Crossfit and Re-evaluating Goals

Going to Crossfit three times a week is much harder than I originally thought it would be. It’s taxing on the body, of course, but it has been surprisingly taxing on the mental front as well. I’m doing movements that I learned over the past two weeks and I’m not completely confident in myself. It’s hard to trust yourself to do repeated rope climbs when you can’t even remember if you ever did them in middle school gym class. When you’re dangling from a rope 20 feet in the air, you want to be sure of yourself. Never mind that you might be slightly scared of heights too! 

Saturday marked my first full week of being a real crossfitter, not an intro learner (not meaning to say I’m not still learning and considering myself a beginner).  On Monday, we did the usual warmup and about 15 min of our gymnastics: practicing handstands, ring pushups, tripods, overhead squats, kb deadlifts…and then we moved on to the WOD: three rounds for time of 10 box jumps, 10 knees to elbows, 10 box jumps, 20 pushups. I managed to get through it in a weak 8:17. Arm workouts in general have never been my favorite. I’m bad at them and severely lack upper body muscle, and so I used to just skip working that part of my body out. Thank God I’m forced to work out my upper body now. I’m tired of wobbly turkey arms! BRING ON THE ARM WRESTLING! Just kidding.  

I skipped Wednesday’s workout because I just really wasn’t’ feeling well. I began working at the office on Thursday, and I was pretty tired by the time the end of the work day rolled around for Friday. After much debating, showing up super early to the gym, then driving home (it’s like five min away), then deciding last minute to go back to the gym…I got in another WOD. We did gymnastics again, this time I managed a handstand on my own (FINALLY!), and then the WOD was as follows: 20 min AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) with the rounds being one rope climb, then rowing 250 meters. Then rope climb. Row 500 meters. Rope climb. Row 750 meters. Rope climb. Row 1000 meters….you get the idea. I was in a sucky moody…drained, exhausted, and still feeling under the weather…but crossfit don’t care. You show up, you get it done. That’s it. No whining to your coaches about it, no making excuses for your performance. I tried to suck it up as much as possible but the workout has been one of my least favorite so far. I almost cried. Coach Tony kept trying to motivate me, seeing that I wasn’t at my best and I felt like I was letting myself down and allowing myself to cop out by going half steam. I made it completely up the rope on the first climb, then halfway or a little more each other time. I made it through 4 rope climbs and 415 meters out of what was going to be my 1000 meter row. It. Was. Hard.

Since I skipped Wednesday’s WOD and I’m signed up for three visits a week, I decided to go in on Saturday.  We did a chipper. The good news was we didn’t do the gymnastics, which kinda tire out my arms before we even get to the WOD. The bad news was it was a super challenging workout. 

Saturday’s Chipper:

50 wall balls, rx 14/20# ball, used 10#

45 sit-ups

40 air squats

35 ring dips, mine modified with an assistance strap

30 double unders or 90 singles, I did 90 singles

25 push ups, mine modified

20 walking lunges with 25# plate

15 push press, rx 55#/95# or something, weak me did 35# and struggled

10 box jumps

5 sumo deadlift high pulls

My time – 17:59. When I say I struggled, I mean I S T R U G G L E D. Big time. By the time I finished 50 wall balls, I felt like my life was over. The situps were a very welcome break. I’m good at those and they don’t use your arms or legs. The 40 air squats were difficult considering wall balls are squats too. 35 ring dips…..come on. I have a hard time doing 10. 90 single jump ropes were okay for me, but I noticed the sweat flying off of me.   Again, I suck at pushups and these were difficult after the wall balls and ring dips. Walking lunges were okay on my legs but my arms were severely struggling with that 25# plate overhead. I wanted to get those over with ASAP. The push press is where I had the hardest time. Tony stood there the entire time I did those 15, making me redo a few because I couldn’t get my elbows straight. These just completely disheartened me. I felt so sad that I had such a hard time lifting 35 pounds above my head. Box jumps were uneventful other than Tony was still standing right there cheering me on, then by the time I got to the SDHP I was the last person still going and only had five moves to knock out and I would finally be finished. Everyone started egging me on and it was surprisingly nice to have everyone rooting for me. They were fairly easy to get through, I’m much better at the lower body movements. It’s gratifying to complete really challenging work outs like that, but in the heat of the moment all you want to do is lay down. At least I know I’m getting my money’s worth!

On the other side of the coin, I haven’t ridden the bike the past few days. It took every ounce of my energy to make it to crossfit, that I’ve been too tired to ride the bike. And don’t even ask me if I’ve been to the pool to work on my swimming. That hasn’t happened either. And neither has running unless it’s been part of the crossfit warmup.

I’ve been thinking more about my fitness goals lately, now that I do feel a little stronger and muscley. I have Big Sur Marathon at the end of April, and I want to start running again very soon so I can work my way up safely.  I thought about using that race as a benchmark for a fifty miler training, because it’s still something I really want to accomplish but I’m just not sure. All the fiftys around here are pretty challenging…

Then there’s the prospective goal of a half ironman with several sprint and Olympic triathlons in the spring leading up to a 70.3 in the summer. I love riding the bike, I’m okay with the running aspect…it’s just that gosh darn swimming I’m not sure about. I’m not very confident that I can teach myself how to effective swim 1.2 miles while also training for running, biking, and maintaining crossfit. Maybe instead I should shift my efforts to looking at some cycling events and running events…just leave out swimming altogether. Complete a century ride, etc…

In other news, we were watching a marathon of ‘I Won The Lottery’ or whatever that show is called where they follow up on how some lottery winners spent their money and how it changed their life….tooootally makes me want to go buy some lotto tickets. I think the CO lottery is up to 50mil or something! We could do a lot of outdoor things with that money!!!!

…Only in my dreams…

Reflection

Well just when I thought I was getting back into keeping this thing up to date with the last post, I fell off the writing horse again and into a sloth-like state.

I haven't been running. Like...at all (but I was doing Crossfit Endurance). And that's okay. In fact, it's more than okay. I think it is exactly what my body and my mind needed after the chaos of the past two years:

Started running July 2010
Ran first half October 2010
(seems like a big gap here but I did a few small races)
Ran first trail half September 2011
Ran first marathon October 2011
Ran first 50k May 2012 (wow...after typing that I just realized how soon ago that was...seems like longer)
Attempted first 50 mile June 2012.
Shortly after the 50 mile attempt, I vowed not to run for at least a month to let my body finally heal and give my mind a break from all the torment I have put it through.

It's been a whirlwind running career in my opinion. My first half marathon I ran a little under the weather and a little down in the soul when I hadn't seen my dad or stepmom on the course and missed my mom and friends at the first cheering spot.

I injured myself during my first trail half, twisting my ankle twice. Once at the 6 mile marker with a very audible POP, dusted myself off and kept running only to twist is again at mile 11 at which point damage was definitely done. I had to take off a good stretch of time to let that heal...all before my first full marathon. Needless to say, I ran the marathon but I wasn't in the best condition I could have been, physically or mentally. Life lessons.

The 50k in Bear Mountain was a true test to me. I wouldn't take it back for the world because I saw great inspiration at that race through many of the competitors, and I made a great running friend who motivated me to cross that finish line.  The drawback was that I picked an excruciatingly difficult race only a month before my 50 miler. Very challenging ups and downs left my knee shredded after the race and it definitely took a toll on my training for the month leading up to North Face.

North Face was a completely different beast. Had I not been injured (story of my running life...) and had I not been up to my shins in mud from the downpours of rain the night before the race, I think I would have completed the race with flying colors. I don't doubt my ability anymore. I will always remember how clumsy I am though. I fell more than once that day, as I suspect many people did, but two of the falls resulted in damage to my other ankle and my knee again.

What I am trying to get at here is that clearly I needed a break. Big time. I almost think I needed time away from thinking of it all, strategizing, planning out each run and what to eat, where to go, what to wear, on and on more than my body needed the recovery. I needed a break to reel my mind back in from so much negativity that started circling with each perceived failure. I say perceived because I don't consider bad runs failures anymore. Looking back now after my month plus of reflection, I learned something from every single run. Every trip over a root, every mis-ingested gel, every ill-timed outing. I am now a wealth of running information thanks to all of those blunders and successes.

I am now ready to take all that knowledge back out onto the road and start again. But I want to do things the right way this time. I've been reading Finding Ultra by Rich Roll. I guess you can say I drank the kool-aid on this one because this guy has me convinced that I need to change a few things about my lifestyle. First up and probably the most difficult, I need to alter my diet. Less meat focus, more veggies and fruits. Less processed foods. Time to think more about what I am getting out of everything I'm eating and how it is impacting my body and training and general well being. He makes a very strong case for the plant-based lifestyle, but that's something that I will have to eeeease into, if I ever make it there fully.

Rich Roll also talks about his journey to compete in Ultraman, an intense three day competition that is invitation only for a few lucky competitors. It's insane: day one entails a 6.2 mile swim, followed by a 90 mile bike ride. Day two is a 170 mile bike ride, and Day three culminates with a 52 mile run. Pretty insane (I hope I got those amounts right...). He went from barely active at all in his life to all of a sudden training for six months for this beast of a challenge. His coach taught him how to change his thinking and concentrate in the immediate on changing his lactate threshold (which I know mine is not good at all). He ran for months only in the Zone Two, keeping his heart rate in the aerobic zone. This eventually allowed him to run for much longer, and eventually longer and faster.  It is essential for endurance athletes.

Since I am just getting back on the horse, that's how I intend to start. Slowly, small runs in my Z2, building up time but keeping it in the zone. After I get a job and a paycheck, I also intend on buying a bike so I can cross train and keep my muscles balanced.

I still want to incorporate Crossfit Endurance into my fitness regimen. We'll see how it goes. So far I have Big Sur International Marathon on my list of registered races, April 28, 2013. I've been wanting to run it, so I am extremely excited I was able to register.

Happy trails!

NFEC 50 Mile Recap

Before the start with
my coffee

I'm going to start with the week's forecast leading up to the Saturday race. It rained on Tuesday, then was sunny for a bit, and then the forecast called for rain on Friday. I went to work with a little bit of a drizzle that quickly gave way to seemingly nice weather. It fooled me into thinking maybe there wouldn't be any rain as predicted. As I started my drive home from work, the sky opened up and dumped an ungodly amount of rain. It took a small break when I got home, then proceeded to downpour the rest of the night. Tornado warnings kept flashing on the tv and I grew increasingly anxious about the trail conditions. I've been out on the PHT enough times to know what it looks like after a decent rain. Muddy. And this was about twenty times more rain than I had seen before any of my training runs out there.

To say I was concerned is an understatement. I had a very bad feeling about things, but went about my preparations for an early bed time and an early rise to get going for the race.

At least I had a fantastic meal of baked chicken parmesan, whole wheat spaghetti with baby spinach, delicious asparagus, and garlic bread.

I woke up at 3:30am and got dressed and head to the race parking lot. I had my pb&j, a little piece of bagel, and coffee, a momentary freak out, and then before I could panic anymore the race was under way. At least I got close to Dean K on the way through the arch for the start!

Waiting for the Start

And we're off!

Not even a tenth of a mile into the run, everyone could tell the muddy day we were in for. The course takes you out a tiny bit on a 'trail' then you duck back to the open field where you see the spectators again about a mile in and then head down the paved road for a bit til you duck onto the gravel road at Algonkian where the baseball diamonds are...it eventually leads you to the PHT and the first aid station.

I stuck with my coworker for a little while during this portion until we approached the PHT. I almost slipped on a bridge that we crossed because my shoes were already wet and getting muddy. Not a good start to things, slipping only two miles into a fifty mile race...

The trail crosses for a little loop that I haven't run before with another slippery bridge and a double back to bring runners back to the aid station. By this point I was pretty much bringing up the rear of the pack, already having popped my tylenol for some minor pains I was starting to feel in my knee and hip. I stopped at the aid station for some pretzels and kept on my way to more familiar territory. I felt a sense of comfort in hitting the trails that I recognized.

The feeling didn't last long.

I thought Bear Mountain was the toughest race I would encounter for a while, but this proved to be a completely different type of challenge. While Bear Mountain burned my hams and calves and made me question the meaning of life, DC made me feel like I ran ten miles when I had only covered five. Muscles I didn't know I had were aching from the balancing act that was required the first quarter of the course.

Fifty miles is hard enough on a nice clean, flat trail. Factoring in heaps of mud that keeps trying to suck the shoes off your feet, makes you slip repeatedly, cakes onto your shoes so you have virtually no grip at all...well that's just not good at all. No good for your muscles, no good for your pace, and no good for your attitude and confidence level. I challenge you to find one person (who wasn't in the top 15 finishers) who didn't have a flicker of doubt of finishing in their mind at some point on Saturday. 

Yes, this is the trail...

I've run almost all of the course route before and have never seen this section so overrun with grass. I literally couldn't see where I was stepping, which creates a bucketload of problems when I knew this section has tons of roots and rocks along the bottom. I snagged my foot on a branch and tumbled forward a bit but luckily caught myself, though I think this is when things truly started to head south.

I made it to the next aid station feeling a bit defeated. The volunteers were so great and tried to pep me up by telling me not to worry myself with the first hard cutoff time, keep at it, that I was doing great, slapped a freshly made pb&j into my hand, filled my water and off I went after spending too much time standing around. I did pep up just a bit and started to run a little more than I had been...trying to get into a groove I wasn't able to find for the first eight miles. I had 6.7 miles until the next aid station and a lot of work to do. Eventually I came to what seemed to be a stream crossing with no way across but to wade across the waist-high- water. Not exactly what I wanted, and although it helped to wash the mud off my shoes, it also water logged them and brought on more weight and more possibilities for blisters.

Not very far from there I finally saw three people in front of me. That breathed new energy into me and I started to pick up the pace in pursuit of some company to run with. We griped together about how awful and muddy the morning was, and eventually we came to a small jump in the trail over a little stream of water. The two runners got there first and both immediately fell and slid into the water. The guy offered to help me across and I stupidly decided to go to the side where there was a tree that I thought would offer me support to get across. I ended up falling too, mildly hurting my wrist, definitely hurting my leg/ankle, and certainly hurting what little was left of my confidence and desire to continue. I let out some cuss words and shared sentiments with the other two runners. We managed to carry on and played rabbit for a while until I peeled off in front, not to see them again for miles.

I finally got close to Riverbend and passed a few injured and limping 50 milers...right about the time that the 50k leads were starting to come up from behind. They offered encouragement as I pulled to the side to let them pass, and I continued to make my way to Great Falls. I was just ready to get there, change my shoes, and see my boyfriend and best friends for a boost.

I started to feel like a runner again right before heading past the visitor center at Great Falls. I was finally surrounded by other runners and could feel their energy and excitment as they came in to the next aid station, ready to start their loop. I saw my friends and immediately felt overcome with emotion and sadness. I changed my socks and shoes, treated them poorly because of displaced anger, and had a chat with the aid station volunteer about the cutoff time. He told me if I really pushed the pace, I would make the cutoff and be allowed to continue into Great Falls for a second loop. I didn't WANT to continue...but I'm too stubborn to quit and I took off chasing a faster pace to continue the race.  That didn't last long. Soon I hit a long slow uphill and started walking and eating some crackers. I turned from the Old Carriage trail onto the Ridge Trail for more of an uphill, a bit of a downhill, a turnaround, and back across to the other side of  the Rdige Trail to a very oddly placed aid station. The route dead ends there and runners turn around and head down to the River Trail, but it was a bit of chaos at the station and I tried to get in and out quickly. My leg and ankle on my right leg were starting to seize up from all that uphill work and I had to start walking the River Trail, which bottlenecked with runners forced to walk the rocky sections, and bound around tourists who didn't understand that a race was happening. This is around the time I realized I wouldn't make the cutoff, and that it would be better if I didn't make it anyhow. Everything was hurting, and I know myself well enough that if I had made the cutoff, even if by mere seconds, I would have gone into GF for a second, and third loop...eventually dragging my leg behind me in the mud to get to the finish line, doing much more damage in the process.

When I came into the aid station, the volunteer told me I missed the time and I walked off to where my boyfriend and friends were waiting with their signs and beaming smiles of encouragement. I wanted to just curl into a ball on the ground and sob until the disappointment disappeared, but I tried to put on a brave face for the ride home.

I ended up crying in the car anyway, and had spurts of crying for the next day. After a tearful goodbye to my friend who drove all the way from Norfolk to not run with me, Helen, Jake, Ryan, and I shoved our faces and drank our little hearts out to try to cheer me up. Cotton Candy Vodka and Sprite is delicious, in case you were wondering.

I'm still finding it hard to deal with Saturday. I know I probably sound insane to people who haven't been through this sort of thing...like why is it so hard for this girl to cope with the fact that she didn't finish an insane distance race...and I'm okay with people not understanding. I'm nursing my wounds, letting my legs and pride heal, then I'll be back at the grind, adding muscle and strength to my body before starting the long road back to the start line and finish line (hopefully) for Bear Chase 50 Mile on Sept 30.


I will bounce back.


*TNF group puts on an incredible race. It's not their fault I had a poo time. The volunteers were so sweet and encouraging, the course was very well marked, the aid stations were well stocked with goodies. My only small gripe would be about the location of the Great Falls aid stations. Otherwise, I would most certainly do this race again, and I encourage first time ultra runners to try it out.*

Less Than 24 Hr to Go!

I'll wanna be sedated! (Get it...?! Like the song...)

Tomorrow is the big day: Exactly 18 hours from now. HOLY YIKES!

Fully commence freak out mode!

Launching in

3

2

1

AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

Seriously, this could be the biggest lead up to anything I've ever done ever in my life EVER.

12 hours of pure delight. Pain. Frustration.Worry. Joy. Tears. High fives. Sweaty hugs.

Finishing 50 miles in a 13 hour time period will undeniably be so emotional for me. I expect to cry during the race, as I come in to the finishing chute, as the medal is placed around my neck, as I see my friends waiting and cheering for me.

Humorous things I expect to happen based on my training runs: hallucinating that a tree is a horse, having ridiculous songs pop into my head like "I Will Survive" and Flock of Seagulls' "Ran So Far Away" and "I Would Walk 500 Miles" or my personal favorite from the last few miles of Bear Mountain, 98 Degrees "It's the Hardest Thing I'll Ever Have to Do".  I'll also randomly laugh at myself for doing something stupid, ie - not paying attention and tripping on air. I'll try to crack jokes with those around (if there is anyone around me...).

I also asked my friends to provide me any mantras they think will help. My personal favorites are to just scream "WOOOOOO" (which I seriously will do!) and tell myself that I am a robot (in a robot voice). I seem to cuss a lot too as a way of coping with the hills and/or pain. I like yelling at myself "COME ON" too. Not sure why, but it seems to help me :)  I know everything is going to hurt eventually, so hopefully I will be able to just accept that and keep pushing to get to the end and sit down sooner.

I will load my friend's newest mix (dude is SUPER talented, go check him out...DJ Wizdom) onto my phone for some tunes, as well as hold on to the tunes that never fail to get me into a rhythm:

Golden Jubilee from Boy & Bear
Making Me Nervous from Brad Sucks (love love love to run to)
My Racing Thoughts from Jacks Mannequin
Release Me from Jacks Mannequin
Walk Away from The Script
Scotland from The Lumineers
Anything from Fitz & The Tantrums
Most recent CD from Foo Fighters

Then here's this info of my projected times....

Run down of each Aid:

Mile 4.8: Sugarland @ 6:00am

Mile 8.1: Fraser @ 6:45am

Mile 14.8: Great Falls @ 8:30am

Mile 18.9: Old Dominion @ 9:30am

Mile 21.7: Great Falls @ 10:10am  (HARD CUTOFF 10:42AM)

Mile 25.8: Old Dominion @ 11:00am

Mile 28.6: Great Falls @ 11:40am

Mile 32.7: Old Dominion @ 12:30pm

Mile 35.5: Great Falls @ 1:10pm (HARD CUTOFF 2:59PM)

Mile 42.2: Fraser @ 3:10pm

Mile 47.9: Sugarland @ 4:40pm

Mile 50: Finish line @ 5:10pm  (Earliest Estimation is 5:00PM, Don’t get antsy til 5:50PM, but maybe 4:30 just in case I sneak in early somehow)

I'm very excited to get this started. I feel so lazy from not running much after Bear Mountain, and I'm anxious to see how my body has held up with all that time off. I just really hope I can complete the distance safely. So much work has gone into preparing for this one day. I think i will eventually go into Race Surival Mode where you kind of tunnel vision everything out but the task at hand.

I'll try to provide a race recap faster than I did for Bear Mountain, but it might take me a little time to wrap my head around everything, and it will take me even longer to write a recap if for some unforeseen reason I DNF.

Wish me (and my poor pacers who have to deal with a grouchy Steph) luck!

Race Recap: Bear Mtn 50K

I've been procrastinating on posting this since I just don't know where to start, and I've been trying to wrap my head around the entire event. When something kicks your ass THAT hard, it's difficult to know how to process it all. I find myself on a rollercoaster ride of opinions towards this particular race.

I decided on Wednesday or Thursday that I would head up to Bear Mountain, NY and sign up on race day morning for a bib to the 50K race which had plenty of slots still open. I considered 'camping'...really sleeping in my car...but I was eventually persuaded to Priceline negotiate my way into a cheap hotel in the surrounding area. Boy am I glad I did that.  I nabbed the Candlewood Suites hotel in Nanuet, NY for $50 a night, and decided to stay Saturday night as well instead of driving the 4.5 hours home after the race (another genius idea). The Candlewood was everything I could have hoped for. It's an extended stay type joint, so the room was very spacious, nice bathroom, full kitchen, and comfortable enough bed. There was an issue with the thermostat that I couldn't quite get right...but I was pretty pleased with my experience there.

I took a half day on Friday and drove up to NY making really decent time. I checked into the hotel, and set out to find a pasta place for an early dinner. Turns out, although Nanuet is only about 30-45 miles away from NYC, it's a pretty small town with not that many options (that I could find). I ended up at the Red Lobster...the first of many mistakes.

What I wanted to eat for dinner...

I don't know why I expected Red Lobster to have more than one option of pasta that didn't also have a giant portion of seafood...but I was stuck with ordering Cajun Chicken Alfredo, or something like that. It was basically a bunch of oily pasta, big chunks of chicken, smothered in this gopped up mess of 'alfredo'...

And why would I show up to a restaurant alone and want to actually be left ALONE? Ohhh no....the people at Red Lobster in Nanuet, NY do not like that. They see you sitting by yourself and immediately want to know what you are donig in their small town. I told the spacey waitress that I was here to run a race. She made this uncomfortable comparison of me to Forrest Gump. Then seemingly tag teamed herself out of the conversation and left things wide open for the busboy to come chat with me. Frequently. The entire meal. 'Oh a race? Where?' 'I've been to Bear Mountain, are you running around the lake? (the lake is like ground zero there)' 'Oh 15 up and 15 back? 15 minutes?' 'Yeah I always wanted to hike the AT...' much nut flexing going on from this guy... and to round it all out, when I was finally finished eating and about to escape this disaster of a meal...'So I don't know what your plans are later, but I'm free if you want me to come over...'

Must have been a slow night for them...

In the morning, after a not so restful night's sleep, I made some coffee and oatmeal, gathered my things and head out for the 20 min drive to the shuttle location. In the fog.  I am terrified of driving in fog. No joke.

Parking was super easy and the lot had ample room. It's a short ten minute ride from the parking lot to the race start/finish, and I was registered in no time...with over an hour to kill before the 7am start. Everyone there was so incredibly nice, it made me feel okay making the trip up there all alone. I chatted with one woman (who quite frankly was a little crazy to tell me the course wasn't that steep and not that bad...LIAR), and then had a very bizarre moment when I went to take this picture (after some dude walked up to me because he thought I was some girl he knew in Saratoga...):

Don't you love the color combo of hot pink, neon orange, LSU purple and gold?! I know I do.

So this woman is standing there when I'm goofing off about my color combo with the photographer and we somehow get to chatting about me coming from DC, etc...when she asks, 'Do you write a blog? Because I think I read it the other night! Yeah, something about a girl from DC coming to run this 50K but is really doing the NFE DC 50miler?' (I definitely paraphrased that...because I have the memory of a goldfish and cannot remember verbatim, but you get the jist...I'M FAMOUS YALL!!!) Okay, I'm probably not famous...I really do think it's probably just some crazy coincidence that this woman read some other woman's blog and it just sounds like me. There are a million running blogs out there...but then again there are only 250 ish Bear Mtn 50k-ers, not many of which were women....just saying. (SHOUT OUT to the girl if she in fact did read MY blog before the race and then somehow came back on here again AFTER the race!)

Now that my celebrity story is out of the way, I'll get back to the race.

The temperature was mild but very humid. The first mile or so is slightly uphill, if my memory serves me right, and it's pretty rocky. Lucky for all of us, it rained pretty much all week to provide wonderful muddy, slippery rocks. I was cracking jokes with anyone around me who cared to listen until my shin splints magically appeared out of nowhere. I couldn't help but think, seriously? I thought I was done with that whole phase of things. I walked it out...a bad omen for the next 30 miles. I guess that's what I get for wearing my sportivas out of the blue when I had been recently running in the speedcross. I quickly found myself in the very, very back of the pack, with just one person periodically behind me. We played rabbit a bit in the beginning before we became fast friends.

Another hill. Story of this race. In front of me, 'Santiago' (we think that's what his name was...I'm pretty sure). He was in front of me, I was in the middle, and Jo was behind me.

I stopped briefly to take a picture of some trickling water, but the photo really isn't that great and it was just a waste of ten seconds. I was probably only doing that to catch my breath. I was a whimp at this race.

This picture happened shortly after, only a few miles into the race. I was already starting to drip sweat, and I was quickly realizing how tough this day would really be. I will never, EVER (probably a lie) complain about the 'hills' here in DC (ask me on June 2). These were nonstop, brutal, hamstring burning, soul sucking hills all freaking day. Miles and miles. And rocky descents I couldn't really enjoy running down.

It was about four miles to get from the start of the race to Anthony Wayne Aid Station. Pretty much all of that 4 miles is uphill. After I came into Anthony Wayne with Jo and Santiago, I grabbed two very small pb sanwiches (definitely not enough) and some water to wash it down, and chatted a bit with the volunteers. There has been a woman following us for pretty much 3 of the 4 miles into the aid station who I thought was the cutoff person. So I'm making us rush and run so we don't get cut off (this actually might have happened with pulling into the second aid station, my memory is crumbly about this part). Either way, we hustled for nothing. At the aid station, I learned that not only is she not the cutoff person (she was the sweep (a sweep is the person who runs behind the very last runner in a race's distance to make sure no one is left out on the course (her name is Lea and she's quite lovely))), and that there wasn't really that hard of a cutoff time. They wouldn't be kicking us off if we came in right after 10 hours. That was great news. Jo and I marched out of the aid station and up the road before turning back into the woods for more single tracking. Santiago said he would catch up with us. I had already been having tummy problems by this point, making it undesirable to eat my gels even though I knew my body needed the intake. It's a very tough spot to be in.

Jo was so sweet to talk to me the entire ten hours we were together to keep my mind off of the pain and disappointment I felt in my body. I really felt betrayed that I could do almost everything the same as my training runs, but just have an off day where my stomach doesn't cooperate and I can't seem to get it back on track. She gave me some tablet to chew to see if that would help (it didn't), I drank more coke at the aid stations...ate a banana (or threw it away...don't remember), I tried everything. I put more nuun into my pack, etc etc. So frustrating. Somewhere after the second aid station I really had a strong desire to call it quits. I actually wanted to quit AT the aid station, but I was hopeful that my nutrition would get back on track and make the rest of the day more bearable. And there was the fact that I didn't let Jo quit when she mentioned it, so the payback was that she would not let me quit. Then I told her my Rosaryville attempt story and that cemented my fate to her that I needed to cross this finish line and get a 50K completed. We chatted about her husband and kids, my boyfriend and friends, the big move coming up, the races she's completed...

Eventually we hit around the halfway mark and the first of the marathoners came whizzing by. It was bad timing because the course leads you to a spot where you have to rock climb a bit to the 'top'.  Around this area we had seen Santiago a few times behind us, but he eventually dropped out from a knee injury (I think).

This is the 'beautiful' view from the top. More like bogus. Lies again. All you can see is trees and more trees.

I swear we got to the 'top' of the mountain about three times over the course of the race. I wasn't thrilled about it. You get to the top, start to head down thinking you are done going up for a while until BAM all of a sudden you are heading back up steep ground and find yourself with another lacking view.

I considered taking a nap at this shelter one of the times we reached the top. But alas, we kept moving.  After this, we found ourselves FINALLY on runnable land. Kind of. The course goes to an area where it's a tiiiiny single track in the middle of a ton of thistley bushes. Luckily I had my calf sleeves on that offered protection, otherwise it just would have added to my unpleasant demeanor that was building.

It started to seem so much nicer of a route for a little while, and we came to another aid station. This one was rockin! There was a chick with a hot pink wig on and people cheering! It was a sight for sore eyes. Jo and I chatted with the volunteers a bit while we shoved our faces and gulped down coke and water, and joked a bit about missing the 10 hour cutoff and if we would receive a medal. The consensus was that we should just keep moving as fast as we could and yes, we would get a medal for finishing, even if it was after the 10 hr cutoff. We were actually riiiight on target to make it at exactly 10 hours.

Until Timp Pass happened. From that previous aid station to the next aid station was the longest 2.5 miles ever. We went down the most ridiculously steep downhill ever, then found our way to what runners had been telling me about all morning. This awful steep, long uphill before the finish. I do not exaggerate when I say I cussed many a time on the way up, as well as having to stop to catch my breath and calm the hamstrings. It. Was. Awful. I have no other way to describe it other than the entire time up I just kept thinking who the hell would put a course through here. If I recall correctly, there is the illusion of the top at a certain vantage point, only to get there and realize the climb is still not yet over. I wish I had pictures of this section just to show how hard it was. Jo peeled off from me during the uphill in pursuit of making the actual cutoff time. I really hoped she could make it there in time without me holding her back anymore.

You would think that with all that effort uphill, you would be granted the privilege of a downhill....but you would be sorely mistaken. While I am much more comfortable on trails than I used to be, I am not quite there with my technical skill to fly down a huge, long downhill where the only place for your foot to land is on this rock or that rock. Not all rocks were created equal, and not all of them were stable. And they definitely weren't dry. I walked the entire way down and made it to the aid station feeling completely depleted, but happy to know that the biggest hill was behind me and I was only a few miles from the finish.

I grabbed just a few pretzels and continued on my way hopeful to stay in front of a few 50k stragglers I managed to pass in between these aid stations. I even ran a little bit.  Then I came upon a photographer who informed me there was just one more little hill and then I would be home free.

I made my way back through the beginning parts of the course, coming to a fork in the road and came face to face with a very angry racer. She and a few others (I think the crazy lady from before the race - the one who told me this was not that hard - was among them) had taken a left when they were supposed to take a right. She seemed happy to see me for the fact of knowing the right way to go, but then went off on this temper tantrum about how she ran three miles in the wrong direction. I understand the frustration, but honey, I am not the one who told you to go left. She took off in front of me, and I was happy to be alone again to finish up. I went through that same rocky section we ran in the first mile, then you come off the trail and onto paved road where I broke out into a gallop to get to the red arch.

So much mud.

There were just a few people out waiting for their friends and loved ones to finish their distance (presumably the 50 Miler) but a few clapped when I came by and one man said a simple 'Bravo' that almost sent me into a fit of sobs. I was exhausted, felt defeated, I was happy to almost be done, and I was overcome with emotion to finally finish a 50K. When I got to the finish line I was so close to an ugly cry but I didn't want my pictures to be any worse so I toughed it out, had my name announced as I crossed, a medal draped over my head and I found Jo sitting and waiting.

Photo Courtesy of Jo

I waited with her for a while for her husband to finish the 50 Miler and I found myself overcome with emotion a few times while watching a couple gentlemen cross the finish line in tears of happiness from their accomplishment. I know that will be me in a few weeks, tearfully completing something I have trained so hard for.



Bear Mountain was seriously a bear of a mountain and I have no desire to rematch for a better race time. My take aways from this race are that I did well to not fall. My technical ability has vastly improved from six months ago and I feel much more comfortable out there. This is great news for the much less technical NFE DC. I also want to remember how difficult it was to push through a few really tough mental parts of the race. I want to remember that undoubtedly at some point during an ultra race, you will face a time where things just aren't going right, or everything is hurting, or your mental toughness is cowering in the corner. If you keep putting one foot in front of the other and just keep moving, relentless forward progress, it will eventually pass. The issues rarely last all race. On June 2, I need to remember that I am prepared for this distance, I have the capacity in me to push through whatever springs up, and that in the end it is so worth it.

I didn't sleep well the night of the race due to muscle stiffness. Then on the drive home my knee flared up in a painful fit. I even went to the doctor, and he told me I just had inflammation and to give it a week to cool off. I didn't run all week. In fact, I didn't run until yesterday. The knee is better, my hip is a little wonky, but it will all heal up soon. I'm finally in taper...and I never thought it would get here.