Texas Endurance Run 50k

Saturday - 50k. I'm here for a workout - not a race - figured I'd just jog with Bryan (They guy behind me in the pic) - he's a 3 hr'ish marathoner and since we jog together a lot it's easy conversation most all the race - we also work together so lots of topics and miles of silence are golden too - a great running partner. He says he's going for 8mpm'ish pace which I think is pretty fast - I only did 9 mpm's on my 50 miler here in February - add to that it's a warm/humid day with dew points above 60°F - but I just figure I'll go whatever pace he wants - he can't out run me - and just hang. We take off - 3/4th place - ease by 2nd after about 5 miles - finish the 10k loop and a full 20k loop without any change in position. We’ve been averaging just over 8 mpm up to there which I didn’t think Bryan was going to sustain – I’ll go another loop – I decide I need to feel the pain of Ultras if I’m going for 100. We notice first female isn't far behind at the turnaround to finish the 2nd loop so likely she’s catching us. Sure enough about 4-5 miles later at an aid station we take a little longer and she jets on by us like we were standing still – ok we were. A few more miles jogging then for the last 10k or so the uphills turn into walk breaks – then some of the flats turn into walk breaks too – Bryan’s struggling – but we’re still joking around and having fun. The trails were open to occasional mountain bikers and groups of hikers.

About 28.23 miles according to my Garmin – a group of 5-6 hikers plus a wiener dog on a leash happed along the trail going the other direction. A kid was pulling the wiener dog to our left so we could pass to the right. With my eyes a bit too focused on that wiener dog – I failed to land one step correctly – hit something – probably a root in the trail – and rolled the ankle – heard/felt a pop of some sort and knew I was screwed. After many many many explicative’s that I chose not to write here – I find I can do no more than walk – I could do that without too much pain – but any jogging was out. Bryan’s real cool to stick with me the last 3 miles/1 hour of hobbling – (looking at the aerial now I see I had a path to the finish of less than ½ mile but I didn’t know that so stuck to the run course). Get to the finish – get my finishers medal and finishers hoody and find some ice to knock down the swelling. When I finally get the shoes off the ankle’s the size of a baseball – doesn’t look good. I manage to drive home with my left foot and elevate my right foot for the 1+ hour ride home.

Splits -
10k - 2nd/3rd Place

50:54.00

7:57 min/m

20k - 2nd/3rd Place

01:41:30.00

8:07 min/m

20k - 15th/16th Place

02:49:31.00

13:33 min/m

Total - 05:21:53.00

Shower and head to urgent care for X-Ray – Cracked Fibula – out for 3 months :(.

X-Ray's didn't progress quite as hoped.  At initial visit's diagnosis - Cracked fibula - the doctor indicated the crack fill in within a few weeks and be solid bone again within a couple months.  Over-anxious me I was trying to walk on it within 3 weeks and took my boot off so probably prevented that from happenning - after 4 weeks I was told to wear the boot another two weeks - after 6 weeks there was no filling in - really didn't look remarkable different.  Doc said it would probably just stay like that so may as well and try and run on it - so end of January I started running again and January 31st I did my first double digit run.  I've come back from injury outages a few times - I'm always pretty impressed how quickly speed bounces back.

After a few weeks my foot started hurting so I stuck to the elliptical/spin class for a couple weeks - still around  45 minutes per day on average - turned out I had just started wearing a shoe that was too narrow - fixed that and ramped up the mileage averaging 80 min/day with mileage up to 70ish miles per week.  Pretty neat to have speed back about like it was in November within just a couple months of training :).   Next Up - Hells Hills 50 miler - April 6th - need to get my Western States Qualifier - sub 11 hours.