It's only been two weeks since the Old Pueblo 50 mile mud run, but I was feeling pretty good. I had come away from OP50 with no injuries or pains worth noting, but only four days after, on a slow recovery run, my right foot behind my 5th metatarsal started screaming at me. I did the standard RICE procedure, included my 3-6-3 NSAID regimen, and the pain seemed to be completely under control. This morning was no different, but there was some stiffness in that spot when I woke up.
The run started off great, and I settled into an easy pace with Jon Roig. The miles always pass quickly with Jon around – he's great at keeping a good conversation going. The trail hadn't been undersold as it undulated and wound through some spectacular desert scenery. The constant ups and downs did make it a little more difficult to settle into a constant pace, but I wasn't pushing it, and I focused on cadence and effort more than pace alone.
After several miles, Jon decided to take it a little easier and I ended up catching up to Grandpa Jim (and re-catching Lauren and Larry(?)) at Cathedral Rock. We all briefly stopped there to consult our maps. After my experience at OP50, I had decided to carry both the maps and the written instructions in my pack (there is no flagging at Old Man 50k). I pulled out my map and Jim and I both concluded that we needed to continue on past Cathedral Rock and continue making rights on the trail which would eventually take us to the Brown's Ranch Trailhead (Aid station).
Jim and I ran together for a few more miles, consulting the map as we went and negotiating some confusing turns, but we figured we were going the right way. When we suddenly saw Nick Coury running toward us, I just assumed he was on loop 2 and we were just crossing paths. He said he was on loop 1 and that we were going the wrong way. He didn't stick around long, but Jim and I figured that even though our mileage was close, we would continue down the trail the way we were going until we found the next marker. That was in about 50 yards. Nick was right. Somehow, we had missed a right turn and were going to be crossing everyone else's paths if we continued on. We turned around and with the extra out and back, only missed out on 0.2 miles for the loop.
By this point, my foot had become sore to the point that I was favoring it when running flat or downhill, but uphill wasn't a problem. The remainder of the loop continued with the undulating trail all the way to Brown's Ranch Trailhead. By that point, limping was unavoidable. It hurt just to walk. I hung out at the aid station until a few more runners came in, and I soon found some partners to head back to the start along the power line trail. The 5.5 miles of the power line trail was all up or down – nothing flat. I did my best to keep running, but my foot complained the whole way back.
"Are you hurt, or are you injured?" This line (I think it was from the movie 'Rudy') goes through my head any time I deal with pain out on the trail. There is certainly a fine line sometimes between distinguishing the hurt from the injury. I think anyone who has been running long enough knows how frustrating it is to end a run or a race early due to perceived injury only to find out that it's just a hurt. Of course, the saying goes that discretion is the better part of valor, or better safe than sorry, and all that. It doesn't make it any easier to miss out on running in the beautiful Sonoran desert with friends, but it does make it easier to get out again on the trails if you aren't nursing an injury that could have been just a hurt.
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