Knowing When to Say When

It was a beautiful day. Blue skies, dry trails, great people, and a very well organized race. This was my first time to Texas and I was excited to see new trails, get in a long run (on DRY trails) and race a National Championship race.

I felt good going into the race. My mind was ready, but in hindsight, I now know that my body was not. My plantar fasciitis (PF) had been nagging at me for the past several months, along with my hamstrings, but I was optimistic that I could still go out and have a good day. Especially since I have not run much since Mt Blanc.

Up until now, I have managed to ignore these injuries, thinking that they'd eventually go away.....lesson learned. Maybe that was true 5 or 6 years ago, but I ain't no spring chicken anymore:)!

I'm a big believer that every experience in life provides us with lessons to learn or opportunities to grow. Bandera was another great lesson for me in many ways.

I started the race and felt great. I was running strong and had an opportunity to talk with Liza Howard for a bit, which was nice. The course was a mixture of single track and dirt road. The trails roll through the hill country with technical sections covered in loose rocks. Rocks that are not so friendly if fallen on:). Another lesson I learned as I slipped on a rocky hill that gave me a nasty scraped up leg. This happened in the first 5 miles of the race and stung like all get up. Falls aside though, I was actually having fun out there. I felt fast and strong for those first 12-13 miles.

My hammys started to tighten and nag at me at around mile 15 or so, as they always do. Soon after, I began the process of trying to ignore the pain, almost like this was now simply apart of my running. I do things like breathe into the pain to relax, shift my form by increasing my cadence, or shortening my stride. Nothing worked. And through all of these efforts I realized that I had stopped enjoying myself on the trails. It's almost like suffering and enduring this kind of pain was just apart of my racing now.

For the past 2 years (maybe even more) I have been running through and running IN pain. My hamstrings started bothering me in 2009 and in 2010 I tore my right hammy at mile 70 of Wasatch. I managed to suffer through the last 30 miles and finish in first place in excruciating pain. Needless to say, that was no fun. And I feel like ever since that race, I have been just suffering through my races. I've actually had some pretty decent finishes in the last 2-3 years, which is great. However, I've been lacking motivation and have not felt excited about the majority of my finishes. At around mile 15 of Bandera I realized that these injuries have literally been sucking the joy out of my running. And finally I saw in this race that I'd had enough. Truly, the PF had gotten to a point on Saturday where every step hurt.

At this point in my running career, I know how to suffer through a race, but sometimes you have to know when to say when. Yesterday I had my "ah-ha" moment where I realized that I want to find the joy in my running again. I LOVE trail running, but not like this.

I decided to pull out of the race at the 50k turn around point. Dropping from a race is never easy. This time, however, I knew it was the right decision. These were not acute injuries that were going to go away without some serious attention.

What this means now is that I actually have to take a real break, get serious about working with a PT and heal my body so that I can get out there again and be able to race the way I want to. Not to mention the fact that it's only JANUARY and I have some business to take care of this year on my race schedule:)!!

Dropping at mile 31 also gave me an opportunity to give back a little to my amazing teammates for the remainder of the race. It was awesome to be at the aid stations cheering on the racers and talking to friends and other crew. I was in awe of Timothy Olson's win and congratulate all of my fellow Pearl Izumi Team athletes, including; Timothy, Dylan Bowman, and Nick Clark!! They all ran amazing races. Well done boys!!

Bandera....I'll be back another year:)!