OUCH!!!

So this week was a little crazy, and I don’t mean running wise. My wife Lily was away for the week on her 40th birthday trip to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. The solo daddy thing was hard, but fun. At the start of the week my 5yr old daughter told me she would go easy on me. The catch was that she required an Oreo Blizzard from Dairy Queen later in the week.

The run I was looking forward to the most was yesterday, (Sunday). I ran with my friend Rob Evans of Team Fleet Feet Fair Oaks/Ultrasignup.com and Prudence L'Heureux. Prudence also had her adorable collie Sophie with her. Sophie was the fastest of us all on the trail. Prudence and Rob are both long time trail runners with a lot of experience. Prudence won Where’s Waldo 100K last year. Since I had to bail on Waldo last year after entering I pulled her ear as we ran about the course. I hope to return to Waldo next year.

The plan was to run Foresthill to the Rucky Chucky crossing, sometimes called the Call Loop. Rob stated it would be an “easy” run, I felt the run would not fall into my definition of an easy long run. But with the week being low on mileage I was looking for some quality running.

So two miles in I had my first close call with an injury this year. I rolled my right ankle really bad on a descent. I heard a pop sound, which scared the crap out of me. Amazingly there was no pain and I was able to put weight on it right away. I walked it off and soon got to running again with no real pain. I think the pop sound was my tight ankle losing up. When my body parts are tight the joints pop a little as I get warmed up.

So we proceed to bomb down the canyon. Rob shouts that we are not walking anything today. Now if you have run the Cal loop you know there are a few short steeps that can hurt. Regardless I walked the first up, but the rest of the day we ran everything. We end up making the river in 2:13, if the GPS was right it was 16 miles. Now if I could only run that fast at States. Prudence put the screws to us once we hit the river road. I was becoming worried I was going to pop, but thankfully the river crossing appeared to save me.

I was able to finish the run strong and run out of the river back to the car at the top of Driver Flat Rd. I’m happy with how the body held up. Besides the ankle I’m not sore today. It appears the tempo/quality running is paying off.

Once home I had some swelling to the right side of the ankle but no real pain. I’ve started icing and taking Vitamin I for it and I think I’ll be OK.

So what caused this and why am I not descending like I used to on trails. I think it’s the road shoes. My Moto’s are just too high off the ground which makes my foot slip too much. So I’ll be buying a pair of Asics Trail Attacks today to get them broken in for the weekend. I have used them before and trust them.

I had been contemplating this for a while, but this run showed me I need to make the change. The Moto’s work great on mellow trails, like the AR50 trail. But when it comes to rockier trails and downhill running you’re going to suffer, or hurt yourself.

AB