Trail Cred

Remember way back to the beginning of the summer when I devised clever goals for my glorious two month break from work?

Well, I did, and I am happy to report that I nailed two of them.  Getting a handle on my e-mail has been painful, but I finally have a relationship with the "delete" key.  I'm not sure, it might be an unhealthy relationship, since I seem to really be hitting it a lot.  As in I DON'T SAVE ANYTHING!

It might be problematic at some point, but for now, I am free as a bird. I mean, really, what could happen?

My second goal was to lower my overall pace time in running.  This is harder to quantify, especially since my garmin stopped working halfway through the summer.  Well, it still worked, but the display wasn't working, so even though it was getting my times, I had no idea what they were.  Plugging it in the computer seemed obvious, but when the computer also stopped working, it really irritated me.  (Hmmm, wonder if that had anything to do with my first goal...?????)  Anyway, I was lucky to find  an older watch and got back on track after a couple weeks.  And, to my surprise, my times really were dropping!  (See multi-purpose gif  above).

This was further confirmed at the Women's Half Trail Marathon in early September.  I have been doing a lot more trail running in addition to faster road running, and that combined gave me my second best time in 6 years at the half.

Me and Kate, who kept calling me her "trail Mama"

I was pretty happy about that, especially since about 3 miles from the finish I fell HARD.  It was "yeah, I think I broke my finger" hard.  Since I was carrying a handheld in my right hand, and landed pretty much with my hand UNDER the water bottle and my body OVER it, it wasn't pretty.  After a few minutes, I was able to continue running, and since now I was pissed off that my great race time might be threatened, I stepped it up to the finish.  I came across the line covered in dirt, and with three fingers on my right hand pretty swollen.  The middle finger was the worse (of course) so I grabbed some ice and soaked it until I couldn't feel how badly it hurt anymore.  A couple folks at the finish gave me "street cred" for not going to an aid station, but I had to remind them it was "trail cred" and  it wasn't like a bone was sticking out!  Geesh,
A couple weeks later and it still won't bend all the way, but I like to follow the two-week, two month rule:
If in two weeks it feels a little better, give it two months, and just about everything  heals. And lucky for me, I am left handed!!