March 5, 2011

I don't like to leave things incomplete: if I say I'm going to do something, I will do it.  So when I started experiencing some serious ankle pain last week, I became nervous about today's 25K trail race.  I stretched, iced, compressed, elevated, and even restricted how much I walked, but nothing seemed to help.  As Thursday and Friday rolled around, I decided I would just walk (read: hobble) the whole course.  Once the race started, I decided to just trot through the start line with the other runners, then walk after about a quarter of a mile.  As it turns out, I have a very high tolerance for pain.  Although the course was incredibly technical and challenging, with parts literally impossible to run, and despite a swollen ankle, I ran the majority of the race, finishing only one hour beyond how I would have finished sans injury.  Next up: Hell's Hills 50K.

March 4, 2011

I spent a lot of time in the Texas Hill Country as a little girl. We'd most often be in the Johnson City area, on some ranch land or some other piece of property cutting cedar. I forgot how much I miss it. There is something so comfortable about being in the HIll Country: wide open skies, whipping winds, dirt roads, and a simple kind of innocence. My brother and I drove through the Hill County on the way to our race and it was nice to be back in the area. Most exciting for me was sleeping in the pitch black country under the gorgeous Texas sky, full of the most beautiful stars you have ever seen.