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| Well, I finished! |
It was supposed to be the Miwok 100K, and I was really focused on it. Perhaps too focused. I had a lot of difficulty sleeping the two nights before the race. Then on the morning of the race, we discovered that due to danger of fire, that the race would be shortened and start three hours later.
So, it wasn't the 100K race I had planned for. My friend Franz and I decided to run 7+ miles right away, to get in more miles for the day. Mentally, this wasn't a race any more, but a supported training run. I got in touch with my running club members who were staffing the Rodeo Valley aid station, and with my pacer, Amanda, to let her off the hook. The race time arrived.
So, was it a race? Or was it a training run? I switched back and forth. But when the going got hard, and I was dehydrated and slowed down, I just lost heart. I gave up mentally and just cruised in to the finish. It was a long slow unpleasant slog.
Coming down the Dipsea Trail, a couple miles from the finish, I felt a weird tightness around my right knee.It wasn't painful, but it was strange. Two days after the race, I couldn't run even a mile without my IT band in my right leg painfully tightening or inflaming or whatever. Injury. Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run at the end of June was now in jeopardy.
Why did things fall apart so badly? Well, my weight came down suddenly the day before. I forgot to take food when I needed to and I didn't keep up with my salt intake and water. I think mentally, being so tired really affected me. I got in around 44 miles for the day, but at a high cost. It's been three and half weeks since the race and I haven't been able to run more than two miles at a time.
