Chippewa?

When my wife and I went for a run today a couple of things came up. We planned on running 7 miles together along the Big Rivers Regional trail taking off from Lilydale and then I was debating running another 8 or 9. That way I could continue to add miles for Chippewa, which is now less than 8 weeks away.

When we got to Lilydale, I mentioned I didn't really have a plan for fueling if I did add the extra miles, my wife then said "there you go sabotaging yourself again". I don't think that I sabotage myself, yes it's true that sometimes I don't have a plan, I have been known to run when injured or in worn out shoes, I often don't take rest days and then sometimes I miss running for 3 or 4 days and then head out on a long run, I don't stretch, at least very often, I don't always watch what I eat, I sometimes zone out on pace and I kind of do things a bit ad hoc but I never thought of this as sabotaging myself. I may have to give that a bit of thought.

With all of the snow we have had, it's basically been a lousy winter for running, worse than usual, we are always running in snow. In past years, the bike paths have usually been ok as many of them are plowed but not this year, yes, they have plowed them but there is usually still snow and ice, suffice to say I am getting a bit tired of it. I ran yesterday in Lebanon Hills, the footing was tolerable but not good, thankfully the snowshoer's had done a decent job of flattening things out. It still made for a lot of funny steps which seemed to cause some painful tweaks. So today when we ran the Lilydale trail, I was a bit dismayed to see a long section of trail that was completely ice covered. It almost appeared as if a water main had broken or a firetruck had dumped water on the trail. Up to that point, I had felt fine and the trail was ok, it had had a thin layer of snow, after that point, I really had a hard time finding my rhythm, although the trail did clear up again. Shortly after we crossed over 13, right near Lucky's, I noticed that my hamstring had tightened up. I tried to ignore it and figured it would go away sometimes that works, instead it kind of got worse, it actually just felt like someone had torqued my leg. I hate that feeling. As we continued up to Pilot Knob, I came to the realization that I would not be going longer today and I had some thoughts of whether I would make it back to Lilydale. I love those cascade failure events, tight left painful hamstring, then right achilles pain, then left knee pain, then lower back pain, then repeat the cascade, so I walked, I stretched, I hobbled, not fun but I am sure I will be ok tomorrow. I blame the run the day before, my shoes, the snow, the ice, the wind, Winter!!!!!!

Which leads me to Chippewa, I got to thinking again that I really don't want to do it if there is still snow on the ground, trudging my way through a 50k in snow, well, I think I can say this, been there, done that, don't want to do it again. Of course it would be my third year in a row and it would keep my Chippewa streak going, so I am not sure what to do other than hope for an early spring. A bit of mud, that would be ok, some rain, that works for me, snow, no. I know Wayne would say, skip it and join him at McNaughton, odds are they won't have snow in central Illinois, right?. So I think, I will think about it a bit more and hold off sending in that entry for a few more weeks. Oh what am I thinking, it's my streak, I have got to do it even in the snow. Then again, maybe I don't.