101

Got some pre-fatassery in this weekend.  Saturday morning, I did a little jaunt up Crystal Park Rd to catch Intemann Trail.  No headlamp, so I had to time it right and hit it right around 6:45. 

The Waldo Fires were about the crappiest thing to happen here in COS this past year.  I suppose the silver lining is the new Fatass now incorporates many of the North Cheyenne Canyon trails that have long been my favorite.

Pikes Peak/Manitou Ave to Crystal Park Rd
to Intemann to Section 16 to White Acres to Red Rocks.

I'm thinking 101 is a good number of Incline ascents to hit this year.  As of today, only 100 more to go. 

Pity Party

August 19th, 2012.  Sometime shortly after midnight.  I begrudgingly offer up my wrist to the Half Pipe crew chief.  Tap out.  I'm done.  All this time and effort.  All the miles of preparation.  The rehearsal in my mind.  The day trips to Twin Lakes, Winfield, the Fish Hatchery.  For what?  For this?

One quick snip.  It's over.

Nearly two hundred days have passed since that sequence of events seared itself into my memory.  And yet the pain that decision has given me won't subside.  How I wish it was the only residual pain from that weekend.

My achilles had become fairly tender over the course of 2012.  It never begged me to stop, but I could tell it was there.  Nor was it the reason I dropped out at Leadville.  I didn't even have that much trouble with it when I attempted to start training again four weeks later.  But every run I went on last fall made it worse, to the point where I finally cried uncle in mid-October.  I didn't run a step for another six weeks and instead focused on rehab - heat, ice, ultrasound, stretching, and self-pity.  OK, mostly self-pity.

From August 19 to November 19, I ballooned to a full 156 pounds - nearly 20 more than I carried with me into Leadville.  Running sucked.  Not running sucked.  Thinking about running sucked.  Thinking about not running sucked.  Hearing other people talk about running sucked.

Over the course of the past month, though, I've seen glimmers of hope.  Running hasn't made my achilles any better, but it hasn't been getting worse, either.  I was able to hobble up Belford with Jake on Sunday.  Not much in the form of snow cover, but wind from the southwest wasn't pleasant.  It definitely motivated us not to mosey over to Oxford.  Up and down in 4:57, my 119th summit of a 14,000' peak.

There's a reason you won't find much snow here

Paying salutations to my friend, Hope Pass (the low point to the right of the sunny mountain in the center)

With the publishing of this post, my pity party officially is over.  I'm definitely not 100% healthy, and might not be for a long time, but I'm sick of sitting back and letting this own me.