At least I'm tapered..

Despite not having run more than 16km since March, I'll be taking a whack at the Vulture Bait 25k trail race tomorrow morning. It's supposed to be -2c/28f then, but at least I'm covered with a lovely insulating layer of chub at the moment. It seems my attitude of needing to eat because I'm trying to heal a broken bone may be slightly misplaced.

Thank gawd I didn't sign up for the 50k.

Oh yeah, and that 16km run since March? There was one of them, two weeks ago. Other than that, I don't think I've run more than 12km since the first quarter of 2012. Wait, I did 13-and-a-bit last weekend.

I last did this race two years ago, badly breaking my right big toe after tripping over rocks not once but twice within about 5 seconds. I literally tripped, thought I was going arse over teakettle, managed to catch my balance and then immediately tripped again. I was forced to walk some of the last 8km or so, finally limping in to the finish at 2:58:20. Since I'd been trying to beat 3 hours, I was pretty pleased - this was my first race longer than a half marathon, and the first time I'd run more than a 5k on trail.

I didn't even want to look at it after I noticed blood leaking out of my shoe.
I bandaged it when I got home and then refused to look for another 5 days.

The only reason why running tomorrow isn't a ridiculously stupid idea is that I've got two additional years of running under my belt since then, including another 25k trail race (Run for the Toad last year), a 30k road race (Around the Bay earlier this year), a road marathon (the Waterloo Marathon last year) and two 6-hour ultra trail races (Horror Hill in 2010 and 2011). Oh, and I did the inaugural 3-hour Frosty Trail in 2011 as well.

..which just goes to show the extent of my masochism.

I've also been running 5 or 6 days per week for the last twenty months as opposed to 3 times per week back in 2010, and my weekly mileage has actually been greater in the past 2 months than it was in the 2 months prior to the last time I did Vulture Bait. Hell, I'm actually right around the same weight as last time, too.

I think I'll actually make it out of this race alive, and I'm hoping to emerge unbroken as well..or at least as unbroken as I went in, because the x-rays they took last Wednesday when they took my cast off still make it look like I'm pretty gawddamn borked:

What apparently qualifies as "just fine".

Doc is pleased with the way it's healing and quite amazed at my being able to swim at all (let alone do an olympic distance tri and 50k mountain bike race), but it's still quite sore and I have bugger all for range of motion or strength. I fiddle with therapy putty and elastic bands, play with baoding balls and do some assisted stretching, plus I wear a brace for cycling and stick to my mountain bike with its nice squishy fork.

Awesome ride on the Cambridge to Paris Rail Trail on Thanksgiving Monday.

I don't know if I'll be able to go sub-3 hours tomorrow. I don't know if I'll be able to make it out without breaking my idiot toe again. I don't know if I'll be able to finish it without walking. I have actually tapered this week (save for the two blissful hours of trail riding on Monday), but as usual I haven't been getting much sleep and I've been fighting off a cold I came down with just before Tour de King. 

Once again, I'll be racing on some hasty carbo-loading (hooray for jasmine rice!) and stubbornness. There are a buttload of hills to drag my chubby arse up and plenty of things to trip over, potentially breaking something...but hey, at least Fanshawe is beautiful at this time of year!

At reservoir level in 2010.

Surrounded by fall colours and my fellow racers, I'm sure it'll be fun even if it turns out to be a sufferfest. Hope it won't take too much recovery time, though, as this week I signed up for another event in two weeks - the Horror Hill 6-hour.

Go big or go home, right?