Preventative care is a must!  Wish I could convince The Hub of that.  He's getting better, but . . .

I'm on the 5-year plan for The Procedure.  Thankfully, I have 4 yrs 'til it comes around again.

I'm pooped . . .

Today was Grasshopper Peak 30k.  This is my 3rd year to sweep. I have unhealthy hate/love relationship with this race.  And "hate" definitely should be the lead in that sentence.

This race is just plain hard. There's 4,268 feet of elevation gain in the 18.60 miles with most of that is in the first 10, which translates into a lot of walking - at least for me.  And some of the sections feel like they're straight up.  Then you have 2 miles of leg-busting downhill, followed 6 miles of undulating trail through the redwoods  And being as it's Southern Humboldt, it has been quite warm in years past, but this year it was probably 10+ degrees cooler than normal, which helped a lot.

When I got to the first aid station at Mile 4.5, a local lady runner, Lenore, who was working the AS decided to run with me to get some miles in.  Lenore is much faster than I am.  Two years ago she was in the women's lead when she collapsed a mile from the finish.  Ends up she had a mini stroke ().  She hasn't stopped running, but her family has told her she's not allowed to race this course anymore.   She qualified for and ran Boston this year.

Anyway, I'm usually completely alone as the sweep, so it was really nice to have company this year, and Lenore kept me moving.  If I hadn't had sweep duties, I might have actually been able to get under 5 hrs this year, but it wasn't meant to be.

We knew we were "on the heels" of the slowest runner for quite a bit of the run, and after the last AS at Mile 12, I caught up with her after about 10-15 min. (Lenore had gone off to climb up to the fire tower.  Being as it would have add almost 2 miles, I declined to join her.  I didn't want to keep the AS workers waiting for me any longer than they had to.)  Not only was this the first time Allison had run the course, but it was also the longest run she'd ever done.  By the time I caught her, she was moving, but she was struggling, so I got the privilege of helping her get to the finish.  We did a lot of walking and I just about talked her ear off to try and get her mind off how bad she was hurting.  Lenore caught up with us with about 3 miles left and shortly after Allison ran out of water, so we were letting her pull off our hydration packs.  At that point, you don't care if you're swapping spit with a complete stranger, you just want to see them finish.  And she did in about 5:15.  Her husband, who had finished the 30k in 3-something, met us about a mile from the finish and when we got to the finish, Lenore and I backed off so Allison and her hub could cross the finish line together.  I was so happy for her, I almost started crying.  I'm getting misty-eyed just thinking about it.

My marching orders for her were to get up and walk around a lot of this evening and be mindful about recovery eating . . . . I should have listened to myself.  My legs - my knees - are not happy campers.

I have 11 months to recovery and prepare for next year . . . 

Too late to add much, but I did read the thread. Good job, Leslie. Always nice to help someone reach their goal.

I ran 6.1 miles today in between shopping and finishing the garden. Ufda. I always say I'm going to cut it back, and now I have a full garden with 6 rows of potatoes... 5 different varieties. I told myself last year that I wouldn't do that again. Oh well. I'll enjoy the inevitable results.