So the plan was to go over to the Marin Headlands and take a crack at the abundance of talent that was congealing in San Francisco for TNF endurance challenge 50 mile championship. Unfortunately my body had another idea…rest.

A few weeks back my wife and I went to the Oregon coast and I capped off a solid 140-mile week of training with some running on Yachats lusciously green trails. However it was pretty rainy, muddy and slippery. I believe all the slipping led to a decent tear in my calf leading to some muscle splinting that left a band of fiber running down my calf to the Achilles, making the effort of running very painful.  My plan was to give the leg a break and have an extended taper for the North face 50-mile championship. My leg had other ideas.

I feel like I did everything I could to help my calf recover. I had a couple of massages from others, plus my own work every other day, acupuncture sessions, chiropractic work, combined with a healthy diet and lots of icing, and a steady dose of arnica to keep the inflammation down. In addition I’ve been taking a product called Asea, which basically helps protect, repair and replace your cells. I believe all my effort to recover is working and I can now run 5-8 miles without much pain. I’m on the mend and will be scouring snowy slopes soon.

The thing is, all this does not help the fact that I trained my butt off for a race and now I have to sit on the sideline and watch. I feel like a little kid who just wants to go outside to play, but got in trouble and my parents won’t let me out to play.  I’ve had a fun, adventure filled year, but I wanted one more day in the woods. In other words my ego is being a cry baby and I just need to accept that the season is done and its time to curl up next to the fire, enjoy a little more free time and give my body a chance to heal up.  Plus I was excited to have the chance to crew for my wife’s first marathon, cheer her on and the rest of the Ashland gang and to take in the beauty of Marin Headlands with a backdrop of the ocean.

During my extended taper I have introduced a new way for my body to detoxify and get my blood flowing in the morning. I’ve found Bikram yoga! I’ve wanted to do it for years, but never got around to it. Doing Bikram the last few weeks gave my body something new and fun to play with. I found that in Bikram yoga, resting is just as important as strengthening. In Bikram one does all of these positions that can be fairly difficult to balance while trying to breath in 100+ degree heat making one feel close to dying. But then the next position is basically lying on the ground not moving which is called savasana. At first it feels great to simply finally have a break, but then one becomes aware of the body’s core and sees how important stillness is for the body in order to accept the deep strengthening that has just transpired. The stillness allows the body to heal, for the organs to do the work that goes into the detoxifying and strengthening of the whole. Sometimes I feel like I have to keep going to accomplish my dreams when what I really need is to be still and let the miraculous body be.