Roll with the Trails: Injuries, Recovering, Relocating, Reflection.

Injuries

After White River, I ended up taking about four days off, and then went out for an easy run on the bluffs. My legs were tired, but nothing that prevented me from getting a recovery run in. Unfortunately, five miles in I tweaked my knee. I didn't think much of it, and rested it for a couple of days, figuring it would go away. It did, so I ran again over the weekend on Mt. Spokane with my running partner Bruce. My knee decided to really stiffen up, and I completely slowed Bruce down to the point that I was walking and he would go run down the trail and come back to me, just to keep himself moving. Major bummer, especially because my parents were in town the next weekend, as we planned a trip to Winthrop for the Angels Staircase 60K. I rested my legs all week, the knee got better, and I tried the race, but had to drop about 30 minutes in as my knee started to stiffen again.

Recovering

I rested again for four straight days, and am now back to running. I did four and half miles Thursday and Friday, followed by six miles on Saturday. My legs finally feel like they are ready to run again - just in time for the Hood to Coast relay this coming weekend in Oregon. I'm fortunate enough to be part of a friends team, and I'm really looking forward to the team aspect of running, my first significant road run, and first night run. I also picked up a pair of road running shoes (Saucony Kinvara 3), and am very happy with them (review forthcoming).

While recovering, I can say I got extremely grumpy/pissy. I wouldn't say I was depressed, because I'd like to believe that there are plenty of things in life to keep me from getting to that point, but I was certainly frustrated that I couldn't run. I didn't want to swim, tune-up my mountain bike, lift weights, or really engage in any other form of exercise to stay in shape. I even ordered from Dominos one night, because TV told me they had improved their ingredients. I had two pieces, felt sick, and put the rest in the garbage.

Relocating
Work is moving me out to the Seattle area, so I have started looking at places on the wet (sic) side, and more importantly, determining what will be my training grounds. Luckily, it seems there are many trail running groups out in the Seattle area, which should be fun to get involved with.

Reflection

Somewhere in the midst of recovery, moving logistics, not blogging, consuming cardboard masquerading as food, and being grumpy, I decided I needed to plan for the future. Ultra-running took precedence. I needed to come up with the big races I was going to try to enter for 2013. So here is what I have so far for potential adventures:

Western States 100 mile (lottery, hard to get into)
Miwok 100k (lottery, less hard to get into)
Cascade Crest 100 mile (lottery, less hard to get into)
Pine to Palm 100 mile (not sure of lottery)
Sun Mountain 50 mile
Angels Staircase 60K

As part of my reflection, I also wanted to re-tune my fueling. I've been doing a fair amount of reading and research into Vegan diets, and fueling on fat for races (as opposed to 'carbo loading'). I can't say I have come to any level of certainty of what exactly I'm doing, but I am moving in a certain direction. I like the thought behind using fat as fuel in races. I also want to see what happens when I lessen the amount of animal products in my diet.

Onward.