Clumsy by Nature, Resilient by Design

It's been a hard running weekend, packed full of miles, early mornings and one cracking fall.

Yesterday I got up at 3:30am to get in 30 miles on the road. It was a clear morning - the dark side of the moon was clearly visible - and I saw several shooting stars. I got in 14 miles before picking up my group back at the pavilion. I ran with them out to the group turnaround (about 7 miles) and then kept going by myself to tack on a few extra miles. Eventually got back to the pavilion again just as the Garmin ticked over to the magic 30 miles. I had started feeling it during those last few miles and was glad to be done. One thing I learned - the downside of running with two handhelds is that it is not easy to grab and open packets of gu.

The upside is that I didn't feel as if I'd just run 30 road miles. I emptied the hot tub later that day (yes, my hot tub resurrection post was premature - I found some leaks I had to fix) with no side effects.

So this morning was another early morning to test "the day after" effect against the hills of Ladera Norte. I did feel a little stiff and was not really looking forward to 10 miles of solid hills (and getting up so early again was hard). Sure enough I was a lot slower than last week, and definitely felt it a lot more....but I did it. By the time I got back to the dogpark there were several friends waiting to run Kens. I had decided halfway up one of the nasty hills that I was going to skip the trail run and head home, but it wasn't too difficult to convince me otherwise.

Maybe I should have listened. Early on in the run I lost my footing on a narrow ridge, my ankle gave way with a pop and I fell, skidding across the gravel and bouncing over a few boulders off the edge of the trail. I bloodied up my knee and got a big gash and flap of skin on my hand, but my main concern was that my ankle had gone again. Fortunately it appears to be lot more resilient than it used to be and I was able to run it off - the only thing hurt was my pride and it was easy to laugh that away. I caught up with the group at the next intersection - Joyce, Diana and the others were worried that I was ok, while Joe just chuckled and mumbled something about "style points" :-) The rest of the run was pretty uneventful, lots of good conversation and I was glad I'd decided to join in. We had a fun group, a lot of laughs and a very enjoyable relaxed run.

I am also 5 miles away from registering 200 miles for the month. With any luck I will get those in tomorrow and pass the landmark. Going to spend the rest of the day making (and eating) this pumpkin swirl cheesecake.

PS. a big "thank you" to Larry K. for the trail socks. I will certainly put them to good use.