Baby, It's Cold Outside!

There's no such thing as bad weather, just soft people. -Bill Bowerman

Damn, it's cold.

T-3 to TNF 50. Finally.

I'm pretty burnt out from training for the past year and can't wait to do something else for a month -- or however long it takes to get the stoke back. Strange things are happening on my runs, even the ones in which I'm feeling good. For instance, about 90 minutes into last week's long run, I just stopped suddenly, because I was done running. I didn't even realize what had happened initially, puzzled by why I was just standing there. I manually restarted myself and finished the run, but it only confirmed what I've been feeling for months. I need a break.

I'm happy my next long run will be a race, with new views, new people and new experiences to drink in. I'm always jazzed at races -- if I could, I'd race every couple of weeks just because I enjoy being there so much. I've never felt the lack of enthusiasm for running in that setting so I'm not expecting it on Saturday.

One thing that has had me concerned the past few weeks has been some nagging hip pain. My chiro-huz has been adjusting me and after putting me through an exam, thought it was probably bursitis. I think he's right. It hurts in that spot every time I run and it's worse after I've done steep climbs or long runs. I'm expecting TNF to be uncomfortable all the way through and that I'll be hobbling for a couple of days until things loosen up a bit. But hey, I'll embrace every horrible minute of it, cause I'm crazy that way.

One thing I realized as my beloved chiro was assigning stretching exercises is that my hip flexibility is terrible. It's so bad that sitting cross-legged is painful. Running has only made this worse. I've begun sitting cross-legged a lot now to stretch things out and it's been improving. I've also started doing some yoga poses that are specific to runners and that's helped ease the pain too.

Once my off-season starts, my initial plan is to focus on doing yoga, core work and strength training to help with muscle balancing to heal the bursitis and keep it from becoming a recurring theme. I also have my bike set up on our trainer so I'll get some cross training in while enjoying some Netflix picks that I've had no time to enjoy this year.  

As I think about TNF 50, I am pretty excited to get to run these storied trails on Saturday. It looks like I may have an author-blogger-adventurer joining me as a pacer for the last 22 miles too. While I think it's silly for an elite runner to have a pacer for a 50 miler when 10k is up for grabs, I'm happy to have the company and allow Jill to have a long run with aid station benefits. Being as I've never run an ultra with bursitis, I'm just hoping to keep the pain management at bay so I can be my normal happy self out there in the Marin Headlands. I want to finish too and well before the cutoff. 

I picked out my TNF outfit and in the spirit of cutting my hair, decided to go hat-less and jewelried, presuming the 40-50 degree weather holds.

In the midst of today's frenzied packing for San Fran, a friend who is also running TNF 50 sent me this course preview, which really got me excited for running the Pirates Cove descent, Matt Davis and Dipsea trails. I'll repost for your enjoyment:

Happy Trails,

Shelby