In awe

What a weekend! In a bad way. I worked over this weekend so i’m kind of dead (a zombie) now. There’s no partying for me tonight. Certainly absolutely there was no party over the weekend. I’m boring. My mom wanted to kipnap me to celebrate my birthday, but I escaped. Oh there was the MCM, Marine Corps Marathon, but I deferred it, so no, I won’t say anything about that, except lucky runners had such a beautiful race. MCM probably will be my tradition birthday run some day. Yes, next year.

I also did my training run over weekend. It was the last run before the race. What race? The Stone Mill 50.

This race originally was not too special. I did my first 50 miler at end of 2019. My first attempt of Stone Mill was in 2020, during the pararoma. My grandma passed away while I was running it. Last year, I did not plan to sign up but I believed after attending one of the training runs, I got hooked and did a quick sign up before the race, ah I remember, the friday of, they didn’t even have my bib ready (or at least the volunteer couldn’t find it)! Last year on this day my mom was in the urgent care (Kaiser) after suffering a stroke (she has completely recovered now). So this race now has a bit of personal history, both sadness and celebration!

This year I am happened to recruit two of my friends to run this. It will be two weeks from now, so knock on wood nothing will happen to us. My friend David probably gave up (deferred) his NY Marathon entry to run this. I am touched. I truly believe he can do both (like on back to back weekends). This guy could finish a 50 mile under 10 (while I am trying to beat 12 hours). He seemed modest in his approach but if I were him, I run both.

The other guy Alex also super athletic. He said he won the age group award in a race. He probably could run it under 10 hours too.

I don’t really need to do a training run myself but I know if I don’t go to them, I am too lazy to train on my own.

So it is the end of the month and our company needs to close its book, which means a lot of work for all as we try to get everything done and recorded for this month.

I was stressed out. But on Saturday, I showed up bright and early at the trailhead with several other people. This week run was long but the number of people coming out was fewer than previous weeks since there were two 50K races happening this weekend in our area. Most of the guys (and gals) normally came out were in those races. I, in fact, contemplated running one of them (PB&J 50k and the Patapsco 50k).

The weather was beautiful. We went from around 35F to 65F during the day. I really wanted to be back out the next day to do it again.

I put in 20 miles plus 5 mile hiking around Cloper Lake (I renamed it as Seneca Lake). The run itself, I was not putting too much effort into it. I was kind of the last guy in the pack. Mostly because my mind was occupied by work.

I so happened to roll my ankle, because my mind was else where. First the left, then the right, and then the left again. Finally, while hiking, I really put too much force and I rolled it the third time on my left and boy was that painful.

First time, didn’t hurt. Second time, hurt a little. Third, it was ouchie ouchie limping pain. I walked it off. Now they are better, but still there is a bit of soreness.

Sunday, I did not go back out. It was a beautiful day. Here are some pictures.

We hope we will have such nice weather on race day. Enough with all the training runs. Happy Halloween!