If you're just here doing recon for racing this event in the future, you can probably stop right here - I don't forsee passing along any further relevant information for you. If you'd like to continue to hear about how horrible things truly got as the hours piled up, grab a beverage and prepare for big blocks of text from here on in.
I hit up the aid station at HQ and was grateful to find
Tanker giving me his full attention as I got rid of my trash and now-empty gel flask, dropped off my phone, and downed another cup of
Skratch drink. Not wanting to wander off with no nutrition this time, I grabbed a turkey wrap, another packet with 2 slices of back bacon, a couple of additional packets of
Endurance Tap, a baggie with 3 more crisp rice squares, and re-filled my little flip-top bottle with
S!caps. I also picked up full flask of
EFS Liquid Shot, putting it in the pocket of my vest vacated by my phone - I'd had the first one in the thigh pocket of my skirt all day so far, and now my left quads felt rather tender where it seemed to have bruised my thigh as it bounced around. I've never had that happen before. A lot of things were terribly sore, though: my upper back and neck were tight and hurting, the outside of my shoulders felt bruised, and even the fat on the back of my arms felt sore from all the bouncing around. No time to feel sorry for myself, though - I needed to get moving before I stiffened up.
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| I'd meant to get a photo of Tank and I together at the aid station, but totally forgot...so this one from before the race will have to do. |
So, off and away for my second lap of the course, and
Tanker was even sweet enough to walk with me out to the end of the Trail Centre clearing as I headed back downhill toward Hammer View and the Darkside Runners. I did manage to run a little, but I was mostly walking - I knew I still had almost 23 hours before the 30hr cut-off, so figured there was no harm in trying to take it easy on my body as my hamstrings and ankle continued to complain. I'd told Tank it would probably take me at least an hour and a half to make it back to HQ, so I knew he wouldn't be worrying about me too much...though I'd told him about the lightheadedness, and can't say he wasn't concerned.
It was on my way down that a few of additional complications arose:
1) I finally had to pee. I kept trying to find a place to do so, but there's no cover available and there were loads of people on the trail (it being around 4:30pm on a lovely Saturday afternoon now).
2) My left shoe felt like it had about a teaspoon full of gravel in it.
3) Most immediately concerning, something in the back of my right shoulder twanged nastily and locked up, making moving my right arm very painful. I carry my hand bottle in my right hand, and trying to run with it was agony with every step! I had to switch my bottle over to my left hand, but found it difficult to squeeze the bottle enough to get a good drink from it. So, I'd carry it in my right hand and drink while I walked, then switch to my left when I was going to run.
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| Which did still happen from time to time. |
I think the problem in the back of my shoulder came from having my soft bottle in the top right pocket of my pack - I wouldn't take the bottle out to drink from it, I'd just lean my head down (and pull it up a bit) while walking so I could bite on the valve. All that head-down-and-to-the-right, despite being something I do in training, seems to have been too much for me as the clock crept toward 8 hours and beyond. I tried taking my shoe off (again) to get rid of the gravel, but it didn't seem to help.
Making the turn-around at Hammer View I grabbed 3 small pieces of dill pickle and a cup of ginger ale in hopes that they might jolt me out of the lightheadedness that continued to plague me. I understand now that it was most likely dehydration: despite going through more than a litre of water per hour (I was still killing off both of my 600ml bottles in between aid stations) and a cup of
Skratch at each AS on top of that, I think poor hydration in the days leading up to the race saw me starting off at a bit of a deficit. Not needing to pee in the first 8hrs is a pretty solid indicator I wasn't doing well on that front! But, there was nothing I could do except continue to drink as much as I could, keep the calories coming, and keep myself upright and moving.
Of course, I did have to stop to sort out the gravel in my shoe. I rested my butt (without really sitting down) on the steel ledge of the industrial bridge over the road near Hammer View and took off my shoe AND sock to get rid of the gravel, but found something much worse - it looked like the
BlisterShield powder had actually formed little lumps that were tearing the ball of my foot apart! I've been using the stuff for a couple of years now and had great success with it keeping my feet comfortable in wet and muddy races, but now it was causing the problem? It felt like the same thing that had happened at
Sunburn Solstice all over again..
I wasn't bright enough to understand at the time that the BlisterShield was not the culprit, or not directly - it actually took me a couple of days to work out what had happened, and it is the exact same mechanism as my experience at Sunburn Solstice. In both cases the meat grinder action was caused by dust from the dry, gravelly trail making its way inside my sock and mixing with my own sweat, then drying into tiny clay-like pieces that acted just like fine gravel and sat directly against my skin.
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Causing these.
I can't remember exactly when the big one between my toes burst.. |
The whole process may have been exacerbated by the presence of some prior residue inside my left sock - I'd noticed some white stuff in the left one when I was filling them with BlisterShield before putting them on that morning, and erroneously believed it might help. I didn't have trouble with my right foot until much later on in the race, and it never got as bad - that sock had been totally clean. It's also possible the loose lacing and resulting slippage inside my shoe was the reason my left foot was so much worse. All I know for sure is that it would feel like I was walking on hot coals for the rest of the day, though I could get a bit of relief by actually running; the blistering on the ball of my left foot didn't seem to hurt when I ran.
Of course, that wasn't happening much as I hiked the steepest sustained climb of the course back up to HQ from the turn-around. I ate a turkey wrap, looked fruitlessly for a place to have a wee, and just kept on moving as best I could. I ended up back at HQ around when I expected - around 1h30m - though the official split is much slower as it includes the time I spent at the aid station preparing for my 2nd long lap.
63.66k time: 8:50:03 @ 8:20/km
10k split: 1:51:52 @ 11:11/km
Tanker had been sweet enough to get some things prepared for me by the time I arrived, still feeling a bit lightheaded when I'd stop and especially when I'd lean over to mess with my shoe, but improving a little. I picked up my headlamp and a
lightweight sweater, stowing them in various parts of my pack as the sun would be going down in around 2.5hrs. I was pretty sure I could make it to my drop bag before dark (the Participant Guide said that my outbound visit to Friendly Coyote would be at 77.75km), but didn't want to be left without light and warm clothing if I moved slower than anticipated. I got re-hosed with bug spray, as I'd already been harassed by some mosquitoes in a part of the trail where it ran near a bit of slow-moving or standing water, and the sunset would bring out even more bloodsuckers from which I simply couldn't run away. We discussed the ongoing lightheadedness and Byron asked if I was staying on top of hydration and nutrition, which I said I was (200+cal/hour & 1L+ per hour of water). Then he asked if I was peeing, which reminded me I needed to hit the portajohns before I left! Of course I did it the sucker's way, which was to head over before I crossed the timing mat...which meant I then had to walk all the way back to the start line once I'd had a pee and (ahem) "lost some additional weight", adding at least 150m to an already long day.
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| You can actually see the little out-and-back near the green pin on this map from my Garmin |
With bottles full and hopes for the lightheadedness improving as the sun lost its power and dropped, I set off to climb the other 6.5km until the trail flattened out. I'd also decided to move my soft bottle from my right shoulder to my left shoulder pocket of my pack in hopes it would help the stupid messed up muscle in my upper back settle down, and was delighted to discover that the bottle would no longer bounce annoyingly against my chest when I'd manage to stir myself to a run! At first I wondered if it was because I was better balanced somehow, but then realised it was actually my sweater in the main portion of the pack taking up space and making the vest fit tighter: there simply wasn't any more slack to let it bounce around. In any case, I'd take any improvement I could!
The problem with a course this long is that it makes it effin' impossible to remember where things are, and with HQ being at ~5.5k and the turn-around not being at an even kilometer marker, it makes trying to work out distances very difficult when you're already firmly in the grip of runner brain. I saw a beautiful little snake on the trail as I headed toward Opossum's Landing, still stirring myself into a run periodically. The road crossings actually worked to my advantage here: I'd see one ahead, then make myself run to it; it might only have been 50 steps, but every little bit helped move me along.
There was some hilarity born out of fatigue and a sense of my own absurdity - I heard some sheep or goats bleating in a pen beside the trail (though I couldn't see them through the leaves of trees and bushes), so I bleated right on back. I got an answering bleat, so bleated again, trying to strike up some kind of idiot conversation. I'm sure the runner I saw ahead could probably hear me, and might have thought me an idiot. I can't say he was wrong, but it was a few moment's entertainment as I walked along.
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Looking almost as rough as I feel coming into Temptation Station
Photo by Patty |
As the weather cooled I started to put a bit more running together - maybe 200 steps at a time - then had to walk for a significant stretch as I INHALED A DAMN BUG right to the back of my throat. Steven came trucking along the other way from the far point turn-around, looking very strong, and we wished each other well as I tried with water and some horrible noises in the back of my throat to properly clear my airway. It took at least 20mins, and tore my throat up in a way I hoped wouldn't worsen.
I reached the Friendly Coyote aid station after watching a truly beautiful sunset over the open fields in the middle portion of the long out-and-back, and stopped at my drop bag to take care of rather a lot of business. If I have one criticism of the HRC volunteers, it's that they did not offer any help with drop bags - those simply sat on a piece of plastic on the ground, which is very difficult to reach at 11 hours into a race. They had been nice enough to leave a folding camp chair nearby that I could put my drop bag on, though, while I pulled out the contents I'd need, and they did fill my bottles for me while I fussed with my gear.
I'd already started getting a low battery warning from my Garmin a few minutes earlier, so I plugged it into the small powerbank I'd stashed in my drop bag against this very issue (there was another power bank & Garmin cable in the UltraCooler™ at HQ if I needed it). I also grabbed more nutrition, then put on my waist light so as to have the most light possible heading into the night, and folded the tubular gaiter I'd been wearing on my wrist into a headband to cushion my noggin as I donned my headlamp. As a little pick-me-up, I had a couple of sprays of
liquid vitamin B12, hoping they might energize me a bit as the day faded. I was about to set off when a chill breeze swept through, giving me the impetus to put on my sweater (leaving it fully un-zipped for the time being) while I could still set my vest down without spilling things everywhere.
Leaving the aid station, I actually started to feel pretty good - I was able to run a couple of really good chunks (like 400 steps each) on the flat-to-downhill section of the trail, and while my back was pretty warm with the sweater I wasn't overheating. I got maybe a kilometer away from Friendly Coyote, and then suddenly I needed to pee again; only a couple of hours since I'd hit the portajohn at HQ, so maybe I was finally getting the dehydration licked! I dropped to a walk, then turned to my left to look back and see if anyone coming or if I could safely pull off a trailside wee...and suddenly the top of my inner left thigh SCREAMED with pain.
I came to a halt, hurriedly trying to pin down the pain by jamming my fingertips into my thigh. It felt like a pulled or torn muscle, and I hoped I'd be able to manipulate it in such a way that it might keep functioning for me. It seemed to be in more than one place, though - both my adductor brevis and longus were horribly painful, with the highest concentrations of agony almost exactly where the green dots are on this anatomical diagram.
I got moving again, and discovered I could walk along pretty well if I was careful - I was still making about a 10:25/km pace as true darkness enveloped the trail and my view was reduced to the pools of light cast by my waist light and headlamp. The problem was, though, that I couldn't run at all - not a single step. When I'd land on my left leg it would feel like I was ripping the damaged muscles apart, so it looked like this had become a walk from there on in. I still had 19 hours until the cut-off, so walk I did - as quickly and efficiently as I could.
I discovered that my years of carrying my hand bottle in my right hand have conditioned me to keep my right arm from swinging, which meant I had to change it back over to my left hand in order to ensure I had a good arm-pumping action to help me power walk at a decent pace. I still wasn't able to drink from the bottle with my left hand, though, which meant a lot of juggling it back and forth as I went. I also knew from Sunburn Solstice that my pace slows significantly when I allow myself to slouch, so I had to keep reminding myself to keep my head up, shoulders down and back, and stride confidently. I could do this!
I passed Telephone City and headed for the turn-around, needing to stop to pee yet again along the way - I was keeping up hydration and nutrition to fuel my power walk, and the water was certainly having an effect now that I wasn't sweating nearly as much! When I reached the two sharper up-and-over hills by the 403 I discovered two things:
1) It was incredibly painful to walk uphill, as pulling my left leg forward and trying to raise my left knee put horrible strain on my sore adductors.
2) It was actually possible to launch myself into a shambling run on the downhills. While not pretty, it didn't seem to be harming the damaged muscles any further, and wasn't too painful (except on my right ankle, which was still being a whiner).
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| Let's just pretend this pic from the bridge at the turn-around is in darkness, with me in a sweater, headlamp, waist light, and immense pain. |
I crossed the bridge, then began the long trek back to headquarters in the darkness, seeing very few other people on the trail as the shorter distance runners finished and other 100 miles dropped out. Being unable to run meant the blisters on my feet worsened, with my right foot bursting into pain as well as I continued to walk along hour after hour. The kitty I saw hanging out at the Telephone City aid station on my way back provided a rare moment of happiness, along with the kindness of the volunteers.
My headlamp began giving me a headache, and it was so hard to keep having to reset my posture every few seconds as my shoulders would creep up and my head would drop. Trying to keep my eyes up was especially challenging while trying not to step on the dozens of small toads hopping or just sitting on the trail. I also saw a skunk and 2 black cats (one of which crossed my path; another bad omen?) on the trail in dark, with an occasional bat flitting through my headlamp beam. It also illuminated endless moths with their glowing red eyes, and even a big spider whose eyes shone like jewels as he crawled along the trail in the opposite direction. The temperature dropped, and I had to do up my sweater against the chill, struggling with it as a bit of frayed string on my pack caught in the zipper. Some raccoon got uppity as I passed, making chittering noises at me from a tree; later, I heard a couple of others having a scrap right beside the trail. In the open fields I found foggy patches making wraiths in the light of my headlamp - I was happy to have waist light as well, to see the trail clearly below the mist, and grateful that the sleeves of my sweater were long enough to tuck in hands to ward off the cool, clammy air.
I hit my drop bag at Friendly Coyote again for a couple of spritzes of B12 and some more nutrition, but I was getting rather sick of sweet things and hadn't put anything salty in my drop bag - it was all at HQ, and I had a nasty, fuzzy coating on my teeth already. I ditched my empty gel flask in the bag and settled on another banana as the lovely HRC volunteers filled my bottles for me.
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| I loved the skulls and candles they set out after dark! |
I was able to fling the peel properly off the trail this time, but that was about the only thing going right for me at this point. I was still managing a decent pace - around 10:30/km - but I'd suddenly find myself stumbling off the side of the flat trail, and into the grass, as my legs simply failed to do as they were told. I'd also keep catching my left foot on the gravel surface due to it being so painful to lift my leg, and of course the result was a shot of even worse pain as it put further strain on the adductors.
Making it even harder to keep up a decent walk was the fact I'd gone from not peeing at all, to every 2hrs, then every 90mins, down to once an hour, then finally every 30mins as I staggered along in the dark. My throat felt raw, but I finished off the last piece of bacon I had with me and my last salted maple crisp rice square, then turned to a Himalayan salt Brix gel as the least-sweet thing I had with me before just pouring an Endurance Tap down my throat. Usually I can't get enough maple syrup, but I was truly just sick of sugary flavours. I remembered I had picked up matcha latté Rekarb and figured I'd try that for a bit of caffeine (even if it was still maple syrup), but in my pain-and-fatigue-addled state I picked out the wrong coloured packet and got a cocoa one instead! In my defense, the cocoa ones are green for some reason; I'd forgotten the matcha ones are purple.
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| I also totally mistook a friend for someone else at Temptation Station |
A kind fellow at Opossum's Landing helped me fill my bottle, as I had guessed wrong and filled it with Gatorade instead of water - fortunately I noticed the unwelcome blue tinge before putting the lid back on. He told me "let us help you - you're not in your right mind" , and I couldn't possibly have agreed more. The pain in my adductors had been getting worse, forcing me to jab my fingers, thumbs, and even the bottom of my bottle into the nexus - whatever I could use to pin it it enough to keep it functioning, even as it felt like being stabbed with every step.
I just needed to get myself back to HQ where I had more turkey wraps, bacon & salty nuts, not to mention
Tanker.
106.33k time: 17:04:44 @ 9:38/km
42.67k split: 8:14:41 @ 11:36
(That should be 107.33k & 43.67k, but the timing company did some math incorrectly)
When I finally arrived & Tank saw how badly I was hurting, he tried asking me to drop - he was having real trouble seeing me in such pain. I took care of all I needed to do to continue, though - I got another flask of EFS Liquid Shot, a nice salty turkey wrap, and picked up a pole to help me climb the hills down by the Hammer View turn-around one more time. Tank walked me down the again until the end of the clearing, then I continued on in the darkness with a lovely, bright moon emerging over the trail as I plodded along.
It seemed my poor luck was continuing. I tried eating some of my delicious turkey wrap, but my throat was so torn up and it tasted so dry I found it almost impossible to swallow. Far from helping, the pole actually seemed to be making me slower, then I managed to catch my left foot on it as I brought my leg forward - with a loud whimper at the sudden flash of pain, I nearly fell the hell over. I stowed the pole in the loops on the front of my pack and tried to get on with it, having to stop twice to pee on the way down the long hill. My only entertainment was either a skunk or raccoon running off the trail to the north and apparently into a pen full of hogs, which set up one heck of a racket in the darkness.
I staggered onward. There was no running on the downhill anymore - any attempt was agony.
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| Still Christmas at Hammer View |
I went through the turn-around first, having deployed the pole to haul myself bodily up the short hill to the aid station, and feeling a bit lightheaded again. I was honestly surprised by how fatigued I felt considering how relatively early it was - I am usually wide awake at night unless I make a dedicated effort to going to sleep, but the hours of being ridden by pain, mostly alone in the dark...well, it was wearing me down a touch. I stopped at the aid station and ate another small piece of pickle plus a cup of ginger ale, just to get some calories in. I'd managed a couple of bites of turkey wrap (about 2/3 of it), but my throat was sore and it was still SO DRY. I dumped another gel into me and had the last bite of wrap as I turned back toward HQ.
I'd totally failed to account for the effect 11km of climbing would have on both my pace and my leg. My 10-11min kilometres became 12-13min kilometres and my pain levels shot from a steady 4-5 up to a 6 or 7. I began to question my ability to endure for another 10+ hours to the cut-off.
At this point Garchun & Maryka passed me, so I took the opportunity to ask advice from a pair of seasoned veteran ultrarunners and just generally wonderful people. I asked in the darkness as they steadily pulled away from me: "As the badasses you are (because seriously they both have incredible palmeres), at what point do you just call it?" - they said you don't, and that people quit because they can. I asked how you cope with having been in horrible pain for so many hours, and Garchun said "you just have to accept that this is the way it is." They told me not to quit at HQ but to go at least to Opossum's Landing. Maryka was sweet enough to offer for them to stay with me until we got past HQ, but I declined - I didn't want to hold them back at my glacial pace, and I'd have to stop at my bag for more nutrition and my wind vest. I made the tactical error of putting the lighter sweater in the UltraCooler (then having to carry it all the way to my drop bag before needing it), and the heavier sweater in the drop bag where it wasn't handy for the early morning chill. Three more hours til sunrise, which meant I needed to change headlamp batteries as well; there were so many things going wrong that I had no way to fix, but at least I could do something about the waning glow that followed my gaze, and I could use all the cheering light I could get. I pulled over to a bench but DID NOT SIT DOWN - I just leaned over with batteries and headlamp on the bench in pool of light from my waist belt. On top of being tough to get calories due to my torn up throat (hard to swallow), it was hard to drink because my hands were too chilly and tired to squeeze my bottle. I was ugly crying from the pain of dragging myself uphill and shivering from fatigue/cold as I finally approached HQ; it was crushing being able to see the red light of the time clock for almost a kilometer away. Everything on that damn trail took forever, with the effect doubled after dark.
116.33k time: 19:40:11 @ 10:09/km
10k split: 2:35:27 @ 15:33/km
(Yes, that should be 117.33k, but...math)
As I sobbed my way over to the aid station, even Grace was saying maybe I shouldn't go on, but I knew I could still make it in the 10hrs I had left if I kept moving. I got my Garmin on charge; Heather gave me shoulder/neck/calf massages & hugs, then helped me get my vest on to keep my core warm. I picked up some salted nuts, crisp rice squares, bacon, another turkey wrap, and some chocolate chip cookies. I tried to drink a cup of Skratch but it was too much for my throat.
I went to head out, but I couldn't even side-step my way up the 18" berm onto the trail - Tank had to pull my whole weight up by my hands, one of which he held as he walked and I limped west toward Brantford, crying as I went. I felt horrible after I looked down at my Garmin and saw our pace was 18min/km - far slower than I could move if I was going to finish. I had to tell him that I had to go - that I needed to move faster, so had to leave him or I'd run out of time. I wish someone had got a photo of the two of us, as walking hand in hand with him out of HQ is a memory I think I'll always treasure; it's one of the only moments I really want to remember.
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| So I drew this. Poorly. |
Going back out into the dark, facing another 6km of uphill and 43km of agony was the hardest thing I've ever done. My blistered feet from walking so much still felt like treading on hot coals - the right foot felt almost as bad as the left now, with a juicy blister coming up in the same spot between big & second toe. Even my quads were getting sore from so much unaccustomed walking. Nonetheless, I gave myself a mental slap in the face and yelled at myself mentally - "you've had your pity party, now get back to work!" - then picked it back up to a 12-13min/km walk. I was fully focused on making it to my drop bag at Friendly Coyote: the sun would be up by then, so I could ditch the heavy waist light and my headache-inducing headlamp. My Garmin would be charged enough to last until the cut-off so I could drop off the powerbank, and hopefully warm up & not feel so hopelessly alone in dark. I was also counting on a lift from some caffeinated gels - I was almost getting the spins when I'd close my eyes to rub them, and felt on the verge of hallucinating. I could have sworn, as the sky turned to purple, that a fallen branch covered in dead leaves was actually a couple of young deer eating grass at side of trail.
As if the agony of walking uphill - still occasionally catching my foot on the ground as it became more and more impossible to lift my left leg and pull it forward to take a step - wasn't enough, I had gone about 5km when I got another piece of gravel in my left shoe! I'd have just ignored it if I could, but it was quite sharp and stabbing into my heel, which was literally one of the only parts of me that didn't hurt. So, at the next road crossing, I stopped & hoisted my left foot (by pulling on my kneecap with my hands) onto the gate's crossbar, but it was simply too painful to lean forward to reach the shoe; it felt like I was tearing straight through the muscles as my chest approached my knee. In defeat, I pulled my foot off crossbar by the kneecap & let it drop last 8" or so to the ground.
As soon as my leg extended, the pain was suddenly SO MUCH WORSE. No amount of pinning with thumbs or fingers seemed able to bring it down from a 9/10, and even walking became almost impossible. I was now only able to limp along at 16+min/km, almost dragging my injured leg as it had no strength at all & was so agonizing to bring forward. This persisted even after I passed the 12km mark and the trail flattened out, and I couldn't imagine how I could manage to stagger on through this for another almost 9 hours.
My race ended with me whimpering and ugly crying the last 2.5km to Opossum's Landing just as the sky began to lighten, knowing I would only miss the cut-off even if I continued to try to deal with the pain (that had been riding me for 10hrs by then) for another 35km.
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| There was probably no better place to quit, really. |
After refusing offers to sit all night long, kind people brought chair onto trail for me & 2 gents lowered me into it as I screamed and then blubbered away, explaining my issues just as dawn truly broke. Having explained my plan had been to get to my drop bag (not least because I had a heavier sweater there; I was pretty chilly), Viking Steve asked if I wanted him to take me to the next aid station...but there was really neither any point nor any way I could see, though I appreciated the offer.
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| Not to mention his Viking hat, and Krista's kitty onesie |
Jer showed up at the aid station waiting to pace Sasha & hugged me & sat with me, being kind and gentle - it was nice to have a friend there after all I'd been through. All of the Burly runners were so nice to me, and a lovely lady named Audrey gave me a ride back to HQ so I could find Tanker and some dry clothes. So very disappointed.
DNF @ 125.5k: 21:23:00 (approximate) @ 10:13/km
7.5k split to Opossum's Landing: 1:42:49 @ 13:43/km
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| Knowing I gave it my best shot and didn't give up until I was no longer physically capable of finishing under the cut-off were not much consolation. |
I certainly wasn't the only DNF on the day - out of 28 who started, there were only 16 finishers, and most of the DNFs happened at the end of the second full lap whereas I continued down to Hammer View for the 3rd time, and beyond. Honestly it seems like this race might have been cursed from the start for me, but I put my whole being - every last ounce of effort - into finishing until it became clear there was no possible way to make it happen. It kills me that my legs haven't even really been all that sore since - I had so much more to give but my treasonous body wouldn't let me.
I took an Epsom salt bath (in which I fell asleep 3 times) when we got home, then showered off and slept for 5 hours before hobbling 'round the grocery store. Getting in & out of the car was excruciating, and I had to climb stairs with my right leg only. I took a sick day from work on Monday, as I still couldn't turn over in bed without my leg screaming at me, let alone walk or drive. I was fortunate that my RMT was able to identify the problem as I texted with her on Monday morning, though; rather than the torn muscle I suspected, she told me it was likely a nerve issue in my lower back, and suggested some stretches. As soon as I did them - before even getting out of bed - I had immediate improvement! Suddenly movement was possible again, with some care. As I stretched periodically through the day, the progress continued; I was actually able to get out for a couple of short walks, even up a gentle hill or two, and was able to return to work and drive by Tuesday morning. I'm grateful to have such an amazing friend and caregiver!
Here's the real kicker, though: after beating myself up all day Monday about how I might have shot myself in the foot by going climbing and caving on our camping trip less than 2 weeks before the race, or by doing some creek yoga the Wednesday of race week, it was just before I went to bed on Monday night that I finally figured out what caused the nerve issue. On Friday - the day before the biggest race of my life - my boss had changed out the office chair in which I've spent 35+ hours per week for the last 16 years of my life, for a new one. It had this weird air cushion in the seat, and I felt like I was being tipped out of it, so I told him after 2hrs that I'd like my old chair back. He suggested I trade it for a different new one he'd bought for someone else in the office, so I gave it a try.
After 3 hours in this thing - whose seat was too long/deep for my femur length, meaning I couldn't reach the backrest - my lower back and left hip had become increasingly painful. I remember thinking at the time it was the worst possible day for this to happen, and told my boss I needed my old chair back. I was able to get a slightly newer version of my comfortable chair, and spent the last 3 hours of my day in it, but I guess the damage was already done; the calf cramp and leg numbness the next morning, then the implosion of my adductors would certainly suggest so.
Nine months of dedicated training and 21 hours of pain, all for nothing because of a stupid gawddamn chair. I know my boss was just trying to do something nice for me, but I'm pretty sure that just proves that the road to hell truly is paved with good intentions.
May you never have a race stolen from you by poor timing and sadistic furniture.
