Spring: Up and Down

I am not sure how reliable my memory of previous springs stands up to reality, but I pretty much feel like this has been a tough one . . . injuries, being sick, and whininess have made the past six or seven weeks a roller coaster of pseudo-training, which wouldn't have me too freaked out except for the minor detail that the Bryce 100 is less than four weeks away . . .

In the early part of March, about 2 weeks before the Buffalo Run, the trail jumped up and tweaked my ankle while I was busy daydreaming about warmer weather -- I still had about 17 or 18 miles of running ahead of me and didn't feel like calling for help so I told myself that if I could run the rest of the way it would surely speed up the recovery process.  Apparently my ankle did not agree with my "judgment call" and swelled up to the size of a bowling ball by the next morning -- bowling bowl might be an exaggeration, but suffice it to say I was pretty whiny and felt picked on by the running gods.  I am not a fan of being injured.  I bicycled, I rehabbed, I started running again.  But in an effort to prove my world class intelligence, the night before Buffalo in an effort to make sure my ankle was going to be able to hold up for the full 50km I decided to run some technical trail with a bit of snow cover and eventually found myself hobbling back to the car . . . I was not as upbeat and positive the second time around -- Oh, why have you forsaken me!

A few weeks later, my running was finally coming back together.  My confidence in foot placement and such was starting to return, and technical-vertical was rejoining my vocabulary . . . then a friend of mine gave me his bib for a road race . . . I know this kind of behavior is reprehensible, but I decided to run a local race for free.  Let me explain my criminal behavior by explaining that I really did not have the money to spend for a last second registration and it was the weekend immediately following Boston and I needed to run something with other people and wasn't in any danger of accidentally winning some sorta age group award under the wrong name . . . well, the race proved to be a hypothermic experiment in drowning rats and I may have recovered with the wrong electrolytish beverage . . . so by the end of the week I was good and full-on sick, which has been lingering with me since . . .

On the other hand: the trails have been beautiful lately! I am whining about running, which means that life as a whole is going well and despite my general state of weariness with this cycle of training there have been some pretty solid moments of mountain time spent above the city.  Struggling to get some good training in during the past couple of months has reminded me how lucky I am to simply be able to run and (knock-on-wood) I still have enough fitness and time to feel excited for Bryce . . .