Rocky Raccoon 50K

In all my eagerness and excitement to finally be back on my feet and feel normal about something in my life after the accident, I had signed up to run the Rocky Raccoon 50K in Huntsville which was 2 weeks after the Goblin Valley 50K and 4 weeks after the Chicago marathon.  Well, even though my heart wanted to do this 50K on the very trails I had run while training for Goblin Valley, my body--specifically my left foot--did not cooperate.

Following Goblin Valley, I took off about a week, then on my first run after, felt some pain in my left foot.  On the next run, I couldn't make it out of our neighborhood section.  The next attempt, I made it an even shorter distance.  Something was wrong for sure whether I wanted to admit it or not.  I thought it was either one of two things: a stress fracture or plantar fasciitis.  I made an appointment with a sports medicine doctor that specializes in feet.  He confirmed that it was plantar fasciitis, and told me the regimen I needed to follow to allow it to heal which included some stretches and exercises.  He also said I needed to be sure I was in a shoe with good arch supports--not just for running, but all the time.  And last, but not least said that I would need to simply rest it for at least 2 weeks, but probably longer like 4 weeks before I'd be able to run on it pain-free.

So, this obviously put me out of the Rocky Raccoon.  But I'd already paid for it.  And Adam was all trained up and ready to go.  I just needed to convince him.  And to my surprise, he didn't need much convincing.  And another surprise, the race director didn't have a problem switching my registration over to him.  So, for once, I got to be his support crew for a race.  I was really excited to be able to fill that role for him because he has done it for me so many times.

It was really cold the morning of the race.  Freakishly cold for early November.  It was somewhere in the 30s and was going to stay there for most of the morning.  The high for the day wasn't even 50 degrees.  So we both bundled up and headed down to Huntsville State Park the morning of the race.

Adam was a bit nervous, but I knew he could do it.  He was really just nervous because it was such a long distance and he'd be doing it by himself which is something he'd never done before.  But since the course was two loops and on hiking trails I was familiar with, I knew I'd be able to see him a handful of times throughout the race.

It's kind of hard to write a race report for a race you didn't actually do, so here's all I can say:  I sat around and waited and was cold a lot of the time, BUT I got to see my ultra-marathon man husband a total of 4 times during the race and give him cheers, food, and kisses, and finally, I got to see him cross the finish line.  It was a proud moment for us both.

at the beginning, putting on a brave face because it's really freakin' cold like I said and he is only wearing shorts

treading the trail

taking a walk break with me where I hiked back on the course to meet him

running in at the end; is his smile deceiving you as to the pain he is actually feeling?  Because he was feeling it.

cheesy shot with his finisher's award; I will admit, I was jealous of the award.  I've always gotten the medals.  On a side note, as a total coincidence, both Adam and I have now both had this same race number now.  :)

Following this race, with my injury thrown in there, Adam decided to take a bit of a break from running for a bit while I healed up.