Grateful for Every Mile (and the ARC Daisy 5k)

Daisies were given to all the female finishers on this Mother's Day race.  Yellow flowers, yellow ribbon on the medal - my favorite color and a good way to ease back into racing

Well, this is the longest I've gone without posting since I started this blog and the longest I've gone without racing since I got back into it a couple years ago due to my injury from the Gusher marathon.  Turns out, it was a metatarsal stress fracture and it put me completely out of running for 8 weeks.  In the grand scheme of things, I realize that's not much time, but after about 5 weeks, the eternal optimism I generally try to have (some call it naive idealism) toward life started getting worn down and each day not running became harder and harder mentally.  I was still working out, getting my sweat on in the gym on the bike and elliptical and in the pool doing deep water running (a mind-numbingly boring activity unless you have good company, which I had the good fortune of having) and some regular old swimming as well.  I tried to view the time off as a boon - a time to explore cross-training options that I could continue to do once I was back to running to ease some of the stress that the sport imparts, and I've always wanted to do a triathlon, so the forced swim sessions helped me get over the hump of intimidation of how to go about getting into swimming for exercise (I'd always been a handstand and flips in the water sort of swimmer before).  After a while, though, just imagining the Chattanooga race trails in my head while ellipticalling wasn't enough to hide the fact that I was stuck inside on a machine instead of bouncing around rocks and roots, listening to birds chatter and feeling the sun beat down on me.

Until 11 days ago.

I finally got cleared to run a week ago Tuesday after my PT session went well i.e. running on the treadmill with no pain for 20 minutes.  I was told I could run 30 minutes a day, up to 5 days a week (though not consecutively) with slightly longer runs on the weekend if all felt good.  As fate would have it, though, my first day to run in 8 weeks off fell on a day that I was massively busy due to a job application being due, and I never made it out to run that day.  I went the following day, however, to my running group's hill workout.  I had been told no hill repeats or track workouts, so I just ran around the neighborhood for my allotted 30 minutes while my fellow Fools (that's Al's Ship of Fools) ran their repeats.  It was wonderful.

The following day was even better - a trail run.  A close friend went with me to the trail, and we ran for 30 magnificent minutes.  I felt so elated and joyful after that run.  I felt like me again for the first time in 2 months. 

Since then, I've been on a few runs, some on road, some on trail.  I definitely feel a loss in terms of speed and endurance.  My legs feel heavy and sluggish, and I get sore from running, which only happened after hard races before, but I know that is all normal and all part of the recovery period.  I'm not sure how much endurance I lost just yet as I have been restricted to an hour fifteen minutes for my longest runs, though, if everything goes well this Wednesday, I should be released to run 'whatever I want' and I'll find out, so fingers crossed on both fronts of that one.  The Chattanooga race is a month away.  I had wanted to race it, but I realized that's not a reality now, so I am just hoping to have enough endurance to beat the cutoff times and just finish it.  I am happy just for the opportunity to try.

 My good friend Courtney and me with our age group medals

Today, I ran my first race back since the injury and my first 5k in over 15 years, the ARC Daisy 5k.  I actually have no idea when the last official 5k was that I ran, but I did a 5k time trial back in the fall in 20:37.  I knew I wouldn't come close to that today, but I was hoping for something between 7-7:30 minute miles, though, my confidence was low that that was still attainable.  I was pleasantly surprised, though, that I somehow managed to pull out a 22:28 (7:15/mile), and I'll take it.  It was a small race and so the time won me 2nd place in my age group.  Other friends ran, and we all achieved personal goals: running on a freshly healed foot, a new PR, 3rd place age group award, running the whole time without stopping...  It certainly helped to have good friends from both my running groups out there - the Fools volunteering on the course and my Synergy runners there at the finish line.  Constantly hearing my name being shouted helped me to not give in to the sluggish, sore, heavy tired legs that I seem to constantly have right now.

 Trey Hardee, the silver medalist in the decathlon at the 2012 Olympics, handed out the awards

I had only raced one race shorter than 13 miles in the past two years before today, but today, I am elated to have raced 3.1.  I am grateful for every mile I am able to run.  I have a full summer ahead finishing my PhD, looking for a job post-graduation, maximizing time spent with friends who are about to disperse across the country and those here whom I might be leaving if I move away, and the last piece of that puzzle has fallen back into place.  I am back to doing what I love to do and ever so thankful for the ability to do it.

Left: With my boot camper, Christina (her first 5k and a PR!)

Right: With my friend Adriana (PR!) and her friend Pippa (ran the whole way!)

The Gusher Marathon: Mind Over Matter

So, anyone who talked to me, saw my Facebook posts, read my Austin race report or had any sort of communication with me after Austin knows that I was less than happy with how the marathon went.  So much so that I decided I needed to do another marathon - a redemption marathon - to prove to myself that I could do it and not give up when the going inevitably got tough, regardless of whether I was achieving time goals or not.  So, I started poking around for other marathons.  There was one in April in Dallas that would have been perfect time wise, but I have my niece's fourth birthday party in Atlanta that weekend, so that one was out. There was one two weeks after Austin, but you'd have to be crazy to do that one.  But then I stumbled across another one on March 9th, three weeks after Austin.  Hmmm.......yeah, that seems doable and not crazy, right?  Sure, why not.  And so it was decided, I was going to run The Gusher Marathon in Beaumont, Texas three weeks after running my second ever marathon in Austin.

Now to find someone crazy enough to do it with me.  I started talking to my good friend who was also not completely satisfied with his Austin time, trying to talk him into going with me.  I don't know how, but somehow, it worked.  He said he would do it, but only if he could run it pushing his 6-year-old daughter in a stroller.  He got permission from the race directors, and at this point, there was no backing out.  It also turned out that we were not the only verifiably insane people either as two more friends from our running group decided to come too, one ran the full and the other the half.

Missed the pre-race picture op, so got this one post-race, complete with encrusted sweat and 2 medals - one finisher's medal and one (spoiler alert) age group award medal.

So, 'redemption marathon'.  What was I redeeming?  My time?  Well, that would be nice, but not absolutely necessary.  What I really wanted to do with this race was to prove to myself that I could keep my head in it the whole time, not give up when it got hard or if I saw my time goal slip away and to have a good mindset the whole time.  I wanted to run smarter and to not ever give up.  

The first part of this goal, to run smarter, seemed to be a little doomed even before getting in the car to drive to Beaumont. My foot had started aching a little about a week after Austin.  I'm pretty sure it was due to Austin and just took a few days to make itself known, but at this point, I was dead set on running another marathon, so I told myself 'it's no big deal, back off a little and it will go away'.  Well, it didn't.  I talked to other runners and many told me to change how I laced my shoes because of where the pain was.  I did this, and it did help, so I thought that was it and kept running.  The week before Gusher, though, I was still feeling it and starting to get a little worried, but I was not about to back out of this race (.....this is the point where my mom stops reading and calls to yell at me.....sorry Mom;  you know how stubborn I am, though....), so I backed off running a lot in that last week, ran slower and fewer miles than I would have liked in the hopes that I'd be fine as I toed the line in Beaumont.  The thing that made me believe I was not furthering an injury is that after a couple miles of running, it would warm up and the pain would back off or even go away.  On my longest run between marathons (only 7 miles), it was sore the first couple miles and by the end, I didn't even feel it.  There are some injuries, (like the plantar fasciitis I dealt with for nearly 9 months in 2011-12) that after getting warmed up, feel better and are perfectly fine to run on.  I thought (or hoped, rather) this was one of those. 

The day before the race, driving down to Beaumont, it seemed achier than normal - probably due, in part, to phantom pain making it worse, in part to the driving (it's my driving foot), in part to my attempt at using KT Tape to relieve some of the pain, which I apparently didn't do right, but mostly to the fact that it was actually achy.  My friend made it known that he thought I should consider not running or just running the half, but he didn't push it, because he knew that I had made up my mind to do it, and pretty much nothing anyone said would stop me at this point.  So, Saturday morning arrived, and actually, thankfully, my foot felt relatively really good.  No pain while walking.  'Good!', I thought, 'It's just a soft-tissue thing and will be fine (knock on wood)'.

I almost never run with music anymore.  In fact, for a while, I was fairly against running with music.  But on the drive down the day before, I decided that I was going to run with music because I was afraid of what my mind might do if left undistracted through 26.2 miles of foot pain.  I have a running playlist that I occasionally use on short runs around the house if I'm just out for fun, so I set that to repeat and somehow managed to shove my mp3 player in my waist belt that was full of gels and salt tabs (it was going to be humid, and I sweat a lot) and walked up to the starting line.  Hopefully, I wouldn't regret this last minute major change!

The course was two 13.1 mile loops.  There was something like 6-700 half marathoners, so there would be a bunch of people around during the first loop, but only 100+ marathoners.  I think that number was closer to 100 than 200 though, because I registered the week before the marathon, and I was number 91.  This made for a pretty lonely second loop, but I'll get to that in a second.

The race started, and it didn't take long for me to remember that I had run another marathon 3 weeks before.  My legs felt heavy and tired too early.  My foot, though, felt surprisingly good.  I, of course, had set a time goal for myself (I'm not capable of not doing that), but at mile 8 or 9 I already started slowing down and by the time I came through the halfway mark at the start/finish, I was definitely not on pace anymore.  Somewhere around 8 or 9 when I really started questioning my time, my mind started trying to go to that negative place where it spent most of Austin.  It was then I remembered something a friend had commented to me before heading down to Beaumont: 'focus on the process not the outcome and you'll be happy with the results', and I decided then and there to not let myself beat myself up about this.  I was not going to give up, and even more, I was going to enjoy this race regardless of what the clock said at the end.  And that is what I did.  

As I mentioned before, the second loop was pretty lonely, especially in the downtown section.  The course started at Lamar University then you ran down a 6-lane highway that had been completely shut down for a couple miles to downtown.  There were a lot of turns once in downtown, and the second time through, there were several occasions where I could see no one in front or behind and there was not a single spectator anywhere to be seen - a ghost town.  Much different from Austin.  But I didn't let it bother me.  I took in the sights of downtown Beaumont.  There are some charming historical buildings, a cute main street and the world's third largest fire hydrant that is painted like a Dalmatian and is apparently functional.  The highlight, though, of this second run through downtown had to be these two women, one elderly, sitting on a park bench in the middle of a pretty lonely stretch.  The older woman started clapping and smiling and cheering and that one moment was my motivation for the next mile (and at this point it's a one-mile-at-a-time venture).  I wish I could find her and thank her for that.  

World's 3rd largest fire hydrant

The two-mile stretch back to the university (and the finish line!) on that 6-lane highway was the biggest challenge.  The winds were fierce, and you were running straight into a headwind, not to mention that it was inclined just enough to notice the whole way back.  It was brutal (can't imagine what it might have been like with a stroller, though).  But still, even here I kept my head happy.  I also never walked between water stops, which was another goal I had made for myself after the race started.  

I should take a moment here to recognize the Gusher marathon itself.  I have to say, I wasn't expecting much being that it was such a small marathon in a small town way out in east Texas, but I was very pleasantly surprised.  The course markings were great, and the water stations had so much more than water.  The orange slices were abundant and oh so appreciated. 

Also, I was sooo grateful for the music.  This race definitely changed my opinion of running with music.  I don't know that I'll use it in every road race (definitely not in trail races), but I definitely see the benefit of it in certain situations.  The lonely downtown, the long highway stretch, the ever-present knowledge that something's going on with my foot.....all of these might have knocked me down even with my new found mental strength if not for the upbeat music playing throughout the race.  There were a couple times where the music shut off due to a button being pushed or the mp3 player getting jostled, and it really worried me - 'how will I finish without my music!'  Of the songs that kept me going, Alicia Keys's 'Girl on Fire', Eminem's 'Till I Collapse' and Fun's 'Carry On' were some of the best and most motivating.

At about mile 25, my foot started hurting.  I'm guessing it hurt the whole time, but adrenalin and my mind's self-defense system pushed all that out of my mind in order to help me get to the finish (okay, I'll admit I felt it before here - the whole race really, but this is where it started hurting enough for me to have to really acknowledge it).  By mile 25, though, I was close enough that those systems had decided they'd done their job and could shut off.  I was so close, though, so I just kept moving forward.  I once read something someone had written about ultramarathons, describing the process of running one as 'relentless forward motion'.  This phrase spent a good bit of time in my head as a mantra during this race to help keep me from stopping and walking, and it came back during those last 1.2 miles and helped carry me to the finish.

I finally rounded the corner to the finish line and attempted to pick up speed to 'sprint' it in, though, I could feel I didn't really move any faster.  My legs were just dead.  I crossed the line 11 minutes slower than Austin.  My slowest marathon ever, but I crossed with a smile, because I never gave up.  I never gave in to the negative feelings and disappointment of not running as fast as I thought I should.  I had tried to encourage others along the way that I saw had reached that point that I had gotten to in Austin.  I offered one guy a salt tab who obviously was cramping up around mile 19.  I went back-and-forth with another guy for a couple miles the second time through downtown who seemed, to me, to be having a difficult time dealing with the realization that he was not going to achieve his time goal (based on the few words we exchanged) and tried to help him think positive thoughts.  I cheered on the marathoners who were still heading out toward downtown on that long highway stretch as I was coming back in.  In the last mile, there was a guy who started walking, and I talked to him and got him to start running again and run it in as I came up on him.  All of these pep talks to those people were also pep talks to myself.  I would tell them, 'We've got this.  Let's do it.'  In the last 6 miles, I didn't get passed by anyone, but I did pass a few others.  This was a stark contrast to Austin where it seemed everyone in the world passed me by in those last several miles.  

So, I ran my slowest marathon ever.  But I ran it three weeks after running another marathon, and I ran it on a foot that quite honestly, shouldn't even have been doing a 5k and still managed to be only a few minutes off my best time, but more importantly, I did what that friend advised me to do.  I focused on the process not the outcome, and he was right.  I am satisfied with the results.  If nothing else, I learned how to run a marathon in the mental sense.  I'm not going to lie and say I'm satisfied with my time, but I learned how to talk myself out of negative thoughts, to believe that I can keep going even when my mind and body are saying otherwise and how to value the process regardless of the outcome, so in that sense, I think of this race as a win.  

Oh yeah, and remember my crazy friend who ran with his daughter in a stroller?  Yeah, he won the whole thing.  Pretty amazing in its own right, then add in the wind, the humidity, the other marathon three weeks before, that two mile stretch that was uphill (that we had to do twice)....yeah, pretty awesome.  And what of our other friends?  Well, one won her age group in the marathon and the other got fourth in his age group in the half.  Oh, and because it was a small race, I somehow managed to finish 2nd in my age group and 7th female overall.  

With my slowest time ever, pulled out a 2nd place AG award

Unfortunately, the ache in my foot turned out to be a possible stress fracture instead of soft-tissue damage.  I have been told no running for 4 weeks (3 weeks now as I write this).  This was a pretty difficult blow to take, but I am trying to see the positive side in it, which is that I am learning how to swim for exercise, something I've been wanting to do anyway, and taking the extra time to do other things I've been wanting to try but haven't had time for between runs like yoga and now water running too.  Hopefully this forced break will give me time to cross-train and strengthen and come back even stronger so that I can take this new mindset and pair it to some serious training and see what I can do with the two.  Once I come back, I'll be training for a three-day, 60-mile total trail stage race in Chattanooga in June.  That will be my main focus.  But I'm not done with marathons yet.  I will get that BQ someday.  Once I decide I am going to do something, I will do it.  I don't know how long it will take, how many marathons I'll have to run, which age bracket I'll be in at that time, but I am going to do it.  

 My new AquaJogger belt for water running.

So, the Gusher was a lesson and test in tenacity and perseverance, and I feel that I passed.  I'm proud of myself for keeping a good mental attitude and fighting through to the finish.  I'm proud of my friends for trying again after Austin and for the things they achieved in each of their respective races.  And I'm looking forward to getting back to running in a few weeks.  For now, though, I am embracing the challenge of tackling a new sport (swimming) and of finding other, creative ways to get stronger and stay in shape, and as I like to say, I love a good challenge.

Bandera 50k

The Bandera mud run 50k finally happened this past Saturday.  I had been thinking about this race since I ran the 25k last year (my first ever trail race), and it's a little hard to believe that it's already come and gone.  Though, it definitely very much happened....I have the scrapes and blisters and chafing to prove it.

The weather reports had been all over the place leading up to the race.  The first one when we were 10 days out predicted a low of 23 degrees and a high of 72.  What?  How do you plan for that when you're expecting to run for at least 5 hours and with a temperature range like that, you'll likely start at about 25 and end at 65 degrees?  It's just not possible.  As the day got closer, though, the reports became a little more reasonable, settling at a low of 37 and high of 62 for a few days.  Thirty-seven sounds cold, but when you're running, 40-45 degrees or so is about perfect.  By the day before, however, the reports were calling for temps between 58 and 62 (read: hot in running terms) and there was a chance of rain, though, it was low and not supposed to start till later in the day, so overall, it would be warm but otherwise not too terrible.

Well, my roommate and I were the first ones to Bandera on Friday afternoon, and so we started setting up our camp.  We had a whole big crew meeting us down there, mostly a bunch of other folks from our boot camp where we work (Synergy Fitness), but I also knew a few folks from my other running group that were coming down and a few more folks from Austin as well.  I love that I'm knowing more and more people in the running community and seeing more and more friendly faces before, during and after the races.  But I digress...

Home sweet camp

We got our campsite set up, picked up our packets (coincidentally, my bib number was my goal time) and listened to the trail briefing before a few of us went into town for a pasta dinner at a local restaurant.  Afterward, I got dropped back off at the campsite, put my drop bag together, laid out all my clothes, my shoes, bib, watch, chip, etc.  I tried to hang out for a little bit with everyone, but I was getting pretty nervous, and I wanted a good night sleep before my 5 AM wake-up, so I crawled in my tent and put my headphones on and listened to some calming/motivating music before falling asleep early.

My race packet including my bib, which was, coincidentally, my goal time

At about 5AM, I'm awakened to the sound of rain.  Oh no!!  Please don't tell me it's raining!  Well, it wasn't, thank goodness, but it had rained during the night and everything was soaked (note to self: add 'new tent' to list of things to eventually buy).  I was dry because my sleeping bag was on top of my sleeping pads, but the rest of the floor of my tent was wet or at least damp everywhere.  Luckily, my clothes were dry (though, it wouldn't have made much difference anyway - they were completely soaked with sweat within the first 15 minutes of running).  The 'rain' I had heard was just water falling off the branches onto my tent when the wind blew.  I knew immediately that my time goal had just been changed.  I make up a lot of my uphill time going fast on the downhills, but with slippery rocks, that wasn't going to happen.

I got up, had my breakfast of two mangoes, a banana and some dates and got dressed.  Everyone was milling about and talking in the campsite area, but I was too nervous to be out there chatting, so I slipped away back to my tent to lay down and listen to music while doing some stretches.  Finally, at about 7:00, we left to walk to our respective start lines.  All three races started at a different point, which was nice because the course goes to single track pretty quickly, and it was hard enough to position yourself where you wanted to be amongst just the other runners in your race.

 Joe, Billy, Me and Ty just before the race starts

The 50k start was about a 1/4 mile away, so we used the opportunity to warm up a little and jogged over there.  As it turns out, slippery rocks would be the least of my worries.  Everywhere where there weren't rocks, the course was muddy.  It was a sticky, sticky mud that collected on the bottom of your shoes and wouldn't fall off.  So, by the time we even got to the start line, we were all already scraping mud off the bottom of our shoes.  Then, what I had been waiting for and daydreaming about for a year finally became a reality as the last seconds were counted down and we were off and slipping running, and the race was on.

Billy, Joe and I heading off to the 50k start line

The first 10 miles contained four huge hills all in a row.  They were the same four hills that were the last 10 miles of the relay leg I ran in October.  I was a little concerned about having them first and tiring out my legs so quickly so early on, and that is, indeed, what happened.  By the time I got through those first ten miles, my quads were screaming.  The mud just made it worse.  When you weren't slipping, you were having to use extra energy to unstick your foot from the ground, so I had used up a lot more energy than anticipated by the time I rolled into the Nachos aid station at mile 10.

Elevation profile for the 50k course

Miles 10-15 were tough.  I went to a dark place, and I honestly don't remember much of them.  My legs were shot, and I still had 21 miles to go.  That was difficult to bear.  Tougher still was that crews weren't allowed at Nachos, so after seeing my friends that were helping me out at mile five in the middle of the hills, I had to wait until arriving at Chapas at mile 15 before seeing them again.  I finally started to feel myself coming out of the fog as I neared Chapas.  There, I saw Courtney and Kat, whom I am ever so grateful for.  Courtney always had my gels and salt tabs ready to go amongst other things that she thought I might want.  Then she and the aid station volunteers (who were also awesome) would grab my water bottle(s) (I started carrying two after Chapas - I was sweating sooo much and running out of water between stations) and refill them for me allowing me to just rest and recoup for a minute.

Best race crew ever!!  Courtney and Kat made all the difference at the aid stations.

After Chapas, I was rejuvenated.  Half way done!!  On the downward slope now.  AND, the next (and last) two aid stations were actually the same one - Cross Roads.  We passed by there at miles 21 and again at 26 on the other side.  For some reason, this was very comforting.  I took off from Chapas with determination and renewed grit.  It was slow-going at first, but as my mental state improved, so did my pace.  Some of the mantras and thoughts that got me through the tough spots were 'You only get to do your first 50k once' and 'Just keep moving' and 'One foot in front of the other'.  Writing those now, they don't really seem too inspiring, but that's what was pushing me forward at the time. 

What I saw for two miles as I trudged through the stickiest mud ever

The last two miles before Cross-Roads was a stretch of muddy field that was so, so difficult.  The mud just caked up on your shoes, an inch or two thick on the bottom AND the sides.  It made your foot feel 10 pounds heavier and with every step, you had to unsuction your foot from the ground.  What should have been a fast stretch used to make up for some of that slow uphill time suddenly became a time stopper.  I had stopped looking at the time or my pace somewhere around mile 11 or 12 when I finally realized that my time goal was just a dream (that likely contributed to the 'dark place' as well), but still, I didn't like going this slow.  Runners were stopping and trying to scrape the mud from their shoes on the barbwire fence, some were just walking.  The only thing that kept me from slowing to a walk during the last mile of it was being able to see Cross Roads approaching and that was enough of a boost to push me out of that damn field (excuse my French) and back onto the rocky path.  

Cross-roads aid station

  
I hit Cross-roads 1 feeling good, well, as good as one can feel after having run 21 miles over mountains and through mud.  I guess I mean good in terms of my head.  Yeah, my legs were tired.  They hurt.  My feet hurt.  I had scratches and was bleeding from running through the sotol bushes.  I had a raw spot on the back of my left heel that was getting worse and worse.  I had blisters forming on at least two toes.  But, mentally, I was ready to go.  Last 10 miles.  No problem.  Let's do it!  I took off from the Cross-roads station and headed out toward the Three Sisters hills.

I was moving along fine, or so I felt, yet at one point near the end of the third of the three sisters, I happened to glance back and saw a girl with red numbers on her bib just 50m behind me.  At this point, I was thinking I had a good hold on 5th place based on information given to me back at mile 5 and counting of how many 50k gals had passed me and how many I had passed (both had only happened a couple times, I thought).  So, I was quite surprised to see this girl sneaking up on me.  I was about 6 miles from the end, and long past any hopes of my time goal, and I was not about to give up my place too.  So, I turned it on.  Once I summitted the hill, I immediately started running again and didn't stop till I got to the (last!!) aid station.  I sucked down two gels this time, inhaled my two salt tabs and took off with just one filled water bottle for this last, shorter stretch, the whole time feeling the pressure of this girl being right on my tail.  The adrenaline rush from feeling chased mixed with the elation of only having 4.5 more miles to go gave me the boost I needed to sprint (well, it felt like sprinting, though, at the VERY most, it was maybe an 8:30 or 9:00 pace, but at that point - that was an all out sprint) out of Cross-roads 2 and toward the finish.

 Trying to move through the last aid station as quickly as possible because of another 50k girl right on my tail....or so I thought

Those last 4.5 miles were tough.  I was pushing myself as hard as I could.  Every time I slowed to walk an uphill (side note: my definition of 'hill' had changed significantly since the beginning of the race), I would look back expecting to see her right there.  I would walk a few steps then to get myself started again, I would count down 3.....2.....1....GO! and pick up my feet to start running again.  I got to the last (and by far most evil) hill, Lucky Peak.  If you look at the elevation profile above of the course, you can see that it is basically a completely vertical ascent followed by a completely vertical descent - a straight line up and down really.  I had to run that darn hill twice last year in the 25k - Joe puts it at the very beginning and very end of the race, but it seemed infinitely taller and steeper this year.  It took everything I had no to stop and stand still while working my way up, because I knew if I stopped, I wouldn't be able to get back started again.  There was a 100k woman behind me a ways that I had passed a quarter mile back from Lucky who nearly passed me by the time I got to the top!!  This woman was amazing.  How she had the strength to power up that hill like she did is beyond me - and this was with knowing that she still had another lap to go.  Incredible.  I turned around and cheered for her and told her she was awesome, then made the final descent on my beaten up quads down the other side.  

Victory!!!  I just ran 31 miles and finished my first 50k in killer conditions.

The finish line was close.  I could taste it.  I passed the 'Last Chance' aid station for the 100kers and knew I had a half mile to go.  A half mile seemed like an eternity, but since I've been running with one of my running groups (the Ship of Fools) where we do weekly track workouts, I've learned to think about that last half mile of a race as 'just an 800' instead.  Two times around the track (well about 2 1/2 on our short track) y ya.  Done.  Unfortunately, that last half mile was all mud, but I guess, in some way, it wouldn't have been right if it weren't.  I finally came out of the woods and rounded the corner to the finish line in 5:57.  Thirty-seven minutes slower than my goal time, but under 6 hours and in 7th place overall, so I'll take it.  The girl that I thought was hot on my tail that was the impetus for me going 'fast' in those last 6 miles finished 7 minutes back from me.  I also found out that I'd won my age group (the top 5 finishers got overall awards, then age groups started after that), and that the award was this awesome metal donkey (I love Tejas Trails trophies).

   Done!! 7th place overall and first in my age group

My friends were waiting for me at the finish and quickly got me a drink and gave me high fives and hugs.  Three friends had finished before me, all of us within 20 minutes of each other.  More friends came in a little while later.  The 25k runners were there too and we all started sharing stories and congratulating each other.

  Brian (25k), Joe (50k), me and Billy (50k) at the finish line.  I'm just resting my eyes a little...

Some of us went into town where Courtney and Joe kindly let me use the shower in their bunkhouse (though, I think Courtney was just as happy that I showered as I was - I was pretty disgusting) and I finally got to eat my celebratory doughnuts.  I had a maple-covered and a glazed cake-style one.  Delicious.  I knew the sotol scratches on my legs were going to sting in the water, but I wasn't at all prepared for the horrible chafing burns on my back from my sports bra.  I got under the water and nearly let out a shriek as the warm water hit them.  I was really confused for a minute thinking, 'How in the world did I get sotol scratches on my back?!', but then I realized that it must be chafing.  I had used body glide under my arms where I've had chafing issues before, but didn't even think about putting it on my back.  Lesson definitely learned.  The rubbed areas have since converted into large scabs that go all the way across my back.  Other battle wounds include the sotol scratches, blisters on 6 out of 10 toes (some toes with multiple blisters) and general overall soreness.

**Disclaimer:  If you're easily bothered by cuts, blisters and the sort, don't look at these next pictures**

 

 Battle wounds.  Left: one of the worst blisters, this toe actually had at least two, the one you see plus one under the toenail (those hurt worse); Center: the chafing on my back from my sports bra; Right: scratches up and down my legs from the sotol bushes

 Did I mention it was a little muddy out there?

After showering, we ate at a restaurant and booked it back to cheer on our friend running the 100k.  When we got back, we found him at our campsite.  He had completed 48 miles (out of 62) and had to withdraw due to an IT band injury.  He was pretty upset, but all of us were (and are) extremely proud of what he did out there.  Forty-eight miles at Bandera on a good weather conditions day would be amazing.  In the kind of conditions we had that day, it was an incredible feat.   I have no doubt that the next big race he does, he will knock it out of the park.

A cold front was coming in, which meant big gusts of wind and dropping temperatures.  Those that were leaving that night or staying in town quickly took off for their warm cars or hotel rooms respectively.  My roommate and I wandered over the finish line to see who all was hanging out.  There weren't that many folks that we knew, so we hung out for a little while at camp chatting a bit before finally calling it a night around 8:30.  It took a little while to fall asleep with the wind whipping around outside and the occasional cheers coming in from the finish line as a 100ker would finish (the cut-off time was 7:00 AM the next morning, so some folks were out there all night long), but once I did, I slept well. We got up early the next morning, broke down camp and made our way back to Austin.

So, my first 50k did not go the way I imagined it.  Part of me is a little disappointed in my time, but most of me is pretty darn proud for doing it, and for doing it in the crazy conditions that we were given.  I really had a blast overall, and I am so grateful that I got to share it with some pretty awesome people.  I'm already thinking about the next big thing.  Well, I guess the next big thing is the Austin marathon in nearly 4 weeks now (yikes!).  I'm hoping to qualify for Boston 2014 there, so fingers crossed we have a better weather day on February 17th than we did on January 12th.  The next big trail thing for me might be the Chattanooga Mountain Stage Race.  It's 3 days, 3 mountains, 60 miles total.  Each day you go up and over one of three different mountains.  I'm from Chattanooga, and I think this would be an awesome and incredibly difficult race (which makes me want to do it even more).  There are time cutoffs for each day that I think I could make (you have to keep a 13 min/mile pace).  Even my moving average for Bandera in these conditions was 11:12/mile, but it makes a difference having a night to sleep that allows your muscles to get sore and stiffen.  It will take a lot of training to do it, but I think I can.

Anyway, Bandera 50k is in the books.  I can't ever do my first 50k again, but I wouldn't take the option of doing it over on a nice, cool, dry day even if I had the chance, because this is the way it was (hot, humid, muddy), so this is the way it was supposed to be.  It was definitely an adventure and a pretty awesome one at that.

Here's a video I got from YouTube that shows the rockiness, steepness and muddiness of the course: