First blog entry since last Thursday.
Friday was the day before the Free State Ultras & Trail Marathon. I signed up for the 100k. There was also a 40-miler running concurrently, and a marathon starting an hour later. So, Friday, packet pick-up, and getting ready– mixing up the Perpetuem, getting the drop bag ready. You know the drill.
Big storms forecast for the afternoon and evening of the race, but I tried not to worry about that.
Race Saturday. Plan to do a detailed race report. Wish I could be like Sarah Ellen Stanley — she’s a personal trainer and ultrarunner out of DC who ran her first 50-miler — the Bull Run 50 — April 18. Sarah posted to Twitter all throughout her race! So in a way– she wrote her race report while she was running the race! Did good too — about 10:18, I think, in a very tough trail race in hilly Northern Virginia. I probably won’t have mine done for two or three more weeks.
A link to her blog, Sarah Stanley Inspired, is on my blog page.
Short version is, the race got canked about 11 hours in, because of storms. A group of us 100k kids — Mark Friesen, Deb Johnson, Coleen Voeks, Lee Crane and Willie Lambert got pulled at the 52.5-mile aid station. Just 9.5 to go!!
The way the weather turned out, it was good — very nasty little cell with high wind, slashing rain and pounding hail rolled in about 45 minutes after we came off the course.
Felt good all through the race. Was on track for a sub-14 hour finish without pushing. Even dawdled taking a lot of photos for ultrastory.com — in addition to a lot of runners, I also shot (with the camera) two snakes and two deer.
It was all good. Cloudy, humid, but nice warm day running around in the woods sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. I know it killed Ben Holmes, the RD, to cank that race, but it was the right thing to do.
And even though I didn’t get a belt buckle this year, when I finished at the aid station, I got something almost as good — a delicious grilled veggie cheese burger, made specially for me by Randy Albrecht. That thing was good, no lie.
Sunday, I found I had gotten some kind of version of turf toe. Big toes on both feet swelled up, turned red, and hurt. Could hardly walk. I had promised Ben I’d de-mark part of the course after the race, but had to wait until Monday. Then I read on Face Book it had already been done Sunday, so I was off the hook.
Spent much of Sunday and Monday night after work going through the photos I took and posting them on ultrastory — a process I only finished early this evening. Thought I was done last night, but discovered this morning I’d forgotten to upload the last few dozen. They are all up now, however.
I’m not sore or stiff at all after my 52.5 miles. But the toes are getting better very slowly, and I still can’t run. Am trying to put off going to the doc. May have to do it eventually. Will almost certainly miss the Wednesday night trail run tomorrow. I will probably go out there anyway just to get a photo of the group. How pathetic is that.
Anyway, even though I didn’t finish my race, got some nice Lawrence Trail Hawk things to report — Lisa “Rhino Hawk” Wright and Liz “Spider Hawk” Smith both got their first marathon finishes. Debbie “Wheat Hawk” Webster and Christy “Hawk Mama” Craig pushed their distance records from 50K to 40 miles, and Hawk Mama beat her projected time by almost an hour.
Mircea “Mir Hawk” Sauciuc got his first ultra-finish in the 40-mile. And Darin “Lincoln Hawk” Schneidewind got his first 100K finish, beating the storm and finishing with the tough “Kearney Boys” John King and Gabe Bevan. My friend Greg Burger also got in before the storm. All 11-hour finishes, I think. Results weren’t up yet when I checked yesterday.
Next big race will be the Lunar Trek in Scandia, Kan., in July. The race starts at 11 pm under a full moon, or as close to it as they can schedule. Very cool. Hopefully the toes will be better by then! More about Lunar Trek later.
Well, this is pretty long for a blog entry, so I will sign off.
116 days to Leadville.
Weekly work out totals = 0.0! Oy.
More later,
sore toe gary
Great pictures Gary.. as always you really get a flavor of the race. Thanks again for the encouragement during the race.. sorry I was too far in the hole to take advantage of it! You did forget that Laurie “Pixie Hawk” also got her first 40 mile finish in!
Sorry to hear about the toes. Sounds like a strange ailment maybe it’s swine toe. Hope to get out on the trails with you soon.