What: Alternate Chili Run

When: December 8, 2012

Where: Wyandotte County Lake Park, Kansas City, KS

Distance: 10.3 miles

Time: 1:50:27

Click HERE to view photos!

The Alternate Chili Run is basically a preview run for RunTotoRun 50K in February. However, since this was its 10th anniversary, they gave away mugs and had the run timed. The course is one loop around the lake and incorporates bridle and singletrack trails along with about a 1/4-1/2 mile road section.

Pre-run:

I was originally registered to run the RunTotoRun 50K in February, but as luck would have it, I will be having shoulder surgery on December 11th and will be unable to run the race. I decided I would run the Alternate Chili Run as my last organized run until I am able to resume running in 8-12 weeks.

In the last few months that I've been dealing with the shoulder issues, I had not run longer than 3 miles on the trails. Since I was registered to run the Alternate Chili Run, I figured that I should run with the 5 mile group during the weekly Thursday night trail run. During that run, I had issues with my left foot, likely PF. This started at about the 2 mile point, but seemed to start to ease about the time we finished. Since this was only my 2nd run in a new pair of shoes, I figured my feet were just getting used to the shape of the shoes. When I got home after the run, I foam rolled the bottom of my foot and it felt like I had a bruise right in the middle, it also felt like a small knot.  I decided that since I was going to be taking an extended break, I might as well go ahead and run the Alternate Chili Run as planned.

Run Details:

I arrived to the run about 30 minutes before the start, got my mug & bib, and just started talking with friends. On of my cohorts from the Thursday night BAR (Beer Appreciation Run) crew decided that we were both going to take it easy and pretty much treat it as a long run. Unfortunately, we still ended up lining up too far back and it took us about 3/4 of a mile before we were able to get into a groove. My buddy took lead the first half of the run and I led the last half.

For the first couple of miles or so, my foot was feeling fine, but shortly after the section called the "triangle," it started acting up. It wasn't bad enough to force me to walk, so I kept pace. I kept hoping that the left foot would get stretched out during the run and the pain would go away. At about the 6.5-7 mile point, I was finally running without the foot pain.

Our plan for the run was to walk the steep hills and run everything else. As it turned out, we ended up running some of the steep hills and walked only the really steep ones. When I run these trails solo, I usually walk a lot of the hills that we ended running. We passed quite a few runners, but when we walked the road section (really steep hill), were passed by others. All in all, I would say that about 10 runners passed us on that hill, but we ended up passing about half of them before the end of the run.

With roughly 3-4 miles to go, our goal became to finish in under 2 hours. We ended up running the last 3 miles were some of our fastest, even though they included the steepest hills. I kept forgetting that the garmin always measured the course short because of all the twist and turns, especially in the "triangle" section. Because of this, I was surprised when we came up the last hill and were told that we only had about "3 blocks" left. I thought the person had lost their mind, but sure enough, when we crested the hill I could see the finish. Since I treated this as a long run, I resisted the urge to sprint to the finish and crossed the line in 1:50:27.

If I'm remembering correctly, this is the fastes that I have ever covered the course, and I ran it conservatively. I was happy that I decided to run the course and couldn't have asked for a better final long run before surgery. I had a good run with good friends, it made for a great start to the weekend!

Eric

Congratulations, great race, well run!

I hope your foot pain will disappear and not come back again. I had some foot issues lately, but they went away when I changed the shoes.

Good luck with your shoulder surgery!

Same question as sugnim: Why is it called Chili Run?

Nice looking trails. Congratulations on a great finish.

LB2 - Thanks!

nc tam - Thanks! Surgery went well, but they did find and repair a 60% torn biceps tendon as well as the 2 rotator cuff tendons.