Surf the Murph 50k (Not) Race Summary

Another interesting day running an ultra and an absolutely beautiful day to run Surf the Murph, I went into this one a bit tentative about how I would hold up on the 2nd loop and instead dropped after 1 loop. Long story short, torqued my left foot around mile 4 and couldn't really run or walk normally after mile 6.

It happened right after I had gotten through the No.6 hills, I had just thought to myself that I feel great and I was going to have no troubles getting through at least the first loop. Then either a misstep or a hole, not really sure, I just know I torqued it and felt pain but I thought it would go away but it did not. So am I disappointed, yes and no, I am actually frustrated more than anything else as it has now been two years without a marathon or an ultra finish. It's a lot more fun to finish these things then to drop injured.

That said, I think by stopping after one loop I hopefully avoided any significant damage although my wife thought that stopping at the horse lot aid station would have been my best choice. It was funny, I was debating with myself around mile 8 if the foot was going to cause me to drop as the pain wasn't really going away, at the time I didn't think so, as I kept thinking it would calm down and I would soon be running without pain but it just kept getting worse. I knew I was compensating for it as the right achilles was starting to hurt as well. Nothing like stereo pain to keep you in balance.

One thing that may have contributed is that I chose to wear my New Balance 110's, they don't have a lot of support or cushion but they do have a rock plate and based on all of my runs coming into Murph, I thought they were my best option. Based on what happened though I may have made the wrong choice, my MT10's might have allowed me to feel the thing that torqued the foot before it did or I could have worn my Inov-8's as they wouldn't have allowed that much torque, of course they might have caused my ankle to roll which might have still caused issues. One good thing is that my ankle is still doing good so the minimalist running seems to have taken care of that issue

Another good thing that occurred today is by dropping I was able to make it to Como Park to watch my daughter compete in the MIAC XC championship meet. She had a great day, getting a 2 minute PR at the 6k distance. She is a freshman at Concordia-Moorhead and appears to be doing great there.

I also was happy to see a few friends at Murph, Mike and Mark who were running the 50, Kel, Rick, Steve and Elly who were all running the 50k, Londell running the horse lot aid station (nice change this year) and my old running buddy Wayne who I got to chat with at Londell's station, maybe we will eventually run together again, I even ran into John K. and we caught up on his summer of running. The only thing I feel bad about was at the finish. I was not a happy camper and I walked around the mat and walked over to the table and just told them I was dropping as I was mad and in pain and they told me that I could still get a 25k wooden medal and I said no thanks, it's not what I came for. Hopefully it didn't come across as too surly.

My thanks to Cindy and Les, Molly and all the other volunteers. They made some minor course changes this year that I think are keepers although this year they just added some extra pain. Great job, I love Surf the Murph and maybe next year it will go better.

What next, based on the the pain I had at Como and just walking around afterward, I will take a day or two off and then just wait and see.