I joined my brother Josh's Ragnar team and signed up for one of the most pathetic total mileages in hopes that I could actually do it. I was supposed to run a total of 13.7 miles, with a bunch of hills. I began training in april or May and ran between 15-20 miles per week. In order to prep for the hills I ran around my neighborhood lots of mornings since it is so hilly. On monday... halfway through my 5 mile run my ankle started to hurt. Bad. I finished out the run and knew something was wrong. There was no trauma like tripping or any swelling or bruising so I was a little unsure of what it could be. After pinpointing the pain and thinking back to my athletic training I was still stumped. I consulted a diagram and was reassured that I couldn't have done any soft tissue damage or ligament or tendon problems since there literally is nothing but bone where my pain is... which is rather unfortunate since that meant legit fracture or stress fracture.
I decided to go in tuesday night and get X-rays. Obviously any dr is going to tell me not to participate in the race- which is great and very sound medical advice. I just didn't really feel like I wanted to follow it. I had told myself if they saw visible fractures on the x-ray I would not go at all. But if they didn't then I would see how I felt on friday. X-rays didn't show any fractures but the doc referred me to a specialist and gave me a boot since she thinks its a stress fracture. I wore the boot until friday and did a bunch of research. It is not uncommon for most runners to go several weeks of running before getting it checked out and there isn't much difference. I figured that 13.7 miles wasn't going to give me a full fracture especially if I took it easy. I got a blessing and felt good about my decision.
I finished my two legs with relative ease. It sucks because the rest of my body felt great so I knew my training had done it's job! After leg 2 we took about a 2 hour nap and when I woke up my leg hurt worse and I no longer felt good and peaceful about running. Luckily we had a guy on our team willing to run my 3rd leg. It was super disappointing not legitimately finishing but it is what it is. Overall it was actually surprisingly fun. It was awesome being on a team with fast people and also keeping track of our "kills" or people we passed. I passed 7 in my 2 legs woo whooo! I think if I am feeling up to it I would definitely do it again next year! I ran my 3.1 mile leg in 29 minutes and my 4.8 mile in 51. Not too shabby!
Our team finished 164th overall ( out of over 500 teams) and total time to go 198 miles was 29:24:04. Go team Suckin' Wind!
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| how I really felt |
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| mandatory night gear, vests, and headlamps! |
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| After finishing my first leg! |
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| I am Legit. Notice that big bandaid... yeah its my secondary injury from kicking myself so many dang times with the dumb boot! |
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