This Injury is a Pain in the Achilles...

The week after Holiday Lake, I made a rookie mistake that I should have run out of my system at this point in my ultrarunning career. I've made it before, twice before, and have now made it again: Not Recovering. Following Holiday Lake, I gave only two days to resting/swimming/recovering, and then Tuesday I set out for a hilly 5 or 6 miles of pavement pounding at a 7:30 pace. Thats a recovery run, right? It felt easy enough. My achilles didn't think so.


I evolved from ballerina to ultrarunner in the
usual manner, as seen above. This captures
 the "awkward stage," which
could be substantial enough evidence to
 prove evolution via the "missing link"

When I was still training in classical ballet (yes Rachel has quite the interesting past before becoming an ultrarunner), I got achilles tendonitis in my right leg. I couldn't tell my teacher, or she would probably cut me from the Nutcracker or just stop glancing at me all together (a glance is better than nothing and ment to be cherished). So I just put a leg warmer over my ankle during pointe class and hid the pain. It eventually went away, but I guess not completely.
The Saturday after Holiday Lake, I ran up my favorite mountain that I can run to from campus - Brush mountain - and played around on it for like 15 miles. It was SUCH A BEAUIFUL DAY. But after the run, my tendon kept hurting and by the end of the day I could barely move my foot up and down. I knew what I did wrong. If only I'd slept in like every other "normal" college student! I gave myself 3 days, and tried to run again. No go. Another 3 days, and still in pain.
Third time is a charm. I'll never under-recover again.
 I got it looked at by the local chiropractor, and he told me I have a bursar attatched to my tendon by some filaments that don't want to let go easily. He showed me how to rub the bursar to work it out, and how to stretch it. But there are no permanate solutions...
It went through periods of waxing and waning over spring break, like phases of the moon, expect not pretty. This was (is) a satellite of PAIN orbiting my achilles. And it's much too large for my tendon, just like our moon is almost too large to be classified as a "moon." (isn't that cool? That it could almost be argued that our Earth-moon system is a bianary system?) I shall now upgrade this metaphore to a Protoplanet of Pain
I haven't been on a ligitament run since February 25th, when I went on a run/adventure on the last half of the Terrapin course with two friends, because the chiropractor said it has potential to burst if I push it too much, and I would be out of all physical activities for about 3 months. And if Rachel doesn't do some sort of exercise like every day, she gets a little crazy..
      So I've been attempting to mountain bike. I like all the mud splatter.

Sufficient mud for one day?...nahhh

Sometimes I think that injuries are a way of some higher being telling me that I need to recover. I won't gain 15 pounds if I don't run for 2 weeks. I can bike and swim (the ladder is a funny site to see me attempt) and work up a nice sweat. But still, nothing gives me the same happy, content, satisfying feeling as a 5 hour run in the mountains on a saturday morning. It's the feeling of being completely draining, soaked in sweat, with dirt and scratches on your legs. Wednesdays, I usually go up Brush mountain on a nice 10 or 11 mile loop in between classes, and go to my afternoon class fresh off the mountain. At first my class mates thought I was attacked by some crazed animal. But after a while, I trained them to know when I had just come off the trail, and now they have developed a new skill: How to Spot an Ultrarunner.
To my peers: you're welcome.


Terrapin, and all mountains, know that I love them dearly

This weekend is Terrapin Mountain 50k. I'm still running it, but am not going for time. I just want to finish. My tendon is feeling exponentially better than it has all month, and I could not be MORE ANTSY. That mountain can not bring me down to my first DNF. Terrapin and I are friends; we've spent a lot of quality time together. I know it goes through mood swings and where it's soft spots are. You may think Terrapin trying to kill you, but it's just testing you to see if you are worth its time. Thats one thing Terrapin and I have in common. I am not racing Terrapin this weekend; I'm running it. But I'll probably end up racing:) I'm getting my money's worth, spending as much time with my old, rough, rocky friend as possible. Maybe that'll make up for the lack of mountains in my life this past month.