Fall from running

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 4^th. 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.