Niagara Ultra 50K - June 17, 2017

Well... the Niagara Ultra 50K happened. It wasn't pretty, but it happened.

As I mentioned in my last post.... I hurt my big toe on my left foot by stupidly kicking a stump (accidentally, of course, but I should have been paying more attention) while running at Chicopee. I had hoped it would be pain free by race day, but I was not so lucky. It's nothing super painful, but it's there. It's an annoyance, and it's something that makes the body try to adjust or compensate... and well, it's never a good thing when that happens.

The race may not have gone all that well, but overall, it was fun weekend in Niagara-on-the-Lake with Heather and Andrew.

They picked me up on Friday after work and we headed straight to number pickup to get our numbers and sweatshirts. This race always has nice hoodies, with a different colour each year. This year was black.

After we picked up our stuff, we checked in, then headed out for dinner. Well, "out"... we were eating in the same building where we were staying.

After dinner and a couple drinks, it was time to think about sleeping. Morning was going to come quick. I got into bed, set my alarm for 4:50am and went to sleep. I slept not badly. I only remember waking up once, so that's not bad at all. Got up with my alarm, and headed out the door to walk to Tim Horton's for a coffee and bagel. I was walking back (it was about a km walk each way), trying to eat my bagel and spilled coffee all over my arm. haha. Whoops! At least I didn't spill TOO much and still had more to drink. :)

Got back to my room, showered quick, got ready for the race and headed out. As soon as I put on my running shoes, I knew things were not going to be great. I had discomfort just with wearing shoes. I hoped this would go away quickly, but as I walked to the race, it just remained.

I arrived at the race with enough time to eat a couple of tim bits, hit the port-a-potties, say hi to Dave, and get lined up.

The race itself:

• I felt the toe with pretty much every running step
• I was able to mostly ignore it for about an hour
• The side of my foot started to hurt.. crap.. I've altered my gait
• Walked some to try to "reset" my running gait
• The toe felt ok when I walked
• I walked too much because of the above
• Thought maybe I'll drop when I get to 30K. That's still a solid long run.
• Spent too much time at aid stations in the shade, but had fun chatting with the volunteers, who were amazing!
• Decided at 30K that I'd finish the race. I could walk the last 20K and be under the time cut-off.
• It was hot
• It was humid
• I was drenched in sweat
• Finished 5th woman in 4:53, my 2nd slowest 50K.

I guess I need to come back again for a revenge run. :) It is a great race. Super well organized and a great course.

Now... some photos. The first two are from Dave and the 3rd is what I posted on Instagram on Saturday:

A post shared by Vicki Zandbergen (@vickizandbergen) on Jun 17, 2017 at 11:12am PDT

Since the race, I haven't run. I want this toe to heal completely, but it's driving me nuts how long it's taking. It's not like I truly injured myself (well, I guess maybe I did.... ), all I did was kick a small stump when running.... that's all! How many times have I tripped on a rock or a root or even a sidewalk or curb and been fine? So many. Oh well. It will get better. Hopefully very soon.

Next up race wise.... I'm not sure. Possibly Limberlost, but I'm not going to sign up just yet. I have a mile race next month and then ENDURrun in August.

It's been a while...

My last post was back in August... ENDURrun time... and I had an injured foot.
Since that time, my foot got better, training resumed, and racing happened. I was going to write a post about the time from then until now, but it turns out that's 10 weeks! So... I will break up this update post into two or three posts. Today's post will cover the weeks between ENDURrun and The County Marathon.

August 17 - 23
Total distance: 15 miles
The foot needed to get better and I needed to let it. This became very clear when I attempted to run on the Monday. I started running, it started hurting, I headed home. I ran one mile that day and I didn't run again until Friday. Those rest days were very good to my foot; I ran a pain free 7+ miles with Craig and Val on the Friday morning! Saturday and Sunday, I was camping with my family at Silver Lake Provincial Park so I kept the runs short (3.1 & 3.5 miles), but also did some paddling on both Silver Lake and Black Lake.

View from my SUP: Silver Lake

View from my SUP: Black Lake

August 24 - 30
Total distance: 61.3 miles
This week, I got back into training. I did a couple of workouts with Health and Performance, had some solid longer runs at decent paces, and was back to running every day. It felt great to be able to get back into training and not have pain.
M: 7.7 miles total including 3x (5 min half marathon effort, 5 min 10K effort, 3 min recovery) and some strides
T: 5.1 miles solo
W: Track Workout - 9.2 miles total including 2x (1 mile at half marathon pace, 400m recovery), 1 mile 10K pace, 400m recovery, 1 mile 5K pac
T: 7.7 miles with Craig
F: 4.2 miles solo
S: 10 miles with H+P
S: 17.3 miles with Lumi from Runners' Choice

August 31 - September 6
Total distance: 54.3 miles
I did one track workout (Yasso 800s) on the Thursday and it went quite well. On the Saturday, I had to drag myself through my 18 mile long run on a hot day. The rest of the week was relatively uneventful: just regular runs. I took one day off this week.

September 7 - 13
Total distance: 73.1 miles
Solid week with a midweek workout alternating marathon and half marathon pace and a Saturday long run of a little over 20 miles.

September 14 - 20
Total distance: 59.2 miles
M: 7.5 miles including 20 min half marathon effort, 4 min recovery, 6x 1 min on/off.
T: 8 miles
W: 6 miles including 10x 1 min on/off
T: 3.5 miles
F: 5 miles
S: 20.4 miles including 13.1 miles at slightly over marathon pace at Harvest Half
S: 8.6 miles

Finishing the Harvest Half - photo by Kailey Haddock

September 21 -27
Total distance: 46.4 miles
Taper time. Runs were a bit shorter, but included two H+P workouts a progression run on the weekend at the Laurier Loop 10k.

September 28 - October 4
Total distance: 49.9 miles
Marathon week! Shorter runs, a wee workout of 1 mile marathon pace into 1/2 mile (ish) half marathon pace, then 5x 1 min on/off, a day off on the Friday and a super short run on Saturday morning before hopping in my car and sitting in it for way longer than expected due to a highway closure... but I still arrived in Picton in time to grab my race number and to meet up with friends for lunch. I will go into this weekend in more detail in my post about The County Marathon, which I will write in the next few days.

So there you have it... somewhat of an update. Really, just a boring list of runs... but at least there were a couple of photos! 

I don’t know what happened.

Yesterday morning, I got up and ran 9km. The run felt good and it was great weather. I got home and stretched as usual. Stretching my left calf felt a little odd, but that’s it.

All day, my left ankle hurt and it felt like it needed to crack, but even if it did, it didn’t feel any better. I already had a massage appointment booked because my low back and right hip were acting up on Monday/Tuesday. By this point my back and hip were fine, but my ankle, not so much. RMT worked on my back, hip and ankle, but couldn’t get the ankle to give.

Today, it felt a bit better, but still not right. I wasn’t limping today, but it still felt odd. I attempted a bit of a run tonight, which turned more into a 10-15 minute fast-paced walk with some intermittent brief spurts of jogging and then a 15 minute easy run afterward.

I’m not sure what’s going on, but I certainly hope that it’s better very very soon. I took some muscle relaxants tonight and rubbed some pain-relief cream on my ankle and lower leg in the hopes that it fixes itself overnight. It’s 3 days to marathon day and I really hope I don’t need to walk most of it.

** update – I wrote this post last night, but blogger was down, so I couldn’t post it until today. The ankle is still hurting today. **

Back from Vacation

I’m now back in Ontario after a week long vacation in Orlando, Florida. I had great plans of running at least 5 days when we were there. I did 3. All in all, I guess that’s not too bad… we were on vacation after all and I really didn’t want to set alarms to get up at the crack of dawn to run. We were vacationing along with another couple, so we had plans to do things together during the day, which also makes it more difficult to get runs in.

Of my 3 runs, 2 out of 3 were pretty uneventful.

Run #1: I ran one evening through our vacation property, through the property across the street and then down the street for a bit of an out and back. It was a sweaty run, of course (it was Florida in late May after all), but other than that, nothing notable besides dodging a few lizards.

Run #2: I decided to head run around Sea World, Aquatica, and surrounding area. I ran out to the first main intersection, crossed the street by CVS, and proceeded to run up a few steps up to the sidewalk on the other side of the road. Me being the ever so coordinated person that I am, tripped up the top step and scraped up my knee. I squirted water on it from my camelback to clean up some of the blood and continued my run. I ran past Sea World and a loop around Aquatica when I noticed the angry looking clouds behind me. I felt a few drops and thought maybe I’d stay in front of the storm the whole way back. It went okay for a while, I was only a couple miles from the hotel, so I wasn’t too concerned. I got all the way back to the road the hotel was on before the rain started to pick up. I turned into the Marriott Cypress Harbour property and it started to pour. I headed toward our villa and the wind started to pick up. I stopped to stretch on the steps (covered) and watched the rain and wind around me. I was drenched, but I was mere minutes away from a nice shower and clean, dry clothes.

Run #3: Another uneventful run down nice long roads, a quick run through a Hilton vacation property and back to our hotel. Nothing to write home about, yet I appear to be writing about it here.

Now that I’m back, I had plans of a long run today, but that didn’t happen. I did some unpacking, went for a walk, enjoyed the nice hot weather (I couldn’t get enough of it in Florida, so I thought I’d enjoy it here as well) and I’ll get up for a bit of a run in the morning.

Good night, everyone!

Hi. My name is Vicki and I’m a klutz

Today, I headed out for a nice afternoon run. I felt good, the run was going well, I was half-way through my planned 10 km when somehow I managed to bash my hand against a stone wall on the edge of someone’s property. I then ended up flailing a bit and started to almost tumble forward, I sped my legs up to catch up with my top half, which was significantly in front of me as I was moving down a bit of a down slope. I managed to not take the giant tumble that I thought I was heading toward and righted myself. I stopped, looked at my hand and saw the blood starting to drip. I started to run again, but then turned around, realizing that I should probably get home to clean up my hand. I was just past a road that goes pretty much straight to my house, so I turned down the road and run the 2 km to home all the while dripping blood from my index finger to my middle finger.

Now it’s all cleaned up and I have a large Band-Aid on which is making typing interesting. My finger is a bit swollen as well, but just due to the scrape and bruising.

Man I’m a klutz. Hopefully, this will be my 2010 (knock on wood, but not too hard, ‘cause that hurts, too).

Today’s Run:
Distance: 7 km
Weather: 7 C, partly cloudy.

I’m back in the game!

Tonight I headed out for a “test run” so to speak. I was hoping to attempt the run that I was planning to do yesterday, but to do short loops close to home in case the ankle pain returned. I was especially worried going out because on my walk home from work today, I had a few moments of ankle pain (lasted a block or two).

I started out very slowly, walked to the end of my little road, turned the corner, started a slow jog where the pain started yesterday, kept it slow until I reached a corner, turned, and picked up the pace a bit more. It felt good. No pain. I made another turn and decided I would run 2.5 to 3 km down the street, then change directions in order to keep it close to home tonight. When I approached the 3 km mark, I didn’t want to change directions. I wanted to keep going, to run far out. Since the run felt good, I followed my gut. I kept running and did a large oblong course today.

The run continued to feel good. I felt good. I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t take any breaks. I kept going. The final 5 km stretch back toward home was against the wind, which had certainly picked up and gotten colder. By the time I got home, my legs were about ready to give out. My hands were almost numb with cold (I wore the thin gloves… oops). My legs were burning. I didn’t care. I felt good.

Tonight, I ran with a smile on my face.

Tonight’s Run:
Distance: 15 km
Weather: –4 C, feels like –9 C

Long run deferred

This afternoon I got ready to go out for a 9 mile (14.5 km) run, got dressed, filled up my water bottles and loaded them into my Fuel Belt, strapped on my Garmin 305, laced up shoes, started my iPod and headed out the door. I got to the end of my road, turned the corner, ran past one house and OUCH! I got a sudden, sharp pain the the front of my left ankle. I had to stop immediately, turn around, and limp back to the house. I got inside and it didn’t feel too bad, but I’m not going to chance it and run right now. I’m still hoping for an injury-free spring. I guess I’ll try again tomorrow.