{"id":6428,"date":"2021-10-26T14:12:27","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T19:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=6428"},"modified":"2021-10-26T14:24:43","modified_gmt":"2021-10-26T19:24:43","slug":"celebration-50k-race-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=6428","title":{"rendered":"Celebration!!! 50k Race Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If\u00a0 you remember back to this spring, I took a pretty tough tumble end of April on my Monday run down to the Convent.\u00a0 The Convent is one of my favorite runs.\u00a0 It’s beautiful and so peaceful!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I just love that run!<\/p>\n

That particular Monday morning I tripped on the concrete down there.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The broken up sections of concrete down there had my name that day and it took me down hard!\u00a0 I had a lovely souvenir black eye and concussion from that fall because I landed straight on my face.\u00a0 The running glasses I wear saved my face from any major damage but I did have a real pretty shiner there for a while!\u00a0 This pic was taken only 20 minutes after the fall and already the purple was very attractive.<\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0 That wasn’t welcome news but oh well, right?<\/p>\n

The rest of this year has been running, doing a lot of rehab and working with my PT guy.\u00a0 The goal was to be able to run this past Saturday’s 50k and then NYC Marathon in less than two weeks (Nov 7).<\/p>\n

The leg injury was surprisingly uncomfortable!\u00a0 It was causing me to drag my left foot and have an uneven gait.<\/p>\n

Long story short, about a month back, I knew for sure I’d be able to run these two events.\u00a0 It was really that close a thing!\u00a0 I wanted so badly to run these for Aiden!\u00a0 They didn’t have to be pretty.\u00a0 They didn’t have to be fast.\u00a0 All we needed to do was cross the starting line and then the finish line.<\/p>\n

And we did just that!<\/p>\n

Saturday’s 50k was such a huge celebration run!!!<\/p>\n

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I had such a great time on those trails!\u00a0 They were beautiful trails with just enough hills the be fun but not brutal.\u00a0 Absolutely perfect!<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 The race was in Council Bluffs Iowa.\u00a0 We had a great day of traveling and enjoying seeing the western part of Iowa.\u00a0 We hadn’t been out that way for quite a while.<\/p>\n

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Packet pickup was Friday evening at the Council Bluffs Dick Sporting Good store.\u00a0 It was terrific to meet the race director IRL!\u00a0 We’ve been Twitter and FB buddies for a while now so it was terrific to finally meet he and his wife.<\/p>\n

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That evening I laid out my Flat Melinda pic.<\/p>\n

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The weather forecast was a tough one.\u00a0 The temps were right between shorts and tights and I kept going back and forth on which to wear.\u00a0 Finally settled on shorts, short sleeve shirt and arm sleeves.\u00a0 It was brisk in the morning with a sharp breeze but it was perfect as the day progressed.<\/p>\n

Now, bear in mind this was my first race fat adapted.\u00a0 I’ve been training fat adapted about 2 months now?\u00a0 Something like that.\u00a0 I had my trusty sugar free peanut butter in a small soft flask.\u00a0 And before anybody asks, I still despise peanut butter.\u00a0 It’s icky stuff!\u00a0 That being said, it works!\u00a0 There were olives provided at the aid stations so between the peanut butter and the olives, I was well fueled.\u00a0 I did try a meat stick for variety?\u00a0 Spit that thing out pronto.\u00a0 Didn’t even swallow it.\u00a0 Icky!\u00a0 Icky!\u00a0 Icky!<\/p>\n

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Here’s a few pics of the trails.\u00a0 It really was beautiful!<\/p>\n

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MFH met me at the furthest aid station on my way out towards the turn around.\u00a0 I got a nice kiss from him and then he waited for me to come back after the turn around!\u00a0 I scored two kisses from him at that aid station.\u00a0 That was a very good aid station!<\/p>\n

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Seeing as it was very breezy and chilly, I had made sure to wear my running glasses to protect my eyes.\u00a0 Saturday it wasn’t quite enough.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I immediately checked the left eye and it was still there but starting to fuzz out\/fade.\u00a0 Needless to say, I started to panic!<\/p>\n

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!\u00a0 YAY!!!<\/p>\n

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?\u00a0 Doesn’t really matter because we caught up with each other here.<\/p>\n

After explaining what was happening, (remember this wasn’t our first rodeo with the eye thing) he decided to walk towards me.\u00a0 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*\u00a0 He was walking towards me on the trail saying, “I see you in your pink. Do you see me?”\u00a0 I kept replying, “No.”\u00a0 because I really couldn’t see much of anything.<\/p>\n

Finally we met up about 2.5 miles from the finish.\u00a0 He had me fall into a walk with him and we assessed the situation.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That worked!\u00a0 He did exactly that, making sure I could still see well enough to run and then hop back in the car and repeat.<\/p>\n

MFH was a lifesaver in those last few miles!\u00a0 Finally with about 3\/4 mile to go, I said I’d meet him at the finish and took off for the last push.\u00a0 Sure enough, he met me there and cheered at the finish.\u00a0 Have I mentioned before how much I love this man!?!\u00a0 Marrying him was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.<\/p>\n

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Now, I haven’t completed a 50k since 2018.\u00a0 My goals have been the longer ultra distances so crossing this finish line was super important for myself and more importantly for Aiden.\u00a0 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!\u00a0 I give my coach, Denny Krahe the credit for helping Aiden and I smash our goals.\u00a0 He didn’t give up on me with last year’s surgery, the broken foot in January, the fall and concussion this spring.\u00a0 He just helped me keep goals in sight and helped make them doable!\u00a0 Thanks, Denny!!!<\/p>\n

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!!!\u00a0 This event had 3 different distances, 5 mile, half marathon and the 50k.\u00a0 MFH ran the 5 mile.<\/p>\n

He went into Saturday hoping like crazy to run his 5 miles in a hour or less.\u00a0 Not going to lie, he was a nervous guy.\u00a0 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!\u00a0 He ran his race in 56 minutes!\u00a0 BOOM!!!<\/p>\n

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He has some amazing race pics so I’ll share them with you and show off his awesomeness.<\/p>\n

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That’s him in the blue shirt, bib #329.\u00a0 He’s got a huge smile on his face and he’s having fun!\u00a0 \u00a0Afterwards, he was a tad tired because he had run hard.\u00a0 I love these pics.<\/p>\n

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We had such a wonderful weekend!\u00a0 Thanks for listening to my babbling about our race. Less than two weeks and we do all this again in NYC!!!<\/p>\n

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#IRun4Aiden<\/p>\n

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If\u00a0 you remember back to this spring, I took a pretty tough tumble end of April on my Monday run down to the Convent.\u00a0 The Convent is one of my favorite runs.\u00a0 It’s beautiful and so peaceful!\u00a0 Often I bump into one of the Sisters and we’ll fall into step with each other and chat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,27,22,3,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6428"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6450,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6428\/revisions\/6450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}