Achilles Tendinitis

Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.

The original plan was to run my first ultra at the first annual Seashore Nature Trail 50k in Virginia Beach, VA Dec 19. Two weeks before the race, some slightly annoying twinges in my left lower leg turned into real pain (but only like 3/10 on the pain scale). So I recruited my boyfriend to slap on some KT Tape after watching their instructional YouTube video, and proceeding to make a hard decision. You see, I was on track to be able to join the Marathon Maniacs at the 1 star level for doing 3 marathons in 3 months and the Seashore 50k would have been #3. But since I would like to be running strong in 2010 with several planned races ranging from marathon length up to the White River 50 miler in July, I decided to bail on the race. I called the hotel to cancel, also cancelled the rental car and felt really bummed for the next several days. Towards the end of the 2 week self imposed rest time, I gave myself the permission to run for the first time after the break on Christmas day. A sort of xmas gift to myself. The run went fine, 3 miles, and consisted of 10 loops around the nearest block, the only snow and ice free route I could find.

After the run I looked at the calendar again. Rocky Raccoon 50 miler in early Feb was fast approaching and I would need to ramp up my weekly mileage pretty quick to get me to the start line in ok shape.  So I decided to bail on that too, and proceeded to cancel my travel plans to Texas. The saving grace is that I now have my eye on the Holiday Lake 50k++ on Feb 13 in Virginia, one of Horton's races. 

I have also learned that my boyfriend will be starting a new job next year in Chile. Hmm, know of any good ultra races there?

Running and blogging

OK, I am going to jump on the blogging bandwagon. I have a TrailJournal for my long backpack trips/thruhikes, a Flickr site for photos and Twitter for occasionally sharing of things. My Appalachian Trail thruhike in 2007 was even covered by the Seattle Times. After an unsuccessful summer at hiking half the Pacific Crest Trail, I am looking to segue into ultra running after a few marathons that seemed not easy, but not exactly hard either. I like the trails and I like to run, my hill climbing isn't bad either. This is a blog for my running adventures, race reports. Looking forward to the adventure!