Cactus Rose DNF

This is the post I have not wanted to write and have put off writing until now.  How does one say "I failed...again"?

I did.  I DNF'd the Cactus Rose once again, and for now, I have to be okay with that.  This DNF makes for my 6th DNF.  Not a number I am proud of.  Not a number I want to share.  But it is what it is.

Saturday morning came early, 3:30 AM, and getting to the start line was non-problematic.  At 5:00 AM the GO was given and into the dark and hilly adventure we ran.

The temps were perfect.  44 at the start, high of about 65 for the day.  I ran a nice pace, comfortable for the long haul, and visited with many faces I have seen at other races.  At one point, I took a small fall on a straight and clear dirt path, quickly got up and kept on going, somewhat embarrassed that I tripped over nothing.

Just past mile 15, I had a nice tumble down one of the hills after slipping on some of the rolling rock.  I took a quick assessment of myself and did not note any injuries.  So I kept on.  I felt pretty good, the hills were becoming more steep and as expected at Cactus Rose, more treacherous.  The pace began to slow as I navigated the rolling declines and straight up inclines.  As I reached the summit of one of the hills, I noticed I had a significant amount of back pain and as I continued down the hill, my legs seemed to have pain radiating down the hamstrings and into the quads.  I took a few advil, but after several hours, I could no longer keep the pain under control.  Music didn't help.  Walking didn't help.  Sitting down and resting didn't help.  I felt dizzy and the pain was causing me to feel very nauseous.  I tried to throw up a few times, but I couldn't get anything to come up.

As I approached mile 30, I knew I was looking at the prospect of a 16 or 17 hour 50 miler.  I thought that I could live with that.  I continued to tell myself all of the reasons I needed to keep going and that I was through the worst of the climbing, so coming into Equestrian, mile 35.5, I decided to sit for a bit, get my head together, and then continue on.  I made it over to my drop bag and attempted to bend over open it.  I could barely move.  Sharp pain shot through my legs and brought me to tears.  I looked at my pace for the past 2 miles.  I was averaging 27:00/miles.  At that pace, or probably slower, the last 14 miles would take me about 6 1/2 hours to finish.  Common sense told me that continuing would be a very unwise choice.  I sat for a bit and had a chat with myself.  Could I be happy walking away from this race yet again?  Would I regret it?  Would I wake up the next day and wish I had suffered through the last 14 miles?  I decided I would be happy with what I had and though I was disappointed to not have a medal or a finish, I knew that I had given all that I could into my training and into this race and it was time to call it.  I could live with that.

As you can imagine, Sunday morning came and everything looked different.  It's always easy to second-guess ourselves after the fact.  The reality is, I could not safely continue that race.  My mind and heart wanted to, but it would have been irresponsible to do so.  Regardless, I wish I had.

I have battled many emotions this week.  Aside from the physical recovery, which coupled with the illness I had going into the race, has been more difficult than I expected.  My back seems fine, but my legs took a beating.  Today is the first day that I felt almost myself.  My legs are still sore, but I can navigate stairs again and don't mind walking to the mailbox.

Hearing the typical "you went much further than I ever could"  from others doesn't seem to make it any easier.  Probably because I trained so hard, so long, and it wasn't enough.  I know of others who say they didn't train as much as they should have, and seemed to have a great race.  While I know I had the unfortunate experience of falling, I still feel like with the training I put in, I should have been able to gut this one out.

Am I a true trail runner?  I can finish races at Huntsville, but elsewhere, my odds are not that good. 

I am taking some time off to heal.  Physically.  Mentally.  I need the break.  I am looking at what it is exactly I am trying to do out there anymore.  Do I want to put myself through this challenge again?  Do I want to race again?  Do I want to run just for the joy of it without a goal of a distance or time?

Running soothes my soul, racing is killing my love of running.  And each DNF steals a bit more of my confidence.  

I don't know where the journey will lead next.  I do know that my family has given up a lot of time with me for me to do this stuff and this stuff does not seem to be serving me well of late.  I will focus the next few weeks getting things back to normal around the home and learning to run for the love of the run once more.