Rocky Raccoon 100 - after.
I've intended to write this post for a while, but I just haven't made the time or had the motivation to do so until now. I know I'll wonder in the future, though, about post-Rocky, and I've had people ask how it's gone. Easier to just point them at this point. Hi, anyone I've pointed here!
I actually felt pretty okay once I crossed the finish line. People started breaking down the tent and the supplies and packing up cars, and I just stood around talking to my crew and pacers and friends and being generally useless. I figured that was an acceptable time to be useless. We took my shoes off, and I finally got to check out the state of my feet. They were pretty gross, but also so much better than they could have been. I had blisters under ever toe tip, which is what had been causing me so much pain while running, and also blisters under maybe 4-6 of me toenails. Impossible to tell at that point. But miraculously, not a single blister had popped during the run.
My feet felt much better after I put my Oofos on, and then I stood around chatting more. I had considered, before we left home, packing up a recovery drink for after. But I had nothing to really recover for at this point. I figured if I needed post-race food, there would be something at the race I could eat. After so many months and miles of meticulous planning, I was ready to just wing it once I crossed the finish line. And I wasn't feeling the urge to eat anything at that point, so I didn't.
After standing around for a while, I started to feel a little wobbly and surreal, so I asked Robyn if I could put my gross body in her folding chair (all of ours were already packed up), and she let me because she's a good friend. After sitting for 5 minutes, I felt normal again, and got back up to go cheer in the final finishers, high-five the other runners who were still around, and then cheer in the people who finished not quite under the time cut-off, including the amazing 14 year old everyone spent all day cheering for and encouraging.
Once everything was packed up, we headed back to the car, and back to the hotel. I still wasn't hungry or craving anything, so I let Matt choose our post-race meal, and he chose some fast and easy McDonald's. We drove through and took our food back to the hotel, where I immediately jumped in the shower. It felt SO GOOD to be clean, and I really didn't have much chafing to speak of.
After the shower, I ate a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, maybe three french fries, and a couple sips of Diet Coke. It was neither appealing nor unappealing, and that was all I felt like putting in my body. Matt laid down at that point and took a nap (it was maybe 5pm at this point?), and I tried to do the same. And failed. My body was completely jumpy. All of my muscles kept firing randomly, and I couldn't get comfortable. After a while I remembered that I should elevate my legs, so I shoved some pillows under my feet for a while, but that wasn't very comfortable, so I just tried to toss and turn until finally I gave up. I tried not to glare at the sleeping Matt. He had been awake just as long as I had at that point, and I needed him to be rested so we could actually go home the next day.
Eventually Matt woke up, and we went out to get Chipotle for dinner. That's usually my go-to when I want something I like and know I can tolerate, but even though I was able to eat more than I had from McDonald's, I still just wasn't really hungry or inspired to eat. I ate part of a bowl and called it good.
At that point, the SuperBowl was probably on, but that's not something that interests me on the best of days, so instead I took an ambien, and finally, blissfully, fell asleep.
The next day my legs felt much better than I would have figured. I was a little scared of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), but it really wasn't terrible. Which is good, because our hotel room was on the second floor. We hobbled to breakfast, and then into the car for the drive home. I was also a little scared of what 3.5 hours in the car would do to my legs, but they really weren't even all that uncomfortable in the car, and our car normally kills my hamstrings, post-run. We probably should have stopped periodically to stretch our legs, but we both just wanted to be home, so we drove straight through, no stops. Behold, the power of dehydration.
I had taken Monday and Tuesday off work, and mostly we did a whole lot of nothing for those days. Tried to put away all the race stuff, and do laundry, and apologize to the dogs for being gone for a few days.
I had no idea what my body would be like after running 100 miles, and I was actually surprised that my legs weren't bad at all. I would say it was comparable to post-marathon soreness. The first day I was back at work, Wednesday, I still had trouble walking down stairs normally, and had to use my hands to lower and lift myself off the toilet. By Thursday, though, the soreness was fading, and my legs felt fairly normal. Again, very similar to what I experience after a marathon.
My feet, on the other hand, were a disaster. First there was the blisters, which made walking very painful. Once I got home, I pushed a (clean) needle under 4 of my toenails to drain the blisters there. That helped SO much. I also tried to drain some of the blisters under my toes, but most of those weren't as cooperative. Some had become almost a hardened callous+blister, and were incredibly painful. I had to wear socks to sleep each night, so that my feet didn't touch the sheets directly. Too uncomfortable otherwise.
The first night I was back home, my feet ached a little bit, apart from the blisters. The second night, though, I fell asleep, and then suddenly woke up a few hours later because my feet ached SO BADLY. The internals of my feet. My foot bones and tendons and whatnot. This was the kind of thing I had really expected to experience after stupidly running 100 miles, but when it didn't happen in the first few days, I thought maybe I'd magically get to avoid that kind of thing! Not so much. Matt very kindly rubbed BioFreeze on my feet and gave me ibuprofen and pat me on the head and told me I wasn't dying. And eventually I got back to sleep.
I basically lived on ibuprofen for a few days. My body was a big inflammatory disaster.
But then pains started to fade, and things started to feel more normal. That was maybe Friday. Once my blisters and foot internals started to feel better, though, I realized I had some slightly alarming discomfort in my right foot. 5th metatarsal area. You know, one of those places it's very common to get a stress fracture. I was pretty nervous. I realized the first two hot showers I took, that exact site was super heat sensitive, which can be a sign of problems. I spent that first weekend assuming that on Monday, I was probably going to try to find someone to check out my foot and tell me if I should be worried. But then.. it faded. And hasn't been a problem since. Yay!
I ended up taking a week completely off everything. I tried to convince myself that a swim might help me recover faster, but my heart just wasn't in it, and so I did nothing. One week after Rocky, I finally convinced myself to go do a short swim. And it did feel good. And it helped me feel slightly less like I was going to go into SwimRun Lake James completely underprepared, and Trista would have to drag me along in the swim.
I ended up swimming Saturday, Sunday, and then the next Wednesday, all short and easy.
Before Rocky, I'd had no idea how I would feel afterward. Mentally, physically, emotionally. I decided that if my body was just wrecked, I would take all the rest of February off running, and start running again in March if my body felt okay. The longest run segment at SRLJ is 7 miles, so really I only needed to work up to that, and a month was plenty of time to do that. I wasn't concerned about getting back into running.
I hadn't really anticipated how much I'd MISS running, though. I was sad not to be able to run. So after 10 days, when my feet felt normal again, and my legs had no residual soreness, I went out and tried to run. And it was fine! I was prepared to turn around immediately if it felt bad, or do 1 mile, or turn around after a mile and do 2. But I did my standard 3 mile loop, and it was fine. No pain, no soreness, no regrets.
So now, 3 weeks after Rocky, I have run 6 times, the longest being 6 miles. Taking it nice and slow and easy. And things have felt great. I've had slightly less success with my swimming motivation, but I'm trying not to pressure myself too much on that front. I've already warned Trista she'll have to wait for me, which she'll have no choice but to do, since we'll be tethered together. I just have to build a little swim endurance back up, but I have over a month to do that.
I officially declare myself mostly recovered, though I will continue to do everything slowly and easily and with a lot of recovery time.
How do I feel now about the possibility of doing another 100 miler? Still one and done? Unknown at this point. I still feel no urge to do Rocky again. I'm still not googling "100 milers". But I'm not saying I wouldn't maybe do a more scenic 100 miler that was just one loop, or an out and back...
For now, though, my race card is full for the rest of the year!
I actually felt pretty okay once I crossed the finish line. People started breaking down the tent and the supplies and packing up cars, and I just stood around talking to my crew and pacers and friends and being generally useless. I figured that was an acceptable time to be useless. We took my shoes off, and I finally got to check out the state of my feet. They were pretty gross, but also so much better than they could have been. I had blisters under ever toe tip, which is what had been causing me so much pain while running, and also blisters under maybe 4-6 of me toenails. Impossible to tell at that point. But miraculously, not a single blister had popped during the run.
My feet felt much better after I put my Oofos on, and then I stood around chatting more. I had considered, before we left home, packing up a recovery drink for after. But I had nothing to really recover for at this point. I figured if I needed post-race food, there would be something at the race I could eat. After so many months and miles of meticulous planning, I was ready to just wing it once I crossed the finish line. And I wasn't feeling the urge to eat anything at that point, so I didn't.
After standing around for a while, I started to feel a little wobbly and surreal, so I asked Robyn if I could put my gross body in her folding chair (all of ours were already packed up), and she let me because she's a good friend. After sitting for 5 minutes, I felt normal again, and got back up to go cheer in the final finishers, high-five the other runners who were still around, and then cheer in the people who finished not quite under the time cut-off, including the amazing 14 year old everyone spent all day cheering for and encouraging.
Once everything was packed up, we headed back to the car, and back to the hotel. I still wasn't hungry or craving anything, so I let Matt choose our post-race meal, and he chose some fast and easy McDonald's. We drove through and took our food back to the hotel, where I immediately jumped in the shower. It felt SO GOOD to be clean, and I really didn't have much chafing to speak of.
After the shower, I ate a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, maybe three french fries, and a couple sips of Diet Coke. It was neither appealing nor unappealing, and that was all I felt like putting in my body. Matt laid down at that point and took a nap (it was maybe 5pm at this point?), and I tried to do the same. And failed. My body was completely jumpy. All of my muscles kept firing randomly, and I couldn't get comfortable. After a while I remembered that I should elevate my legs, so I shoved some pillows under my feet for a while, but that wasn't very comfortable, so I just tried to toss and turn until finally I gave up. I tried not to glare at the sleeping Matt. He had been awake just as long as I had at that point, and I needed him to be rested so we could actually go home the next day.
Eventually Matt woke up, and we went out to get Chipotle for dinner. That's usually my go-to when I want something I like and know I can tolerate, but even though I was able to eat more than I had from McDonald's, I still just wasn't really hungry or inspired to eat. I ate part of a bowl and called it good.
At that point, the SuperBowl was probably on, but that's not something that interests me on the best of days, so instead I took an ambien, and finally, blissfully, fell asleep.
The next day my legs felt much better than I would have figured. I was a little scared of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), but it really wasn't terrible. Which is good, because our hotel room was on the second floor. We hobbled to breakfast, and then into the car for the drive home. I was also a little scared of what 3.5 hours in the car would do to my legs, but they really weren't even all that uncomfortable in the car, and our car normally kills my hamstrings, post-run. We probably should have stopped periodically to stretch our legs, but we both just wanted to be home, so we drove straight through, no stops. Behold, the power of dehydration.
I had taken Monday and Tuesday off work, and mostly we did a whole lot of nothing for those days. Tried to put away all the race stuff, and do laundry, and apologize to the dogs for being gone for a few days.
I had no idea what my body would be like after running 100 miles, and I was actually surprised that my legs weren't bad at all. I would say it was comparable to post-marathon soreness. The first day I was back at work, Wednesday, I still had trouble walking down stairs normally, and had to use my hands to lower and lift myself off the toilet. By Thursday, though, the soreness was fading, and my legs felt fairly normal. Again, very similar to what I experience after a marathon.
My feet, on the other hand, were a disaster. First there was the blisters, which made walking very painful. Once I got home, I pushed a (clean) needle under 4 of my toenails to drain the blisters there. That helped SO much. I also tried to drain some of the blisters under my toes, but most of those weren't as cooperative. Some had become almost a hardened callous+blister, and were incredibly painful. I had to wear socks to sleep each night, so that my feet didn't touch the sheets directly. Too uncomfortable otherwise.
The first night I was back home, my feet ached a little bit, apart from the blisters. The second night, though, I fell asleep, and then suddenly woke up a few hours later because my feet ached SO BADLY. The internals of my feet. My foot bones and tendons and whatnot. This was the kind of thing I had really expected to experience after stupidly running 100 miles, but when it didn't happen in the first few days, I thought maybe I'd magically get to avoid that kind of thing! Not so much. Matt very kindly rubbed BioFreeze on my feet and gave me ibuprofen and pat me on the head and told me I wasn't dying. And eventually I got back to sleep.
I basically lived on ibuprofen for a few days. My body was a big inflammatory disaster.
But then pains started to fade, and things started to feel more normal. That was maybe Friday. Once my blisters and foot internals started to feel better, though, I realized I had some slightly alarming discomfort in my right foot. 5th metatarsal area. You know, one of those places it's very common to get a stress fracture. I was pretty nervous. I realized the first two hot showers I took, that exact site was super heat sensitive, which can be a sign of problems. I spent that first weekend assuming that on Monday, I was probably going to try to find someone to check out my foot and tell me if I should be worried. But then.. it faded. And hasn't been a problem since. Yay!
I ended up taking a week completely off everything. I tried to convince myself that a swim might help me recover faster, but my heart just wasn't in it, and so I did nothing. One week after Rocky, I finally convinced myself to go do a short swim. And it did feel good. And it helped me feel slightly less like I was going to go into SwimRun Lake James completely underprepared, and Trista would have to drag me along in the swim.
I ended up swimming Saturday, Sunday, and then the next Wednesday, all short and easy.
Before Rocky, I'd had no idea how I would feel afterward. Mentally, physically, emotionally. I decided that if my body was just wrecked, I would take all the rest of February off running, and start running again in March if my body felt okay. The longest run segment at SRLJ is 7 miles, so really I only needed to work up to that, and a month was plenty of time to do that. I wasn't concerned about getting back into running.
I hadn't really anticipated how much I'd MISS running, though. I was sad not to be able to run. So after 10 days, when my feet felt normal again, and my legs had no residual soreness, I went out and tried to run. And it was fine! I was prepared to turn around immediately if it felt bad, or do 1 mile, or turn around after a mile and do 2. But I did my standard 3 mile loop, and it was fine. No pain, no soreness, no regrets.
So now, 3 weeks after Rocky, I have run 6 times, the longest being 6 miles. Taking it nice and slow and easy. And things have felt great. I've had slightly less success with my swimming motivation, but I'm trying not to pressure myself too much on that front. I've already warned Trista she'll have to wait for me, which she'll have no choice but to do, since we'll be tethered together. I just have to build a little swim endurance back up, but I have over a month to do that.
I officially declare myself mostly recovered, though I will continue to do everything slowly and easily and with a lot of recovery time.
How do I feel now about the possibility of doing another 100 miler? Still one and done? Unknown at this point. I still feel no urge to do Rocky again. I'm still not googling "100 milers". But I'm not saying I wouldn't maybe do a more scenic 100 miler that was just one loop, or an out and back...
For now, though, my race card is full for the rest of the year!