3 weeks till race day! Time to wrap myself in bubble wrap and take all of the immunity boosting stuff I can find.
Monday: Normally rest day, but since the girls wanted to run outside, I decided to get what I could with them and then run post GOTR. We ran a little shorter so my group didn't quite get the 3 miles we have been getting, but we were quite close at 2.90. Afterwards Coach Butler and I headed out to finish so I could get my 6 in that I needed. Stella was feeling quite good, so good in fact that she was jumping up and trying to bite my face and even bit my arm once so hard I got a nice bruise. She was feeling her oats for sure!
Tuesday: Rest day. I decided to take one based on how tired my legs were the entire run with the girls and robin. I feel like I am on the edge of injury so I am listening to my body. We did Lego club later and one of Andrew's friends was sick. I was trying not to breath and I am praying Andrew doesn't get it and give it to me or if he does, we get it done quickly so I can get over it and it not affect my race!
Wednesday: I could do a 10 or an 8. Both long and both honestly more than my body wanted to do. I was up at 3:45 am, go figure, so got out of bed at 4 am to fuel and get ready. Met Robin and Ebby and we got 5 miles in before I dropped off Stella and got Boom and headed out again for another 5. Boom was feeling good because he was at least a quarter of a mile ahead of me when off leash and then he would either run back to me or stop and wait for me to catch up. Other than getting his head covered by some sort of sticky seed, he did amazingly well, as he has been.
Thursday: Girls on the run laps + whatever to equal 8. I had left my book at the school, and I couldn't remember how long we were running, so decided again to just see what we got with the girls and then add on post getting them gone and on the road. Stella had an appointment with the chiro, so we could figure out her weird hoppy skippy thing she had been doing. Good news, she couldn't find any real issues, bad news, there were no glaring issues to fix. She got a good adjustment and get this, her pelvis was tilted and her SI joint was locked up along with some vertebrae (sound familiar runners?), so our hope is that post the adjustment and some rest, she will be as good as new. If the hoppy skippy thing continues we will follow up with rads and make decisions.
Friday: REST DAY!
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| stretching in the middle of the night |
Saturday: Pace Jackie at the Fall Extravaganza 100 miler. This is the same race I did my 2nd 50 K at so it holds a special place in my heart. If you have been with me for a while, you would know that I did a 50K on some very tough technical trail that had a super late start and all of these things combined with a very hot late fall day contributed to me getting my first DNF. When I found this race back in 2017? I immediately signed up so I would avenge my DNF and use my fitness, and happy to say, avenge I did. Anyway, Jackie had asked me to pace two segments, a 10 mile and an 8ish mile segment and low and behold, I needed an 18 miler for my long run. Andrew unfortunately had has fun pumpkin race rescheduled to Saturday as well, so very quickly watched one of his races and then headed down to Colony KS to meet up with Jackie and start my duties. The course was beautiful, the temps were perfect, and we quickly banged out her first 10 with me pacing. Jackie and I go way back, way back to dog agility times. We hadn't really been around each other in years, so we had fun catching up with each other on our lives. I dropped her off in time to eat a half of a grilled cheese sandwich and down some caffeine before picking her up again at the Colony trail head for another 8 miles. I should say that Jackie was an amazing runner to pace. Even when she didn't want to move, she moved. She never complained and even when we were hiking she was able to keep about a 16:30-17 minute pace. I would crew her again in an heartbeat.
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| our amazing crew |
Sunday: That was suppose to be the end of my pacing duties but one of her pacers had a bum knee that was killing him. After trying to take a 2 hour nap and maybe getting 30 minutes if an hour of broken bad sleep, I got out of the Tahoe and prepared to pace again. We had 6.5 miles to go before her last aid station where her crew chief would pick her up to take her to the end. We were pretty much power hiking at that point, as running was really killing her stomach. Power hiking is something I hadn't really practiced for my ultra, so it was super good for me to try and keep a 16 minute per mile hiking pace to keep her going at a good clip. We had to stop a few times for bathroom breaks and stretching, and we were running out of foods she could stomach, but we made it in to her final pacer and crew chief. Headed to the finish to sit with everyone else and see her come in to get that buckle. Y'all, this weekend was SO inspirational, but I still don't really want to do a 100 just yet. I don't think I could handle the running constantly on no sleep as well as the forcing yourself to eat no matter what. Never say never right? Headed home after lots of hugs and high fives loaded up on caffeine and talking to my mom. Had to take a 2 hour nap later to get back to some sort of normalcy. Just 30 minutes of sleep was not enough but that is ultra running for you!
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| headed home with a tired and smily girl |
What a great week! Glad to be in the taper and glad to be on the downhill slide. Terrified of something happening so wishing we could fast forward because I am SO ready! Have a great week!
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