strong, and I felt great. Aside from having had to back track a minute or so after starting lap 2 to get my lights I had forgotten, things was going well. I could tell my electrolytes were a bit low, though, because my quads were feeling tighter then they should. No one I asked had electrolyte tablets, so I drank my Gatorade E instead of water at the turnarounds and ate ShotBlocks and Hammer Gels for more electrolytes.

About mile 24, when I was taking advantage of how great I felt on a down hill stretch, I landed on a rock. It felt like my foot was shoved into my ankle. Like the space between my ankle and my foot ceased to exist. I am use to rolling my ankles on the trail. Normally I roll an ankle and just keep going. It might hurt a little for a few minutes, but I'm back to 100% quickly. When I reached the turnaround at 25.5 miles, I got what I needed and headed out again- counter clockwise for lap 4. My ankle was still hurting. This had me worried. But I figured there was a good chance I could run it out. So I kept running.

As the miles added on, my ankle felt no better. I tried slowing down in hopes that an easier pace would help me feel better. No such luck. I finished lap 4 with pain radiating from my hip down to my ankle.

At the turn around Brad fixed me a bucket of ice water to stick my foot in and gave me some Alive (?) to keep the swelling down. I iced my foot off and on for about 15mins. My ankle truly felt better, but the rest of my leg didn't. But I really didn't want to stop. Deep down I knew doing another lap could be be a bad idea. But I wanted to do 3 more laps-not stop after 4. I decided to do another lap easy to see how I felt. If I still had leg pain after lap 5, I would call it a night.

I finished lap five feeling at least as injured as I did after lap 4. :( What a bummer. I finished 5 laps for 42.5 miles in 8ish hours. And that needed to be it. I didn't want to stop. But I didn't want to hurt my body long term either. I needed to stop before I was hurting even worse.

Stopping after 8hrs was tough. But I know it was the right decision. I still don't like it, but I needed to stop. I owe a big thank you to Joe (my coach) and Rochelle (fellow ultra runner) for their encouragement to stop. Left solely to me, I might be hobbling around the house for a few weeks instead of actively recovering from this. It is funny how I can be so stupid about some things. Though I have a feeling that same stupidity is largely responsible for much of my success. What irony.