A quick look at my 2013 miles year to date revealed that 43% of the miles that I run have been in races. For the first time since I've been running I have a case of runner's knee. What first seemed like a miniscus issue now seems like a patellar tendon/miniscus combo. Six weeks rest hopefully will do the trick!
The six week rest period should have begun around four weeks ago. However, I booked reservations and signed up for races in North and South Dakota last fall. Pretty much unable to cancel, I decided to go ahead and run the two half marathons injured with hardly any training. First up was Brookings, South Dakota on May 11th. Brookings is a local marathon/half marathon event that had a race cap of 1,000 runners. A marathon relay was part of the 1,000 total participant cap as well.
In order to run the race on the 11th, I flew to Fargo, ND on the 10th. I had a connecting flight from New Orleans through O'Hare to Fargo. I had a 3-4 hour layover that grew to 5-6 hours due to flight delays. As Brookings offered a day of packet pickup option, I was not overly concerned with the delay. Flight eventually happened and rental car was picked up; the drive to Brookings was a straight shot south on I-29.
I was able to pick up my packet before eating and checking into the hotel. One less thing to worry about on race day. Race day temperature started out at 34 and windy giving a feel like temp of 28. It was a knit hat and gloves kind of day. I hung out in the car until around 15 minutes before race day and then headed over to the start line. My pace was consistent for this race as my goal was to finish the race in one piece and be able to walk the rest of the week. I ran every mile between a 9:30 and 10:30 pace. The race was primarily run on the South Dakota State University campus. I learned while running that SDSU's mascot is the jackrabbits/jacks for short. Running on campus for 13.1 miles required quite a few turns. As speed was not a concern for me the turns were not an issue.
With a 2:12 finish, I grabbed some post race refreshments and headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and meet the 11:00 checkout time. I then headed west to spend time being in tourist in the Black Hills National Park in South Dakota for the next 5 days. On the way, I visited the Corn Palace in Mitchell and Wall Drug in Wall. Durning the next couple of days I visited Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Jewel Cave, and the Badlands National Park before heading north for ND. On the way out to ND, I made a detour west to Devils Tower national monument in Wyoming to get in another tourist attraction.
After heading north to ND, I stayed in Dickinson a couple of nights. I toured the North and South Units of Theodore Roosevelt NP while in the area. The park is incredibly scenic with lots of hiking trails. While hiking i discovered that ND is loaded with ticks. I didn't discover the tick situation until the last hike of the day. By that time, ticks were already in the rental car and on me. Fortunately, none attached to me. I was still finding some in the car 2 days later. Hopefully that was the last of them and no future renters encountered any issues.
Friday I made my way back to Fargo to get my race packet at the expo. The temperature was no longer the cool 30s I experienced in SD. Race morning temps started at 60 and humid warming as the sun emerged from earlier overcast/rainy conditions. Once again, with practically no race training, I was amazed that I ran a 2:15 half marathon. Fargo was tougher for me as my left calf cramped up on me less than 2 miles into the race. It finally started to loosen up around mile 10 but by then I was just trying to hang on to finish. Evidently this was the warmest weather of the year to date in Fargo. I saw 3 half runners down and heard lots of sirens.
Fargo had 7k half participants and the finish area was one big bottleneck. After grabbing a bottle of water and my medal, I followed a couple of other runners that went up stairs to an emergency exit to escape the crowds. I had another hotel checkout to complete and an early afternoon flight home.
Two days removed from completing state number 49, I registered this morning for my 50th state....Rhode Island in Pawtucket on May 4th, 2014. Yep, I will be running my 50th state on my 50th birthday. How cool is that!!!!
