After a great year of running in 2013. I finished it off
with several highlights. Most miles in a week, month and year won my age group
for the Forge trail series. I really stepped up the miles towards the end of
the year and finished the year healthy and running at my best. Then I ran my
first 50 miler at the Wild Azalea trail challenge on January 4th. I
had been logging 50-75 miles per week in November through December and felt
ready to step up to a 50 miler. The run was going great I felt good and was
enjoying my day until I tried something new. Yes that’s right I broke the
golden rule of ultra-nutrition. I reached into my hydration pack and pulled out
a bottle of Boost. I swigged it down, all of it at once and started running
again. Immediately something was not
right I could hear swishing sound in my belly and I couldn’t run. The more I tried
to run the more the nausea would kick in. I had to walk and walk I did until I could
run walk to the mid-way point. Once there I did something else I have never
done during a race. I drank a Coke. The lady at the aid station said it will
help my stomach and it did. I was able to start running again and slowly
started eating and drinking more. Time
wise I was going much slower than I planned but I felt good and continued running.
Around mile 40 the nausea came back and I couldn’t eat or drink. Without food I
was running on fumes. I found another Coke at the aid station and sipped on it
for a while. I finished the race with a
hurt foot much slower than I planned but I finished. To my surprise as soon as I
finished a young boy offered me some pizza and I was able to eat a couple of slices without
any issues, and then ate 3 baskets of chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant and
then my big meal.
My left foot had a bruise on the outer edge of it and it
would develop tendinitis. My doctor gave me a walking boot that would keep me
off of it. This didn’t slow me down I still went to the gym 5 days a week and
pumped that iron. Well I pumped as much as a skinny man can. Soon it was spring
and the boot came off and I started running again. My twins wanted to join a
track team so I decided to give it a try and I signed myself up too. I was soon
surprised that all my distance running didn’t give me any edge on sprinting not
even in the 400-800 meters. Track season went pretty well and I enjoyed myself
and looked forward to next year’s track season.
I was increasing my mileage and hitting the gym during my
lunch break and then it happened. During bench press warm up I felt a pain in
my right shoulder. Not enough to stop me but it slowed me down. As the days
went by it got worse and I couldn’t do any push movements or run. That’s right I
couldn’t run the swinging motion would burn my shoulder. I would try going to
the doctor and resting my shoulder but each time I would try working out or
running it would start hurting again.
And then it happened I came to the conclusion I was done. Father
time caught up with me and I just gave up, lost hope and had zero motivation to
exercise. I turned to substance abuse mostly ice cream and cookies. I ate so
many cookies from Sub-way the ladies started recognizing me and hooking me up
with extra cookies. Then one day I remembered, hey I love salty chips and I would
bring 4-5 bags of Zapp’s chips to keep in my desk. Next thing I was barley fitting
into my jeans and almost a year flew by without running. I went from 165-170 to 198 in about 6-7
months.
Something
had to change I wasn’t the fit dad anymore and my kids made fun of me. They
tried to get me to stop eating so much but that just made me depressed and I would
eat more. I decided to start running again. I still have a stiff shoulder but I can warm
it up and deal with it. I started running again around September 2015. Twenty
months had passed since I last ran an ultra and now I have to start over. No
more six pack abs gone or the days of sleeping late and eating Blue Bell. Starting over was a slow process. The weight
quickly came off the first couple of months. Still need to drop a few more
pounds to get to my racing weight. Soon I found myself back on the trails
dreaming of running long, dreaming of finishing a 50k trail race. The bug has
beaten me and stuck its teeth deep into my vein and filled it with crazy
thoughts. "You don’t need months of training" the bug said to me "you can run an
ultra now!" We shall see. We shall start with a short race at the same place I left off 2 years ago. The Wild Azalea 27 mile trail run.
