Contrast

The Station Fire's path and the vegetation that didn't burn on Mt. Disappointment, San Gabriels, CA

The contrast of the Colorado Rockies to the Southern California basin is about as great as the contrast of my fitness before and after the race. Going in I felt like I was in the best mountain running shape in my life, and going out I feel like I’ve saved just enough to continue as a fitness runner. The muscle soreness wasn’t so much the issue initially as the complete lack of leg speed and endurance. Then a few days ago, my right kidney developed a stone and I was in excruciating pain Friday night. After a couple hours of throwing up and intense kidney pain (going hysterical, bawling on the floor in the fetal position), the ER got the good anti-nausea and pain killing drugs in my IV. Since then I’ve been waiting for the stones to pass and walking around with a sore kidney.

I know other Hardrockers have had varying degrees of recovery, but I’ve had my own unique process and actually enjoyed the depth of the burn. I know that I put myself in a very difficult position coming in as a rookie from Orange County, but I made the best of it and never got scared overcoming the most challenging passes. I wrote about how afraid I was of going over huge peaks in the middle of the night and I legitimately was. When I finally made it to back to Silverton to kiss the Hardrock, I arrived with nothing left in my legs.

One thing that the race didn’t take from me, was my appetite for competition. Going in, I was a bit overwhelmed and thought I would be really happy when I could forget about competing after the race. But, I’ve actually been searching out races for the past couple weeks. Pine to Palm looks really fun, or maybe a technical 50 miler. I am noticing a very fast fill rate all over top races in the sport, but I’m not going to put any money down for a race that I won’t be ready to come back and run well in. So, if that means November/December, I’m okay with that.

Last 2 weeks:

July 16-22: 16 miles, 2,000ft

July 23-29: 23 miles, 7,000ft