Nice going SLOgoing & SoCalTriCurious! Every race will have its challenges but you responded to them and that's awesome! Sorry to hear about the pinecone Anna - hope you heal up fast!
Last week's goals:
run x 3: win
core/strength x 1: win
mobility/stretch x 1: win
foam roll x 1: win
I had my own challenge to face - not only is the course at Limberlost quite technical, the massive thunderstorms on Friday night served to turn many parts into a muddy quagmire. This seems to be a theme at all the races so far this year, and this was the end of 206km of racing in 10 weeks for me (50k Apr 29 - 100k May 27 - 56k July 8). I'm carrying fatigue, got woken up at 1am to our new canopy tent going airborne on a particularly nasty wind gust in the storm (fortunately noone hurt!), and my left ankle has still been iffy. Anyway - onward.
The course is incredibly beautiful, skirting around a few lakes in the wilderness reserve:
Big rocky sections in some places:
Lots of boardwalks over the streams that criss-cross throughout the area. The corner you can see on this one was actually submerged by the water falling from the lake earlier in the day after the heavy overnight rain.
Lots of shade except in a very few places:
Definitely stayed interesting all day:
The mud was the biggest story of the day, though. There were several stretches on the course where you couldn't avoid stepping into it over your ankle.
I feared for my feet - having wrecked them pretty badly in the mud at Sulphur 6 weeks prior - and for my damaged ankle, which kept finding roots and rocks buried in the mud puddles. I took the camera out for my 2nd loop (it was 4 x 14km laps), then grabbed one of my wimp sticks for the 3rd & 4th to try to keep me from falling or hurting myself too badly to continue.
Having used a fair bit of time taking pics on lap 2, I was kind of up against it to make the 10hr cut off. I thrashed myself pretty hard to run everything I possibly could in the last 2 loops, and made it in with 3m25s left. They actually gave official finish times to anyone who got out for their 4th lap before the 7h30m cutoff, so I wasn't even last; there was another girl (whom I passed on lap 3, passed me back on lap 3, then I passed again & left behind on lap 4) who came in at 9h58m52s and 4 people who came in after 10hrs...the last two of which took almost 10h42m. It was incredibly tough and tiring - if I'd been smart I probably would have called it a day after my 2nd lap, but stubbornness got me through in the end. 61/66 O/A (90 started - 24 DNFs), 20/22 women and 8/8 in W30-39.
My legs are WRECKED. Because I was mostly running downhills for the last 5hrs, my quads are trashed and the calves are beat to crap from all the steep climbs and trying to keep my footing. Shoulders are tight and sore from carrying my bottle and using the pole, but I have a bit of time to take things easy now this big block of racing is done. Need to get back to full strength to build for an early September 50 miler, which will be - gulp - on similar trails.
No goals for this week - just going to play it by ear and try to get lots of rest.
__________________________________________________________
ill advised racing inc.
Last week's goals:
run x 3: win
core/strength x 1: win
mobility/stretch x 1: win
foam roll x 1: win
I had my own challenge to face - not only is the course at Limberlost quite technical, the massive thunderstorms on Friday night served to turn many parts into a muddy quagmire. This seems to be a theme at all the races so far this year, and this was the end of 206km of racing in 10 weeks for me (50k Apr 29 - 100k May 27 - 56k July 8). I'm carrying fatigue, got woken up at 1am to our new canopy tent going airborne on a particularly nasty wind gust in the storm (fortunately noone hurt!), and my left ankle has still been iffy. Anyway - onward.
The course is incredibly beautiful, skirting around a few lakes in the wilderness reserve:
Big rocky sections in some places:
Lots of boardwalks over the streams that criss-cross throughout the area. The corner you can see on this one was actually submerged by the water falling from the lake earlier in the day after the heavy overnight rain.
Lots of shade except in a very few places:
Definitely stayed interesting all day:
The mud was the biggest story of the day, though. There were several stretches on the course where you couldn't avoid stepping into it over your ankle.
I feared for my feet - having wrecked them pretty badly in the mud at Sulphur 6 weeks prior - and for my damaged ankle, which kept finding roots and rocks buried in the mud puddles. I took the camera out for my 2nd loop (it was 4 x 14km laps), then grabbed one of my wimp sticks for the 3rd & 4th to try to keep me from falling or hurting myself too badly to continue.
Having used a fair bit of time taking pics on lap 2, I was kind of up against it to make the 10hr cut off. I thrashed myself pretty hard to run everything I possibly could in the last 2 loops, and made it in with 3m25s left. They actually gave official finish times to anyone who got out for their 4th lap before the 7h30m cutoff, so I wasn't even last; there was another girl (whom I passed on lap 3, passed me back on lap 3, then I passed again & left behind on lap 4) who came in at 9h58m52s and 4 people who came in after 10hrs...the last two of which took almost 10h42m. It was incredibly tough and tiring - if I'd been smart I probably would have called it a day after my 2nd lap, but stubbornness got me through in the end. 61/66 O/A (90 started - 24 DNFs), 20/22 women and 8/8 in W30-39.
My legs are WRECKED. Because I was mostly running downhills for the last 5hrs, my quads are trashed and the calves are beat to crap from all the steep climbs and trying to keep my footing. Shoulders are tight and sore from carrying my bottle and using the pole, but I have a bit of time to take things easy now this big block of racing is done. Need to get back to full strength to build for an early September 50 miler, which will be - gulp - on similar trails.
No goals for this week - just going to play it by ear and try to get lots of rest.
__________________________________________________________
ill advised racing inc.