Not much writing about running recently — all the way since Barkley Fall Classic last year! I didn’t even write my traditional yearly update for 2018, which only included three big runs — the Run Across Haiti (link to just day 8 of the 8 day, 200 mile run), Boston, and BFC.

The reason for that is there hasn’t been much running. 😦

After BFC, I felt like I was finally getting some motivation back, and started hammering on elevation in all my training. But shortly after that, I started having some sacrum discomfort, which really had me worried – sacral stress fracture is enough to send most runners into hiding. I won’t go into all the details here, as that would be several blog posts, but almost a year later and several doctors, MRI’s, etc. later, and I’ve not run a whole lot – roughly 150 miles this year, after a complete five month break from November – May.

(At least a short note on the injury. It’s been diagnosed as athletic pubalgia / sports hernia — basically a tear in the adductor and/or rectus abdominis that is not healing. I recall a slight adductor pull/hamstring strain while coaching middle school soccer last August which was likely the start of it all. Why the sacrum get’s sore, no one knows, but everyone thinks they are related!)

Now, I did shift to other training modalities — mountain biking, swimming, lifting, etc. So I haven’t been completely lazy. But here are a few graphs showing what I’ve done compared to prior years:

First up, run time, which is 180 hours less than last year this time:

Next up, run elevation, which shows me 77,000 feet behind normal:

But then if you look at all sports combined, it’s not quite as bad:

First, time across all sports, and I’m 89 hours short:

Elevation across all sports, and it’s down to 48k difference:

(Swimming and paddle boarding certainly hurt elevation stats! 😉 )

So, what’s the point of this post? I had already started to lose motivation for traditional ultra races last year before the injury, and that only increased as I was unable to run anyway. I’ve been more interested in some run “projects” (self supported LONG runs in cool places, maybe more on that later), or perhaps less traditional races — races like last year’s BFC or Big’s Backyard.

I had not gotten into either of those during the original sign-up/application process, but was waitlisted for both. With the lack of running, I had already decided Big’s wouldn’t be worth attempting (and, last I saw, I was 18th on the wait list for just 70 very coveted spots, several of which go to other last man standing events, and the rest to very qualified runners.)

But BFC is a different matter. Last year was rough — one of my toughest day’s in 20+ years of endurance sports. I want another crack at it. Of course, lack of training would make this year, if I got the call, even harder. But that’s not really the point — we do these things to test our selves, and part of that testing is suffering.

BFC traditionally has many wait listers get in — from the pool of 500+, it seems like 2-3 were getting called per day. With that, I had it in the back of my mind, that I would say yes immediately.

And last week, I got the call.

And last week, I accepted.

Bad decision? Only time will tell. But I wouldn’t have accepted if I didn’t think I had a shot at a 50k finish and a two-star Croix!

I’ll have another post in a day or two which compares my lead in to race date for last year to this, as well as an update on where I am with the injury.