Captain Kirk to the Rescue!

This past week has been about resting and making sure everything is ready for Saturday's American River 50 mile Endurance run. Resting and checking is just what I have been doing. But there have been a few interesting speed bumps along the way.

Wednesday night I headed out and ran with the group, a nice and easy 4 miles/40 min or so. On my way out I was cruising along when out of nowhere a blackberry vine reached out and grabbed my left ankle. I felt the pain from the thorns, but there was nothing I could do to stop the thorns from digging into my leg. By the end of that run, my lower leg was swollen, it hurt, and I had blood everywhere. I just laughed it off and shrugged my shoulders, what else was I going to do. I couldn't worry about it, it was done.

Thursday I went out for a really easy run, nothing happened during this run. I was feeling really good, I was mentally focused and my body felt strong. All good things. After the run, since I was already dirty I mowed the lawn, one because it needed it and two, it was green waste on Friday. After mowing the yard I sat down and I looked at my running shorts and the seam of my liner on both legs had torn. One leg had a tear from the base to groin and the other leg just a bit smaller tear, but noticeable. Ohh S#%t, my shorts that I have run every long run and was comfortable in and the shorts that I was going to run on Saturday where ruined. This is not good.

I calmly took a shower which by the way I used the last of my shampoo and made my way to Fleet Feet and my own personal shopping assistant Captain Kirk. I told him what happened and he immediately began looking through the store for the exact same short. When he couldn't find it he called the Roseville store. I was staying calm, I knew that Captain Kirk would come up with a solution for me. I am very particular about what I run in ever since the SNER where I chaffed so bad I couldn't walk. I ended up trying on maybe 8 pairs of shorts and decided on the Nike's with a compression liner.

After thanking Captain Kirk and laughing about it I headed home and put the shorts on. I needed to make sure that the compression liner wouldn't ride up and that it also wasn't too tight around my quad. I was in the backyard playing with the dogs, doing high knees. Everything stayed where it needed to. Thank goodness. I don't know what I would have done without Captain Kirk.

Finding out that I have holes in my running shorts isn't that bad, but pretty comical. I managed to stay calm during all of these minor incident and just role with the punches. It wasn't worth getting worried about and all worked up, I knew that Captain Kirk would be able to help me, I can always buy more shampoo, my cuts on my leg isn't too bad and while I am running 50 miles tomorrow I can always look back on my week and laugh at what happened.

I do have to say that I am ready for tomorrow. My body feels strong, I am mentally ready and focused, I respect the distance and I know that I can do it. I also know that if things don't go according to plan it will all work out, I have plans and I have also learned a lot from my previous races. I am ready!!!! I am focused I have visualized the course I have visualized myself running the course and the Dam hill, I am ready!