Alleviating Achilles pain 101

After my most recent 50K, the outside edge of my right Achilles felt extremely sore. For several days after the race, it was hard to walk and much easier just to drag my foot behind me without flexing my foot and stretching the achy Achilles. So at home, I did a lot of foot dragging, although when in public, I tried to toughen up a notch and walk straight.

I talked to my doctor, coach, and tons of other runners about the pain and have been implementing a few things that I gleaned from my search for an answer to pain alleviation and prevention. So far, so good. The soreness is pretty much gone, but I'm still trying to be cautious with it to make sure it doesn't creep back in.

So here's my list of Achilles helps.

1. Rest -- Usually I have at least one cross training day and one total rest day in a week, but after the injury I took four days in a row completely off. That seemed to help a lot, so I've been implementing two total rest days into my schedule the last couple of weeks. My legs and my Achilles seem to like that. In fact, I'm in the middle of a rest day right now, and I'm personally loving it. My kitchen sink loved it too when I finally deep cleaned it.

2. Achilles specific exercise -- My coach showed me an exercise to do on stairs that is basically balancing the ball of your foot on a stair while you lower up and down. Like a calf raise but letting your heel drop below the step with each rep. Important: use your non-injured foot to help you lift back to the start. Once the Achilles starts to feel better, you can take out the assistance.

Here's a video that describes it in painfully slow detail, but it's thorough!

I did this on both sides to stay balanced, and I did three sets of 15-20 three times a week.

3. Stretch -- My doctor recommended stretching on a step as well and angling my foot (toes turning to the middle) so that I could really stretch the outside of my heel where the pain was originating.

And as some of you recommended (thanks!), I found yoga to be very helpful, especially downward dog. Basically anytime I'm standing still for a period of time, I just start stretching my calves to keep them loose.

4. Roll -- I've also been focusing on foam rolling my calves. Tight calves aren't great for your Achilles, so keeping them loosened with rolling has helped my situation.

5. Massage -- At first I didn't notice the knots on my right Achilles, but my doctor pointed them out. Sometimes it just takes someone pointing out the obvious to make progress. Also if I feel one foot then the other foot, I notice the difference. So now that I've located the knots, I just use my hands or knuckles to perform a little tissue loosening massage. Not hard to do at all, but I think it helps.

6. Use higher-drop shoes -- I had been running trails in a lower-drop (4mm) shoe about 80% of the time, so I broke out my XR Missions to give my Achilles a little bit of a break from the lower drop.

---------------------------------

So I'm not sure if all, one, or just a few of these are the ticket to actually healing my Achilles because I've been trying them all at the same time, not the best way to design an experiment. But something in there is working, so I'm going to keep going with this list.

Have you tried (successfully or unsuccessfully) any of the above for your Achilles pain? 

What else would you recommend?

Endurance: it requires a pair

This has been a blast of a week for running. Coming from someone who trains a lot indoors out of babysitting necessity, getting to run four of my five runs outside was just a notch below a Christmas miracle. It helps that I am now working with the Run Club at Life Time Fitness (message me if you want to join us -- you don't have to be a member to run with us!), and that gives me a bonus outdoor run. 

Also shout out to my husband for generously gaining flexibility with his morning schedule so that I can fit in one extra trail run per week on Thursday mornings. See, he has always been the morning person in this relationship. Always. And I have always been the night person. Always. So when I started running and wanting to wake up early to run, it threw off ten years of built-up, perfectly balanced, morning ritual marriage chi that we had carefully crafted. Plus, mornings are the only time he can fit the gym into his schedule. So I'm just putting it out there that I know it's a sacrifice, and I really super huge appreciate it. 

Here's some of the group that I've run some trails with on Thursday mornings.

And yes (mentally add all caps, bold, and a million exclamation points), that's my brother on the far left. Did I mention that he's baaaaack? Did you know he left? Well, probably not. He injured his foot while climbing and has been trying to let it heal. He ran 14 miles with me today, including a second place overall finish at the Spring Scramble 5K after we already ran 11 miles. That kid is burning up the streets of B'ham.

While he's been on a running spree, I've been on a falling spree. I fell on Tuesday night tripping over a metal barrier on our Life Time run and scraped up my left hand. Afterwards, I mentioned to someone that I've only been falling on road runs lately, not trail runs. So the universe had to rectify that situation by providing a giant fall at the above Thursday morning trail run, where I busted my right hand and reinserted some dirt into my already existing left-hand wounds.   

I didn't notice it was cut until I was almost finished with the run. These were the first wounds that I've ever scraped dirt and rocks out of, and it was pretty painful. Not sure it was worth the effort, by which I mean extreme pain. I always wash my cuts, but I don't usually try to scrape stuff out of them. What do you think -- do you have to scrape the rocks and dirt out, or will your body just work that out on its own eventually? 

And this is the part of this post where I almost inserted a picture of food. My only official self-imposed blog rule is not to post pictures of food beside pictures of bloody hand gashes. Phew, that was a close one.

Instead, here's a pic of the oldest donkey I know, Seymour, chilling on my in-laws' farm. So I don't really know that many donkeys, but this dude just exudes ancientness.

Distraction over. So this coming week, I'm looking forward to a lot of things.

Things I am officially stoked about

A. Not falling on a run this week (fingers crossed).

B. Trying out some FITS socks that I picked up at Alabama Outdoors a few days ago while I was getting a gift for my daughter's teacher who is running her first post-baby half marathon tomorrow. And it's a trail half marathon! Go, Racheal! We are so excited for you and wish we could be there! (add another million exclamation points)

Back to these socks. They're made with merino wool, so I'm very interested to see how they feel with the heat coming back on with a strongness. I don't usually wear wool socks for running, so these are all new to me for sure.

C. Next week is the Netflix release of Arrested Development. I know, I talk about it every day, and you just fell asleep reading about it a-freaking-gain. Every night we have an AD date before bed. Bless you, Netflix.

D. Memorial Day Trail Race on Saturday, May 25th. 12 miles of humid, hilly bliss. 

E. Book club is this week! For May, we're reading Jim the Boy by Tony Earley.

And speaking of reading, I found this ad in the Runner's World that I'm currently reading. So CW-X is maybe just not trying to push the envelope too much with this ad, but if you're going to base an ad campaign on "having a pair," it seems like your picture should not look like a lady in the crotch region. What I see in this ad: dude hands, dude legs, lady biz. 

Maybe the graphic designer for this ad is a feminist and planted a lady crotch in the ad because the ad premise is sexist. Either way, ad fail.

Has your family made any compromises to help you out with training? The whole Thursday morning run thing is just one of many. Another main one: patience with my post-long-run bathroom requirements. 

Tell me about your last big fall. Could you have avoided it? The metal bar on Tuesday night -- yes, I could have jumped higher. I have no idea what happened on the trail fall. It was not very light outside, so that was working against me. 

Ever tried FITS socks? How did you feel about them -- love, lukewarm, or I'll pass? Do you know why the name is in all caps? All caps makes a brand name kind of high maintenance.  

What are you stoked about this week? 

2013 Cahaba River Ramble 10 Mile

Cahaba River Ramble was part two of my double race weekend. Since it was the second part, it was much more painful in an I-can-barely-walk-much-less-run kind of way, but that didn't take away from the awesomeness of the course.

Getting there: From Birmingham, it was about a 45-minute drive to West Blocton, AL. We met early and got there in plenty of time to pick up our packets. We were following someone who has already been there, so I can't really tell you if it's easy to find or not. Once we arrived, all of the racers just parked along the side of the dirt road. This worked out great until the giant dually with the trailered hovercraft tried to squeeze through to get to the river. I think I held my breath for about ten minutes while he eked through about as fast as I climbed the hills in this race (i.e. painfully slow).

Pre-race: Signing up for the race was easy. My brother had to register that morning ($40), and they got him right in with no issue at all. Once we were registered, we all just hung out and chatted by the start line, which was about ten feet from the registration table and two steps from the port-o-pots. I was grateful for the proximity because I was still kind of walking sideways with a foot drag to compensate for my sore achilles. And I was about to run 10 miles. Super smart, I know. Remember that I never said on this blog to follow my example. It's like how you learn from your parents' mistakes what you don't want to ever do. Then you end up being like your grandparents who your parents were trying to be the opposite of -- and the beat goes on.

Also I got to meet some Yo Momma readers, who I still swear are related, but they were not claiming each other. I think they seemed like sisters because they were both so equally nice and smiley. You know how you feel related to certain friends after you've been friends for a while. I think that's these two.

Pam, Elissa (love her shirt!), Lisa

Now see that misty river above. When it's in the 40s outside, that water is cold. Someone tried to convince me that the water was warmer than the air, and that person was wrong. If you're reading now and you were the one who told me that, I don't hold it against you because at least you gave me some hope that I wasn't going to die when I jumped into a freezing river.

And that's right, about five minutes before the race was when I learned that we were going to be required to jump in the river and swim across. Huh?! No one had my back in telling me about this before I got there and registered. The word on the street (trail) was that it normally isn't as high, and you can run through it. But we got lucky, and this year it would be over our heads and require swimming. I was still shivering from running for 5.5 hours in the freezing rain on the previous day, and I was very, very dissatisfied with the prospect of being that cold again.

So I did what any frozen person would do -- I tried to convince my brother that the 5K, which did not require river crossing, would be so fun. He promptly responded with heckles and boos and other big brother taunts to get me to feel douchey about trying to only run the 5K. Basically if I ask him to wake up before 5 a.m. to run with me, we are doing the prescribed/promised workout for the day or more. Never less!

Don't be jealous of the mad photoshopping skills.

So that was it. I was back in. Frozenness and all. 

Bonus, they had snacks at the start line: bananas, oranges, some other breaded things that I don't eat, water, and such. Since this was also the finish line, these snacks doubled as our after-race treats. 

The course: Even though I tried to convince my bro to run the 5K, I'm glad he was unrelenting on sticking to our plan. The 5K was down the gravel road (as pictured above) to the water and back. All gravel road equals less fun.

Once you jump into the river on this course, the fun starts. Also, jumping into freezing water takes your breath away. I'm not sure that I've ever experienced anything like that because I'm usually creeping slowly into freezing water (or not at all) instead of diving in as fast as I can. It literally took my breath away, and it felt like I was going to drown because I couldn't breath. So I flipped over and floated on my back for a minute. Then we stood around taking these pics for even more minutes. Not the best use of our "race" time, but it definitely made it more fun.

Phone pics through a protective plastic baggy covering = fuzzy, ethereal photo quality.

There were some ropes to help you along, which I used on the return trip more than the trip out, and the guy in the canoe was there to watch out for us in case anyone got in trouble, which was almost me with the whole not breathing thing.

After the freezing river, which actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be once we were warmed up from running, we ran along the edge of the water, through sand and over downed trees. The terrain of this course was my favorite part. It had the water crossing, sand running, downed-tree hopping, rocky hills, weedy paths, pine straw covered climbs, screaming descents. It felt like places I've been in Florida, Alabama, Utah, and California, but all in one. 

So I loved the course. I was slightly confused because they described the route as a lollipop. We decided that they need to work on that imagery because it wasn't even close to a lollipop. I would call it more of a skin tag, but I guess that they were going for something more appealing with their description. 

In case you can't tell from this map, you run up and back along the same path, and then you break off for one extra loop right before the finish. 

I had heard about The Equalizer, a killer hill in this race, so I was happy that we hit it around mile 3 and got it over with. Oh, but wait, that's not the one they were talking about. It was that other one at the end. That one's The Equalizer. Super steep, but not very long, so I actually thought it was easier than the first hill. Whatever, I hiked both of them because they were both trying to kill my lungs off. 

I'm very glad that my brother was with me because I ran past the sign that told us to turn onto the route's skin tag (that loop at the end with The Equalizer). I started my watch late, so I just figured that it was a little bit off on mileage. That sign should be more neon or something because it really didn't stand out at all. Luckily, my brother was paying attention and got me to turn around and come back. Maybe I should listen to what people say at the start line, but after they said "lollipop," I lost concentration. Something Pavlovian was happening. 

My race: So as I mention above I was feeling rough at the start. Somehow my first mile was the fastest, but it really didn't feel that way. You can see that about halfway through I had a little burst of energy that conveniently coincided with some downhill running. Downhills always remind me that I totally love running. 

One thing I would not do again is wear so many darn clothes. I thought it would help to bring a jacket (that I could possibly keep dry) to put on after I got out of the water. Well, that would have been cool if you didn't have to dive completely into the water. 

Disrobing before diving into the water.

Surely I can keep this tiny ball of jacket dry. 

That was a big no on keeping anything dry. So I ended up wearing that jacket tied around my waist the entire run with the zipper slapping my leg. I kind of hate running with jackets tied around my waist. They always twist and wind around and try to hurt you in wicked ways. 

Good news -- still smiling despite that dumb, twisty jacket.

So I really felt like I was racing starting around mile 5, which appears to be how long it took for my legs to warm up and forget that they had just run a 50K the day before. I'll look for that to be my warm-up period during the stage races too. Five miles in, and things should hopefully start to work in the leg region.

The final stats for me were 1:28:16 and fourth woman (I think). My brother beat me by a minute by outsprinting me at the end. Punk.

After party: I changed clothes immediately after the race to avoid freezing my buns off. Then I partook of the aforementioned snacks while we waited for some of our Alabama Outdoors teammates to receive their awards.

Congrats to John (far left) and Ali (the girl who isn't me in the pic below) on their first place finishes! They both won a new pair of kicks for finishing first. Dan (far right) came in second, and the other John (yellow-ish hat) came in just 25 seconds behind him including a vomit session before the finish line. We should start a new winner category for fastest finisher who also vomits at least once during the race. That takes skills. Or skillz -- because the z adds street cred.

Special thanks to my brother for taking it slower with me. I love living in the same town as him!

Overall: This is a must-run trail race in Alabama. It's short enough that it's not going to kill your legs, but the scenery is gorgeous. The water is not usually as high as we had it, but there's always at least some water to splash through. All of the race proceeds go to benefit the Shane Hulsey CLEAN Environmental Education Program. Definitely run this in 2014.

Alabama Outdoors comped my entry into this race, but all thoughts and opinions regarding this race are my own. 

Fresh pork, darkest-dark chocolate, and my Survivor application

We're back from Old Kentucky, and the kids are already planning their next trip up, which they are hoping to take tomorrow or, at the latest, the next day. 

Rest stop at the AL state line.

This dude got down in the kitchen and made a gluten-, sugar-, and dairy-free meal for Mom's Day. I was so darn excited about it!

He even made some kefir/cocoa/pistachio/honey popsicles. These are the kind of thing that only taste amazing to you if you haven't been eating regular ice cream lately, and it turns out that I had been doing that this weekend because if Banana Pudding Blue Bell ice cream is near my face, I will eat it. Plus it was vacation. So when I tried the homemade pops on Sunday night, not as delicious (day one after refined sugar fest), but by Monday (day two of no refined sugar), they were already starting to taste amazing to me. So I guess the point of that is, I'm always surprised by how real food tastes so much better when you aren't eating as many fake food/food-like products. 

The rest of the meal was ground pork, corn tortillas, sautéed peppers and apples (amazing combo that I have never considered), homemade bean salsa, and avocado. The pork is fresh from a slaughtered pig (sorry for the visualization for you vegetarians/vegans out there) that my husband's brother has access to as an employee at a pig improvement company. His job, which I'm sure I'm butchering (pun slightly intended), is to find the leanest, fastest-growing pigs and bring them together to procreate more lean and fast-growing pigs. But all you really need to know is that fresh pork tastes amazing, especially the bacon that we had last night. No wonder so many people tried the Atkins diet. 

Even though we started dinner at the table, I had to take my plate to the TV zone to watch the season finale of Survivor. So one million years later, and this show never gets old to me. I want to live it. So I looked up applying that night, and there was Probst's face calling me to duty. 

Seriously, I think I'm going to apply. Because it is the longest shot in the universe that I get in, I'm not going to worry about who will take care of my four kids for 39 days while I'm out winning. But wait a second, for real, what do people do with their kids while they're on Survivor?

Other things I'm looking forward to this week: testing these Feetures socks that I got in the mail yesterday. The bright colors are speaking to me.

Next thing I'm testing: a million bars of dark chocolate that I purchased at Publix last night. I use dark chocolate to ease the pain of other cravings. A bar of this can last a really long time because it satisfies a craving without eating a huge portion, whereas with Blue Bell, I need to eat the whole container to feel happy. At one point, chocolate this dark just tasted like dirt to me, but (refer to paragraph three above) as my taste buds are slowly moving away from more sugariness, the darkest-dark chocolate has become my favorite.

Have you ever had fresh meat? We've also had fresh beef from my in-laws' farm, and it is really delicious too. It is always much leaner than anything I buy at the supermarket.

Any fans of Feetures socks out there? This is my first time trying them, but I've seen them for sale locally too (at Alabama Outdoors).

What's the darkest chocolate you've ever tried? And tell me your favorite dark chocolate brands so I can test them! I've tried cocoa nibs, which are 100%. Pretty bitter, but I still liked them. Also, I really like the Trader Joe's The Dark Chocolate Lover's Chocolate Bar. It's 85%.

If you could be on any show, what would it be? Definitely Survivor. Or Amazing Race. Or any show where they throw you in the middle of some weirdo scenario and ask you to try and beat each other. Or I'd like a cameo in Arrested Development -- waiting very impatiently for May 26th.

Happy Mother Runner's Day!

You know you're a running mom when every single card you get from your kids on Mother's Day mentions running.

If a kid says you're good, you're good. Right? This is coming from the same kid who when I tell her I won first place, she asks follow-up questions like, "How many people were at the race?" And, "Does that include the boys?" She doesn't hand out a "so good" every time she turns around, so it's kind of special.

I'm pretty positive my son was hungry when he filled this survey out. Not only am I best at running, but I'm as pretty as cake. Last year, according to his Mother's Day survey, I was as pretty as hot lava, so I'm not sure if I'm being demoted or promoted.

My son provided one more runner mention on another page of his card. R is for runner, but also O is for overwhelmed. I would love to be a fly on the wall of his brain as he wrote this. 

Anybody who goes to the store for the sole purpose of buying this much toilet paper is guaranteed to feel overwhelmed sometimes. Just cleaning the toilets after three boys with questionable aim is a full-time job. 

But this weekend the boys (not so much my daughter) have their grandparents' farm in KY as their urinal, so I'm catching a little bit of a break. Although today we did have one pants crapping incident (from trying to just squat in a field and go) and one peeing on the porch incident. I guess when they go wild for so many hours, they start to forget that peeing in the bushes is not the same as peeing on the front porch. Not the same at all. 

Tucking shirts into unders like it's their job.

Next step in this photo series, flick dirt at the photographer with your stick.

We were lucky today that we didn't get any rain (even though the clouds threatened overhead all day) so that we could take full advantage of outside play. Plus we got to do a fun farm chore or two, like collecting eggs. 

But the main purpose of our visit was to spend time with Grandma Skeeter (not her real name, but a childhood nickname that stuck). These kids really are the luckiest to have a grandma like Skeeter, who loves them so much that she will spend hours making origami animals (or whatever else they are interested in at the moment) with them just because. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Men are what their mothers made them," and I have Skeeter to thank for my husband, who works so hard every day and gives his best to his family -- just like his mom. 

Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there who are moms or stand in as moms when a kid needs you!

And even though my own mother will never read this because she is not on the interwebs, I thank her for all the love she gave me as a kid. Because of her confidence in me, I always felt I was capable of doing anything, and that was a priceless gift for a really shy kid.

Run for Kids Challenge 50K 2013

Thanks to everyone who responded with tips and concern for my achilles! The chiropractor worked it over thoroughly yesterday (fingernails-digging-into-the-table kind of worked it over), and Coach Alex gave me some exercises to work into my routine. This weekend I'm going to be in 100% rest-from-running mode while the kids and I visit the grandparents' farm in Kentucky. I'm almost absolutely maybe sure my achilles will thank me later for that.

In the meantime, I still need to fill you in on the run that started (more like continued) some of my most recent aches and pains, the Run for Kids Challenge 50K at Oak Mountain State Park. There was also a 12-hour race and a 10K that day. The great thing about this race is that all the proceeds go to Camp Smile-a-Mile. Registration was $75 for the 12-hour race, $50 for the 50K, and $35 for the 10K, and I think I read somewhere that the registration fee is tax deductible. Am I making that up? Anyone who knows, feel free to chime in. Also they gave discounts to any high schoolers (and younger) who were signing up to run. Pretty cool!

Getting there: Oak Mountain is very easy to find from I-65, and I've never had any trouble parking there. Usually there is a $3 entry fee, but on the morning of this race, they waved us through. That's never happened to me before on race day or not, so that was a cool bonus.

Hydration pack, post-race dry clothes, bucket of socks and gels, and my camera. Totally set. 

Pre-race: The 12-hour and 50K runners were starting at 7 a.m., which just happened to be in the middle of the longest rain storm ever known to humans. I can't prove that or anything, but just go with it. It rained all week, all night, all morning, all of forever. I dreamed about rain, I sloshed in rain, I shook my fist at rain, and I loved the rain (mostly).

The earth was already thoroughly soaked upon our arrival, so we knew we were in for a fun day on the trails. We all huddled under the pavilion with our giant, medium, and small rubbermaids and coolers. I kind of wanted to examine the contents of all the boxes to get ideas for next time. Somehow I managed to fit everything I thought I would need into a plastic container the size of a shoebox. And guess how many times I used it during the race. Zero. I had extra shoes and socks in there just in case, but I just never needed them.

Pre-race huddle under the pavilion.

Amazingly, a lot of my local running buddies got into Western States this year, so they used the 12-hour race as a training run. Vanessa, who is the race director for the Trail Running Festival at Ruffner, won third place for the ladies in the 12-hour. P.S. I love this picture. 

Lisa and Vanessa. Photo by David Christy Photography.

Kyle (middle in the pic below and BUTS creator) also got into Western States. He and Greg (far right in the pic below) ran the 12-hour too, and Stan (far left in pic below) and I stuck with the 50K. Even in the pouring rain, Kyle didn't run with a hat.

Stan, Lisa, Kyle and Greg. Photo by David Christy Photography.

Surprise, he wasn't the only one. Jonathan (out in front in the pic below) didn't mind rain all up in his eye either. 

The starting lap. Photo by David Christy Photography.

The course: This would be a perfect introduction to the 50K for someone who is a little nervous about the distance and wants to test their legs on a less hilly course. Basically, you do the same 3.something-mile loop nine times to reach your 50K. 

Each lap has 200+ feet of climbs, making it all runnable. You can see from the chart above that I started taking walk breaks on some inclines a little over halfway through the race. I wasn't trying to run all out on this day, just going for the finish, so I didn't push myself too hard at the end. But if you are trying to race, it is definitely possible to run this whole course.

The wet conditions made this course a little trickier/more fun. As the day progressed, the rain eventually slowed, and the trails started to dry a bit. Most of the damage was already done though, and at the final turn on the course, there were some serious mud pits. Perfect for mud wrestling and perfect for falling, which I almost did every single time. You would think you would learn after the first five laps, but nope. Every time, I thought I could skid in no problem, only to realize the breaks were out. 

Photo by David Christy Photography.

Every time we looped around, we got a chance to pick up snacks, plus we had to check in with the race timers so that they could count our laps. The snack selection was plentiful with Hammer Gels (my faves!) and Hammer Heed to drink. Somehow the HEED did not taste half as crappy as it did at Mt. Cheaha 50K. This is either a case of better flavor combined with better drink mixing or a case of you just learn to live with eating nasty junk while you're running. 

Photo by David Christy Photography.

My race: My only goal going into this race was to finish with a better time than at Mt. Cheaha. If the ground was dry, I could have possibly given it a little more gas on the trails, but as it was, I was just happy to finish without breaking anything. 

Photo by David Christy Photography.

Each time I passed through the aid station, I grabbed something to eat. I took about four gels total, and the rest of the time, I ate chips, oranges, and bananas. I went through two fillings of my Camelbak, so about 100 oz of fluid. It was hard to force myself to drink as much as I needed to because it was already so wet and drenched outside that it was hard to remember to keep at it. 

Rocky style chip eating. Photo by David Christy Photography.

The other great part of this course is that the loop enables you to see tons of people as you run along. I never ran with anybody for a junkload of time, but I got to see little snippets of people and talk to lots of different folks along the way. I loved that part of the loop. The part I didn't love about the loop is that there were not enough places to hide if you needed to, you know, go. Plus there were so many people on the same loop that it made mooning everyone in that scenario inevitable.

I ran all of Mt. Cheaha without having to go pee -- weird, I know. But this race was totally opposite. I had to pee from step one. Finally I stopped to go in the toilets that were a little bit off the course, and just a couple of laps later I had revisit the facilities. It was actually a welcomed rest both times.

For the entire race, I only looked at my watch once around mile 9 to see if the loops were adding up to what I thought they were. I never once looked at or cared about pace. I just wanted to keep moving forward.

I wore these Injinji socks, which I credit for allowing me to keep running without having to stop and swap socks. I don't wear this pair a ton because I normally prefer the knee-length compression socks, but I really loved them for this race. I had no new blisters, and my feet stayed warm, whereas my hands locked up from cold so much that I couldn't even tie my own shoes.

About lap five is when my right calf started hurting (maybe compression socks would have helped to prevent this), and I decided that I would hike some of the inclines to give it a rest. So that's exactly what I did. My calf never bothered me after the race, just my achilles, which I'm pretty sure is related to the calf pain.

My final time was 5:21:24 (see official results here), which was more than an hour faster than Mt. Cheaha 50K, not shocking considering the difference in elevation. I also won first place for women (sixth overall), which was a really cool surprise. Plus I got this mug that spells out "winnah"!

And my gym buddy gave me some post-race flowers too. Seriously, you can't outnice some people. 

Post-race: The best part of the post-race party was the grub. The race directors picked up giant Chipotle burritos for us. I was in some serious food heaven after this race. Whoever came up with that plan is a genius with whom I always want to brainstorm from now until forever.

Also, I got to chat it up with some of the other 50K folks (most all of the 10Kers were long gone, and the 12-hour kids were a long time from finishing). I finally put together that my friend Wade is the creator of a local running group called Norm's Gnomes, which I wanted to be a part of ever since I saw that they had this shirt.

And there is an actual gnome that goes to races and lets people rub his belly just like Buddha (or Budai) for good luck. I guess we'll see if it works at Choccolocco 50K next month.  

Swag: The shirts for the race were gender specific from Salomon.

At the finish, they gave you a finisher's cup. Not to be confused with the winnah mug above. I should never have to buy glasses again. 

Special thanks: David Christy comes out to so many of our local races and takes pictures for us, and he let's us use them for free! Thank you so much, David!

The volunteers at this race were awesome too. Ali and Michael (below) were a great cheering crew on every lap, and Michael coached me along the whole race, giving me advice and encouragement every time I looped around. 

Ali and Michael. Photo by David Christy Photography.

And finally, thanks to Marye Jo and David Tosch, who are officially the happiest race directors on the planet. 

Overall: Perfect 50K for a training run or a first-time 50Ker. The easier elevation makes this one accessible to all, and I liked being able to chat with lots of folks around the loop. The race directors provide great snacks during and after the race. Plus they're raising money for a really great cause!