Trail run = fall

Today did not go as planned, as things often don't.

We met up with some folks from HCTR for a no-drop tour of the Greenbelt. The organizer, Henry, was planning on running for 8 hours today allowing others to bail out whenever they needed to. I was hoping for 5-6 hours, but only ended up with around 3 hours due to a fall a little less than 2 hours in. I was really disappointed because one of my goals for today was to work on nutrition, as I had carefully planned and prepared some different foods to eat along the way. One thing that does look promising though is my pre-run breakfast because I didn't have GI issues during the run for the 2nd week in a row today. I'll focus on the small successes right now. I guess another small success is that my legs felt good, other than my knee after I fell. :)

The weather today was a challenge with 60+ temps and high humidity again, but thankfully no 20-30mph wind like last weekend! I seemed to manage my hydration okay - much better today with my Camelbak than negotiating water stops every 1-2 miles at the race last weekend. Again, another small success. Can you tell I am trying to find the positive? See, that's me working on the mental part of training.

Many of the other folks running today were training for Bandera, so we ran some of the lesser used trails that were a bit more technical to prepare for the challenging rocky terrain out there. I felt really skittish and tentative running those sections, in part because I haven't been running terrain like that since our PD group ended in October. I'm way out of practice. Fortunately, Rocky is not like that - the terrain there is much more to my liking. Another factor that made it even more challenging today was that the rocks were incredibly slippery. SUPER slippery. So, taken together, it was perfect conditions for me to take a spill...and I definitely did. I busted my left knee open pretty good, but what actually seems to hurt even more than my leg is the palm of my hand where I tried to brace myself during the fall. I got my leg cleaned out pretty good when we got home (I had to use the loofah soap again to make sure I got all the dirt and debris out - OUCH).

After I fell, I kept going for about an hour it seemed. I called K, who had turned back shortly before I fell, and told him to pick me up at HOL which he did. Breakfast tacos at Rudy's were definitely in order after that. Yum.

Depending on how my knee feels tomorrow (and the weather), I may try to get in a few more miles on my legs to make up for the lost mileage today. I'm definitely looking forward though to the Jemez group starting in a month so that I can build my confidence back up on the more technical trails.