colleen stinchcombe

Hi!

I wanted to update this quickly (because I have another story I’d like to post) to say that, unfortunately, the aches and pains I felt on the last run persisted even after rest, and I had to cancel my 50k plan. In another summer that might have really bummed me out, but this summer I went to Maui and being on vacation in a new place helped take the sting out of the failure.

I’m several weeks out now and haven’t attempted much running since, though I think I’ll start back up in the coming weeks. I saw a doctor a couple of weeks ago who said it didn’t appear anything was torn or otherwise significantly damaged—instead it was likely a combination of muscle weaknesses yanking on my knee and IT band. I’ve been doing yoga and pilates to try to strengthen my hips, glutes, and quads enough to hike, which seems to have worked.

This year, the 50k did turn out to be, unfortunately, unlikely. But there’s always next year or the one after that. This year I learned what it felt like to hike/run 22 miles with thousands of feet of elevation gain. I ran/hiked a 48 mile week, the farthest I’d run in a week by far. I failed, but I still accomplished a lot. That’s the whole point of trying.

So the 50k adventure is over for now. Thanks for following along. There are more adventures to come.