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  • Writer's pictureJeff Rowthorn

Roll With the Punches

It turns out that my minor injury from the Limberlost Challenge 56k, was a little more serious than I initially thought. There is never a good time for an injury but I am thankful that this happened when it did. I haven't had a race-free weekend in a really long time and my injured calf (my first real injury of the year) happened when I didn't have a race scheduled for the following weekend. The worst part was that the last 2 weeks were supposed to me my heaviest volume training weeks of my plan (140-160k/week) leading up to the Canadian Death Race, which is quickly approaching. What can I say? When these things happen, you need to adjust your plans. Although I continued to run a little bit every day, my training has been pretty poor for 2 weeks with less than 100km total.


I realize that I have been pushing my luck this year. I've run 30 races, which I know is way too many. However, my drive to run and race has never been stronger- or, at least, it was. Every weekend I was excited to lace up and race and my weekly training was consistent. That has certainly changed. It feels as though all my progress has gone out the window. My running has been painful and horribly slow. I've been taking it easy and not putting too much pressure on myself. I'm trying to be patient and let my body heal but, damn, it's getting annoying.


Last week, I was running in Fenelon Falls on a country road and, as I was finishing my run, I was pleased because it felt a little better. Just as I was slowing down to end my run, a dog came out of nowhere and startled me. I fell off the edge of the road, rolled my ankle, and re-strained my calf. Back to square one.


The good news is that today, for the first time in over two weeks, I am able to walk without an irritating pain stinging in my calf with literally every step I take. It's strange, yesterday I did my first race since initially hurting it. It was sore but manageable during the race. I woke up this morning expecting my first steps to be the most painful, as they usually are and... nothing. My back and shoulder hurt from a fall I took during the race. My opposite heel throbbed from a heel bursitis that I am struggling with, but my calf felt fine.


On Sunday, I did the 6 hr Albion Grind put on by 5 Peaks. It was at Albion Hills Conservation Area and it takes place on a hilly course. Last year, the top 5 runners, including myself, all ran 7 laps of the nearly 7k loop for a total of 48km. This year, my initial plan was to try to run 8 laps of the course. Obviously, due to my injury and lack of training, my goal changed. I actually didn't care how far I got, I just wanted to see if I was able to run for a long time without too much pain. Although it seemed doomed from the start, I ended up having a really fun day. Here is how it went down:


Saturday night (before the race): At the last minute, Heather and I decided to head over to our friend's Stag and Doe. Heather drove, I enjoyed some beverages. We got home at 12:30am and packed up a couple of things for the following day. I set my alarm (which I should have done before having any drinks) for 5:45am. I figured that we needed to to leave by 6:30am to get there by 7:45am for an 8:00am start. Except that the race started at 7:30am! Oops.


Sunday morning: We got up with the alarm, slowly got ready and left by 6:15am- ahead of schedule! As soon as I got in the car, I remembered that the race started at 7:30am. We needed breakfast (which we didn't end up getting), we needed gas, and the drive was 1hr 15minutes. We were going to be late. The only gas station on our route was closed and we ended up starting the race almost 30 minutes late.


It rained for almost the entire race- at times, the rain was very heavy. Heather and I had decided that we would treat it as a true training run and would stick together. We ended up having a great time. We ran slow but consistent and the time flew by. With our own race coming up this weekend, we had a lot of details to discuss. Heather had just returned from a week in North Carolina where she was running in the mountains and I was happy to spend the day with her.




My calf started hurting right away but it wasn't as bad as it was the day before and it didn't seem to get worse as the day went on. With less than 2km left, after carefully manoeuvring through mud all day, I tripped. Miraculously, I stayed upright but just barely. It would have hurt less if I just fell but instead, I hurt my back, shoulder, and stomach forcing my body to remain upright. After 5 hours, we finished the day with only 35k but were both happy. There was still 30 minutes left on the clock but that wasn't enough time to get a loop in and only full loops count. The volunteers who braved the poor weather were great and, as usual, the 5 Peaks race swag was super cool!


Next up is Tally in the Valley 7k on Saturday. Honestly, I'm probably not going to run it. Not because I'm injured but because, as the Race Director, I will most likely be pulled in another direction. After that, is the Canadian Death Race 125k in Grande Cache, Alberta. Although this was my goal race for this training cycle, there has been a change of plans. Heather is also running it and is very nervous about bears (which there have been a lot of reports about in the area lately). I've decided to run the race with Heather. Afterwards, I'm going to dial back my training until mid-September, when I plan to put in a hard training cycle for the Brazos Bend 100 miler in early December. My goal is to try to run sub 20 hours.


Thanks for taking the time to read. I know I've been quiet lately- it's not because of my injury it's because I have been absolutely swamped with Happy Trails Racing stuff. We are working on a couple of super exciting new races, we currently have our Wednesday Night Crews and Brews free runs happening, and our next race is only a few days away. I'm so stoked to say that we have already raised $5,000 for the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)!

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