Ha! Get it?
I blew out my quads by mile 20. ??!!??? Suffered through 80 more miles. Finished in 22:42. Well off of my goal of 17-hours. Proud to have gutted it out and found the finish line.
You can quit reading now if you would like. If you're in to minutia, please feel free to continue on.
Unabridged version:
I had not raced an ultra since last May at Massanutten. This occurred for a variety of reasons, but the major limiting factors were family responsibilities, lack of desire to race, race directing responsibilities, work responsibilities, and lingering injures. Lots of responsibilities in there and other excuses, but you get the drift. Running just hasn't been on the front burner in the last year. Don't get me wrong, I've still been running. There's just a big difference between "running" and "training". Regardless, I was excited to head to VT to finally run what I intended to by my first 100 in 2007, but was side-railed with a jolly case of mononucleosis. With five other 100's under my belt, I was excited about what I could do at a "faster" 100. I was excited about certainly getting a new PR since my PR is 21:37 from MMT in '08.
My lack of racing in the last year would lead the casual observer to two possible conclusions: 1) I would be well rested and ready to run well. 2) I would not be sharp and probably not race well. I believed I was ready for option one, but option two was certainly the reality to come. Cue the excuses: I had dealt with some lingering left achilles bursitis since the winter, but felt like I had it mostly under control in March, but was unfortunately sidelined most of the month that I planned on building VT base by the flu and resulting pneumonia. Frankly, by April I was a little doubtful that I was going to do the race considering the fact that I had not run over 20-miles for a single run since October. Since this was my only race planned for the year, I decided to let it all hang out and I dove head first into the training.
