Where Do I Go From Here?

Labor Day weekend has come and gone, marking the unofficial end of summer.  I spent my summer vacation walking.  Like summer, my 12 week recovery period is almost over.  On Friday, I can resume normal activities, as tolerated, without restrictions.  I interpret that to mean I should start doing things a little at a time.  If I feel alright, I can do more.  If it hurts when I do that, I shouldn’t do that.

Over the next several weeks, I expect to gradually add a few running miles to my training.  Even as I ramp up my running mileage, I expect walking to be a big part of my training.

I’ve always known walking is easier on the body than running, but this summer has proven the point.  Before my back injury, I was running 60+ miles per week.  Most of my runs were 10-11 miles, with an occasional marathon.  I also took a couple of rest days each week.  I needed them.

Running seven days a week never seemed like an attainable goal for me, unless I cut back on either my mileage or my intensity.  Running more than once per day seemed unthinkable.  After one run, I was sore and stiff.

Since the beginning of July, I’ve averaged more than 70 miles a week of walking, and I never feel stiff or sore.  I think I could easily ramp my mileage much higher, although I have to devote quite a bit of time to it.  I can walk several times in one day, and I haven’t taken a day off since my surgery.  Sometime after a particularly hard workout I’ll feel drained, but I’m always surprised how quickly I can recover.

I can see myself running about every other day, but on the days in between I’ll only walk.  Even on the day when I run, I may run shorter distances and then supplement my mileage with walking.

I have several fall races on my calendar.  At first, I expect to walk most of the way, but I’ll run here and there.  With each race, I’ll do a larger proportion of walking.  Eventually, I’ll be able to run the whole way.  Even then, however, I’ll probably walk some of my races.  Now that I’ve added race-walking to my repertoire, I want to stick with it.

Looking farther into the future, I’m going to have to make some difficult choices.  I may never know for sure what caused my back injury.  Was it simply the cumulative wear and tear of running so many marathons?  Was it the pounding my body took from steep downhill races like Revel Mt. Charleston?  Did it all start with the falls I sustained last winter during trail races?  I wish I knew for sure.

I used to stick mainly to relatively flat road races, and I could glide just above the pavement with minimal impact.  When I ran ultras, they were mostly fixed time races, which were also mostly flat.  I think if I had stuck to those races, I would have been OK.

More recently, I challenged myself to go out of my comfort zone.  I took a stab at trail races with mixed results.  I did surprisingly well in my first 50 mile trail run, but I failed miserably when I attempted the Western States 100.  I also have two DNFs at the Bighorn Trail 100.

In those races, I don’t glide along gently.  I’m often awkward and off-balance, and my body has to absorb the shock.  I suck at running downhill on trails.  I’m getting pretty good at running downhill in road races, but even those races take a toll.

Common sense would suggest that I should give up on the races that are beating me up and return to what I’m good at.  It’s easy to say that, but I hate to give up on a goal.  I really want another chance to finish Western States.  Even more, I want to finish Bighorn.  If I could finish those two races, it would be much easier for me to retire from trail races.

So far, my decisions about races have been fairly easy.  Cancelling Bighorn this year was disappointing, but that decision was a no-brainer.  I was in surgery that day.  Attempting to do the race instead would have meant risking paralysis.  Next I had a series of four marathons in four days over the July 4th weekend.  That was also a pretty easy decision.  That early in my recovery, I couldn’t even fly to Portland.

My next race had no time limit, so I could walk the whole thing.  Then I had two races in Europe.  Training to be able to walk them within the time limits wasn’t easy, but I had already paid for my flights, so I had a lot of incentive to at least try.

My next race is a trail marathon.  At first, I thought I would have to skip this one.  Then I learned it had a time limit of 14 hours.  It’s a rugged trail, but I’m sure I can walk it in 14 hours.  I’m going into it with the attitude that I’m doing an all-day hike.

My first difficult choice will come in November.  That’s when registration begins for Western States.  For the first time in four years, I’ve completed a qualifying race.  I’ll only have one ticket in the lottery, so my odds of getting picked for next year’s race are vanishingly small.  I have no desire to attempt it next year, but I want to keep my options open for future years.  For each year that your name isn’t drawn, you get twice as many tickets in the lottery.  After five or six years, your chances of getting in are much better.

Unfortunately, to keep improving my odds, I need to keep entering the lottery every year.  That means I need to do qualifying races every year.  It also means I have to train for them.  That’s an awful lot of wear and tear on my body.  If I don’t enter the lottery this year, it probably means I’m giving up forever.  If I do enter the lottery this year, I need to plan on doing another qualifying race next year.  Either way, it will be a difficult choice.

Giving up the steep downhill races will be easier, except I’m already signed up for one.  I’m registered for the Hawaii Bird Conservation Marathon in December.  If this was just another race, I would skip it.  Unfortunately, it’s not.  Three years ago, I was on the verge of completing my second circuit of sub-4 hour marathons in all 50 states.  I just needed three more states, and I had already scheduled the races.  Then I had a groin injury.  I cancelled my Utah race and had a near miss in my Alaska race.  By the time I got to my Hawaii race, it was a struggle just to finish.

I eventually got my sub-4 hour marathons in Alaska and Utah, but Hawaii has proven to be elusive.  Most Hawaii races are hot and humid.  Even when I’m in good enough shape to break four hours in normal weather conditions, I struggle to do it in the heat.  I don’t have as much margin for error as I used to.

I haven’t made a decision about this race yet.  I can cancel my flight without penalty, so it’s more about the lost opportunity than the money.  If I do this one, it will probably be the last steep downhill road race I ever do.  Can my body handle one more?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I just don’t know.

I also need to start giving myself more time to recover between races.  I used to race almost every weekend, and I sometimes raced on as many as five consecutive days.  I’ve gradually cut back to roughly every other weekend, but I still sometimes do series of races on consecutive days.  I probably need to cut back on those as well.  I’m already scheduled for a series in late January.  I’ll still go through with that one, because it’s a rare opportunity to run marathons in several different countries.  I had tentative plans for other series next year.  I’ll probably back away from those.  From now on, if I’m going to do a series, I needed to have a good reason.

I’ll keep you posted on my decisions and my race results.  Wish me luck as I begin running again.