Trail Trials

So my husband thinks I'm just crazy...

Two weeks in a row now I've had to get up at 2 am to foam roll my butt. My left hamstring and glute are just killing me. I can hardly stand to sit and at night when I lay down they just cramp like crazy. Short of having a massage therapist sticking an elbow or forearm into the area, the foam roller is the next best thing.

I'm beginning to question my sanity too. My right foot is still killing me. I ended up having a really ugly trail run today. I'm beginning to question whether pacing my best friend for 20 miles next weekend is a good idea.

Basically, I hurt all over and I haven't been able to put together a good week of running since the Derby. Last week I did back to back 10 milers on Monday and Tuesday, then on Wednesday I just fell apart and bagged my run after 3 miles. No more running after that until yesterday when I went out for 10 and bagged it after 2. My foot was hurting and then every time my right foot struck the ground, I started getting a cold "wet" feeling in my foot like I was putting it in a bucket of cold water. The whole thing kinda freaked me out and I really wasn't feeling like running anyway (OK, I worked an overnight shift and I only had 3.5 hours of sleep too) so I bagged it.

Today I had no excuses and I HAD to get a trail run in before leaving for California next week. Nevermind that it was 90+ degrees... I had the afternoon free so I drove down to Morgan Monroe Forest to do my run. I decided to do the Three Lakes Trail, a 10 mile trail I've never run before.

Things started out OK. It was nice and shady on the trail. I had put off trail running a lot of days this month due to storms. The storms blew down quite a few trees. I would get to places like this and have to clamor around to find the trail on the other side...

This was my view from one of many of the creekbeds I crossed. Surprisingly, most of the creeks were pretty dry today.

Of course what goes down must come up... I think this is why John told me to practice on a stairmaster.

My Garmin died just before I hit 2 miles. It's not been holding a charge very long lately and I'm beginning to think I need a new one. I was using it mainly to track my distance.

Things were going OK until I had to climb over another really big tree that was down on the trail. It was on an uphill slope and there was no way around it. I had to grab ahold of some branches and climb up, hoist myself up onto the trunk and then over it. Just as I got over to the other side, I felt a sudden jab in my left hammie - like someone had stuck a hot poker in it. FEAR was what I felt. I wasn't afraid of being out on the trail by myself. I could get myself back to my car. What I was afraid of was that I had really damaged my hamstring. Not now! Not less than a week before I fly out for Western States. I quickly found a big root to sit on, drank some Gatorade, and tried to calm myself. Then, as suddenly as the pain had come on, it went away. Phew!

The run was uneventful for several more miles. I found this big animal print in the mud...

Coyote?

 

I was starting to get really hot. I was sweating like crazy and my eyes were burning from all the sweat streaming in them. You could wring out my clothes. I think I looked like a drowned rat. I finally got the where the trail crossed the roadway again and I estimated I had about a mile left.

 

This is where things started getting really ugly. The trail didn't match the features on my map. There was no other trail but it just didn't match what it was suppose to do on my map. I ended up on another creekbed and I think my mind started playing tricks on me at this point because I could've sworn I had been here before - way at the beginning of my run. Since I was in no mood to run another loop of the trail, I backtracked back to the road. I knew where the road went. It was a much longer (almost double the distance of the trail) way back to my car but I didn't trust where the trail went.

 

By now I'm pretty sure I had some mild heat exhaustion. I was sweating buckets but had cold chills and felt nauseous. I still had some Gatorade left but didn't feel like drinking. I ended up walking most of the road back to my car. Best guess is that I went 12 miles on the low end, 15 miles on the high end today.

 

So now here I am. Loaded up on Motrin. Foam rolled my butt. Sitting on ice, both feet on ice. There were times on the trail today that I really enjoyed myself. I like being out on the trail by myself. The aftermath always seems to be ugly though so I'm beginning to have second thoughts. I wish I could be that runner who was happy just doing 3-5 miles a couple days a week. Why is it that I'm wired to chase the beasts?