It's been a long break here since my last post. Because of circumstances, I just haven't felt like writing. But I decided over the last day or so, that I needed to get back to it.
So what happened? Well there has been some good as well as the possible bad. First of all, I recovered pretty quickly from the Mohican 50 having a couple of good weeks of training according to Adam's plan. But after the first couple days of July, I was starting to get some abdomen pain, not just on my runs, but even lying in bed. At first I thought it was a good groin pull on the left side because when I would lay down I had trouble even lifting the left leg. But even when that started to get better, the abdomen pain continued and at times got even worse.
Now I had been due to see the doctor for my yearly visit and blood work, but put it off until I could change my insurance plan because the current one totally sucked. I had to go in a couple of times in January because of congestion in my chest and the insurance covered only about 10% of the cost. Plan changing would be in May and would take effect after July 1st. So on July 2nd I had made an appointment for July 18th.
July 14th and 15th was the Christmas In July 12 Hour. And the pain did not go away as the race was upon me. I had still been running every day despite the pain, but had cut out any fast running by July 9th. So I knew that as long as I stayed at a reasonable pace, I could at least see what I could do during the 12 hour. The race is held on a .97 mile loop on pavement which starts at 11:00 pm on Friday night. I would be running through the night which was the whole point of doing this race. Well, the pain was pretty bad through the first 4 hours and truth to tell, I was close to quitting. But a half hour later, I suddenly realized the pain had lessened. Fortunately, it continued to lessen the rest of the race until it was just barely there with a couple of hours to go. Those first 4 hours did take quite a bit out of me, but I was able to stay pretty steady the rest of the way. I ended up getting in 60 Loops which was 58.39 miles. It was good for 6th place overall and 1st Masters. What really made me happy though, was the reduction in my pain.
This continued for the next few days with only a little pain off and on. And my appointment was on that following Wednesday. I saw the doc for basically a physical, but discussed the pain and realized there were a couple bumps just below my waist and above the groin area; one on each side. He didn't think it was a big deal, especially since it went away during a very long run, but decided we should make sure. An ultrasound was set up for that afternoon. Next day, the results were in: a double hernia with the left side worse than the right. Within a couple days I had a referral for seeing a surgeon. Here is the kicker though. It could be a problem if I was going to get through the Tahoe 200, which I did not want to give up. So I called to make an appointment with the surgeon. Turns out he was going on an overseas vacation and the earliest I could get the appointment was August 24th (over a month later and only 9 days before leaving for Tahoe). I was not happy at all, but was able to at least talk to his nurse and she said that as long as I was not having real pain, I would probably fine for awhile. She said a lot of people put off this kind of surgery for quite awhile. Of course, I did not tell her about the Tahoe 200 and the training for it.
It has now been a couple weeks since all this went down and actually have had some good training runs. But Adam and I have agreed to take out all the intensity out of the rest of the training plan. 1st weekend was a cluster run weekend where I covered around 50 miles in three days. And just this last weekend I did a 5 hour run with 4000+ feet of elevation gain covering 29 miles. So far so good.
The last two days have been spent in Memphis, Tennessee, with another three days vacationing here. It will be a light week with some new area runs. Howl at the Moon 8 Hour is a week from Saturday which will be my last real test before Tahoe (only 5 weeks from today).
Week of 6/11/17
Time: 16.9 hrs
Distance: 82.2 miles
Longest Run: 50 miles
Hills: 177
Week of 6/18/17
Time: 10.3 hrs
Distance: 46.9 miles
Longest Run: 12.6 miles
Hills: 59
Week of 6/25/17
Time: 11. 0 hrs
Distance: 65.7 miles
Longest Run: 18.3miles
Hills: 65
Week of 7/2/17
Time: 12.6 hrs
Distance: 73 miles
Longest Run: 22 miles
Hills: 83
Week of 7/9/17
Time: 19.2 hrs
Distance: 100 miles
Longest Run: 52.4 miles
Hills: 101
Week of 7/16/17
Time: 13.6 hrs
Distance: 73.7 miles
Longest Run: 27.8 miles
Hills: 56
Week of 7/23/17
Time: 17.2 hrs
Distance: 95.8miles
Longest Run: 29.1miles
Hills: 101
