Category Archives: Iowa

Celebration!!! 50k Race Report

If  you remember back to this spring, I took a pretty tough tumble end of April on my Monday run down to the Convent.  The Convent is one of my favorite runs.  It’s beautiful and so peaceful!  Often I bump into one of the Sisters and we’ll fall into step with each other and chat for a half mile or so.  I just love that run!

That particular Monday morning I tripped on the concrete down there.  They’ve been (and still are) doing some major construction projects at the Convent so the concrete has been abused from all the heavy construction vehicles and traffic.  The broken up sections of concrete down there had my name that day and it took me down hard!  I had a lovely souvenir black eye and concussion from that fall because I landed straight on my face.  The running glasses I wear saved my face from any major damage but I did have a real pretty shiner there for a while!  This pic was taken only 20 minutes after the fall and already the purple was very attractive.

A few weeks later after the purple was subsiding, I noticed my left leg was incredibly unhappy. The doc said I had messed it up pretty bad in the fall.  That wasn’t welcome news but oh well, right?

The rest of this year has been running, doing a lot of rehab and working with my PT guy.  The goal was to be able to run this past Saturday’s 50k and then NYC Marathon in less than two weeks (Nov 7).

The leg injury was surprisingly uncomfortable!  It was causing me to drag my left foot and have an uneven gait.

Long story short, about a month back, I knew for sure I’d be able to run these two events.  It was really that close a thing!  I wanted so badly to run these for Aiden!  They didn’t have to be pretty.  They didn’t have to be fast.  All we needed to do was cross the starting line and then the finish line.

And we did just that!

Saturday’s 50k was such a huge celebration run!!!

I had such a great time on those trails!  They were beautiful trails with just enough hills the be fun but not brutal.  Absolutely perfect!

MFH (My Favorite Husband) took Friday off from work and we drove from our home on the eastern state line of Iowa completely across the state, to the state line of Iowa/Nebraska.  The race was in Council Bluffs Iowa.  We had a great day of traveling and enjoying seeing the western part of Iowa.  We hadn’t been out that way for quite a while.

Packet pickup was Friday evening at the Council Bluffs Dick Sporting Good store.  It was terrific to meet the race director IRL!  We’ve been Twitter and FB buddies for a while now so it was terrific to finally meet he and his wife.

That evening I laid out my Flat Melinda pic.

The weather forecast was a tough one.  The temps were right between shorts and tights and I kept going back and forth on which to wear.  Finally settled on shorts, short sleeve shirt and arm sleeves.  It was brisk in the morning with a sharp breeze but it was perfect as the day progressed.

Now, bear in mind this was my first race fat adapted.  I’ve been training fat adapted about 2 months now?  Something like that.  I had my trusty sugar free peanut butter in a small soft flask.  And before anybody asks, I still despise peanut butter.  It’s icky stuff!  That being said, it works!  There were olives provided at the aid stations so between the peanut butter and the olives, I was well fueled.  I did try a meat stick for variety?  Spit that thing out pronto.  Didn’t even swallow it.  Icky!  Icky!  Icky!

Here’s a few pics of the trails.  It really was beautiful!

MFH met me at the furthest aid station on my way out towards the turn around.  I got a nice kiss from him and then he waited for me to come back after the turn around!  I scored two kisses from him at that aid station.  That was a very good aid station!

Seeing as it was very breezy and chilly, I had made sure to wear my running glasses to protect my eyes.  Saturday it wasn’t quite enough.  At about 5-ish miles to go, I realized the vision in my right eye had gone away and I could no longer see out of that eye.  I immediately checked the left eye and it was still there but starting to fuzz out/fade.  Needless to say, I started to panic!

After 2 miles of every now and then trying to call MFH and getting no answer, I was so excited to meet a lady and her granddaughter who mentioned to me at a road crossing about this nice man waiting to surprise me about a mile ahead. That had to be MFH!  YAY!!!

I tried again to call him and sure enough, he answered. I guess one of us didn’t have reception last couple of times I’d tried to call?  Doesn’t really matter because we caught up with each other here.

After explaining what was happening, (remember this wasn’t our first rodeo with the eye thing) he decided to walk towards me.  I knew I could finish, I just didn’t want to wander off the trail and roll down an embankment never to be seen again. *VERY huge exaggeration*  He was walking towards me on the trail saying, “I see you in your pink. Do you see me?”  I kept replying, “No.”  because I really couldn’t see much of anything.

Finally we met up about 2.5 miles from the finish.  He had me fall into a walk with him and we assessed the situation.  I mentioned that every time I ran hard, the vision got worse so I had been doing a walk/run the past few miles to try to keep it under control.  The decision was made that he would drive the car down a little way and walk back to the trail (not a far walk) to check on me.  That worked!  He did exactly that, making sure I could still see well enough to run and then hop back in the car and repeat.

MFH was a lifesaver in those last few miles!  Finally with about 3/4 mile to go, I said I’d meet him at the finish and took off for the last push.  Sure enough, he met me there and cheered at the finish.  Have I mentioned before how much I love this man!?!  Marrying him was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

Now, I haven’t completed a 50k since 2018.  My goals have been the longer ultra distances so crossing this finish line was super important for myself and more importantly for Aiden.  I’m super happy to report that even though I was DFL at this race, I still completed the distance 27 minutes faster than the 50k back in 2018!  I give my coach, Denny Krahe the credit for helping Aiden and I smash our goals.  He didn’t give up on me with last year’s surgery, the broken foot in January, the fall and concussion this spring.  He just helped me keep goals in sight and helped make them doable!  Thanks, Denny!!!

Now, before I quit babbling, I need to give MFH a huge shout out! Not only didn’t he babysit me at the end of this race, he also raced himself on Saturday!!!  This event had 3 different distances, 5 mile, half marathon and the 50k.  MFH ran the 5 mile.

He went into Saturday hoping like crazy to run his 5 miles in a hour or less.  Not going to lie, he was a nervous guy.  Hope he doesn’t mind me telling y’all that! I’d been running a half hour already before his race started so I didn’t get to cheer for him until my race was done but I’m here to tell you he totally SMASHED his goal time!  He ran his race in 56 minutes!  BOOM!!!

He has some amazing race pics so I’ll share them with you and show off his awesomeness.

That’s him in the blue shirt, bib #329.  He’s got a huge smile on his face and he’s having fun!   Afterwards, he was a tad tired because he had run hard.  I love these pics.

We had such a wonderful weekend!  Thanks for listening to my babbling about our race. Less than two weeks and we do all this again in NYC!!!

 

#IRun4Aiden