Javalina Jundred

Also known as a peccary, the javalina is a pig-like mammal.  It is also the name of a 100 mile race I attempted.
This is the first race to which I've flown. I met up with my running buddy Todd Ragsdale, who took the costume contest seriously by dressing as a zombie. I've never written "eat brain" on anyone's scalp before.
It was a 25 mile drive to the start in a big park in the desert NE of Phoenix AZ. The course consisted of 7 laps on a 15.4 mile loop with a few hundred feet elevation gain each way on dirt/sand/rocky trail.
We started in the dark, and at first the pace seemed really slow. I made a point of staying behind the leaders, and even dropped back a little after the first 5 miles thinking I was saving myself. But by the time we reversed directions after the first loop I knew it was going to be a long day. At 31 miles my stubborn pre-patellar bursa was really hurting. I put a stop to that with a little self medication, and felt great for the next 9 miles then limped in to the 41 mile aid station. Todd caught up with me there, and with a little more medication I ran hapily with him for the next 5 miles in the 80 degree heat of the day. My knee got progressively worse after that, with shorter periods of comfort and longer periods of walking stiffly. I think I walked over half of my 4th loop. Perhaps from limping, the arches of my feet started to hurt a lot as well. So I called it quits a little while after sunset after completing 100k in something over 12 hrs.
Todd made it 93 miles before his knee did him in.
So now I've taken 3 weeks off with no running (other than limping 1 mile with Esther and Zachary, and some soccer with Esther.) I think the left foot instep pain was coming from my navicular bone. It is hurting less, and the knee doesn't bother me on a normal set of stairs anymore. I think a couple more weeks and I can start running again.
I went 62 miles without a blister, but 30 minutes of soccer gave me big ones on the balls of my feet. They still weren't nearly as bad as Todd's toes.

PROOF : I am my father's daughter

A couple of weeks ago I went on a run (surprise). I had heard about some trails on Witham Hill and was desirous to see what they were like.
So during one of breaks in between classes I found my self running down Harrison towards the bike path that would take me to the trails. There are some great trails up there. There’s not that many and they mostly loop back and forth but it’s some great scenery. During the course of the run I took a side trail that looked promising but soon found myself lost without a trail weaving through trees and hopping over brush. “This is something my dad would do” was prominent in my mind. As I was doing this I came across a homeless camp, it most terrifying. I quickly turned around and tried to find my way back. I soon found a trail and started running along it only to come to a gate, I hopped the gate and continued on my way only to discover I was running down a rather steep hill in a horse pasture and I wasn’t sure how to get out. There was a series of horse pastures and a road just beyond them which I was determined to get to. I made my way out of the horse pasture and started running along a dirt road that ran parallel to the road I wanted. Unfortunately there were several horse pastures preventing my access. I soon came to a falling down barn and a creek, with a running jump the later was soon taken care of and I found myself roughly twenty feet from the road with only a ten foot fence covered in barbed wire in my way. With some tricky climbing and “I really hope no body sees me” running through my head, I soon slipped through the fence and stood at the edge of the road. I didn’t know where I was, what road I was on, or which way to go. I did know that I came from the east, so that’s where I wanted to go. As I started running in that direction I realized there was a bike path on the other side of the road which led me to believe I was on 53rd. This hypothesis proved to be correct within a few minutes when I reached Harrison. Grandpa wasn’t so pleased when I told him the story, my dad laughed and said he was proud of me.
On my run yesterday I was able to study the anatomy of rotting deer. It stunk.

bad nursing

I've been nursing an injury along for over 2 months. Every time it starts to get a little better I test it out, and realize I've lost conditioning, so I push myself and then it hurts worse.

It's just a pain that comes from the front of my knee cap. It was numb for the St George marathon, so that was good. I've had days and even some runs where it hasn'tt hurt at all, so I thought I was on track for this coming weekend, but I ran on the bike path 3 days ago while Pam biked, and it continues to hurt. My plan now is to not run until Saturday morning, get 100 miles in, then rest it some more.