For a couple of years I have wanted to run Cheat Mountain Moonshine Madness 50 Miler and it kept conflicting with life until this year when everything seemed good to go! I was all signed up and feeling strong, recovering quickly from Grandfather Marathon gave me hope for a strong race in August. We had a great vacation in Maine the week after Grandfather and I managed to get in some good runs on the trail and road. I returned home and jumped right back in, joining Eric and Jenny for a run in Damascus on Sunday then the classic DAM8 Wednesday night run. I felt great, strong, focused, trail running bliss, followed by a soak in the river. There was an Iron Mountain group training run planned for Saturday July 30th, running the back half of the 50 miler course. I was so excited to see everyone and get in a good long training run. I love that section and hadn't done it in a year so I was pumped. I rested on Thursday and then Friday I started to notice some pain in my left foot while doing some work in the field. I took some ibuprofen and didn't think too much about it until I hit the floor Saturday morning. I hobbled to the bathroom and proceeded to get ready, hoping that it would ease off as things warmed up?? I drove to Skulls Gap to meet the crew and realized when I got out of the car I had made a mistake, I was in denial. I could barely walk on it, much less run 20+ miles. I finally came to grips and teary eyed got in the car and drove home. I was totally bummed. I decided to start ice, and ibuprofen but I had to be productive, I couldn't just sit still so I would ice then get up and hobble around, rinse and repeat. I could walk on my tip toe, I just couldn't put all of my weight on it, no problem.....until that night when even tip toeing around became an issue and I was going to have to resort to crawling. Sunday became a mission to find crutches. How did I go from awesome run on Wednesday to crutches on Sunday? what the heck.
All research online pointed towards Peroneal Tendinitis. A trip to the orthopedic confirmed said online diagnosis and it was recommended that I take 800mg of Ibuprofen 3x daily for 10 days and consider crosstraining more in my life. Every time I get an injury I promise myself I will start weight training, yoga, biking, being a more well rounded individual, then when things are operating smoothly running is all I need. I have broken this promise many times and may never learn my lesson it seems.
Luckily I've been able to run again, nothing over 8 miles, but I'll take it! I just felt after 3 weeks of basically no running and the fact that things are not back to 100% by any stretch of the imagination, I should pull out of the race, that it would be unwise to try and run 50 miles. I want to move forward, and be running healthy as the fall weather is getting here! so even though I feel "cheated" by not getting to run Cheat, I am thankful for every mile.
