Green Themes And Ankles

Everything below is my own opinion. I did not receive compensation for mentioning any products or services

It’s been a few days since my last race and yeah, I struggled to write something. It’s funny though. I noticed that I wait a day or two before even posting on Facebook. I mean I have friends who not only make a simple post just hours if not minutes after a race, they make a detailed post with official photos and race times as well. I usually know my Garmin time, but I don’t look up official results and photos on the same day.

Anyway, I’m going to try to make this short and sweet so it doesn’t take me a month to post. If you read last week’s post, you know that I smashed my ankle in a door at a restaurant right before the Super Bowl. I bandaged it up, watched the Super Bowl (my Chiefs won. . . Go Chiefs!), and then went to the ER to get six stitches. I had a gaping wound, but it wasn’t a clean cut. I literally smashed my ankle. I had bruises and soreness along with the wound. Two weeks later I got our four stitches and then about a week later I got the other two stitches out. My doctor said I could do my races, but I would probably be slower than I wanted. He also said I needed to listen to my body.

This past weekend I had two back-to-back races, both of them with a green theme. It sounded like a good idea a month or so ago pre-injury. I did the Westport St. Patrick’s Day 4 Mile Race and B.E.A.R.D. 10K. My friend Amy and I discussed walking the 4-mile race together. She has an injury as well. She pulled or tore something in her leg. I was going to go to the packet pick-up for the 4-miler when we thought it was at the Ward Parkway Fleet Feet, but they changed it to Westport. Why make two trips to Westport? Neither of us lives close. So, we decided to do packet pick-up on race day.

The B.E.A.R.D. 10K (Building Endurance and Running Dreams) was to support a local runner Scott Green a.k.a the Bearded Runner (hence the second green theme). He was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer last year. They had several locations for packet pick-up, but the first one was Minsky’s Pizza. I LOVE Minsky’s. My husband doesn’t let us get it very often because he feels like we could get good pizza for a better price, but I haven’t found a cheeseburger pizza like theirs ever. The packet pick-up for Minsky’s said you could also order food and part of the proceeds would go toward B.E.A.R.D. 5K/10K. I knew that was the packet pick-up we would be doing. It wasn’t the closest Minsky’s to us, but it was too terribly far away. Plus I did a lot of other errands in the area. The kids and I were super happy with dinner that night.

I was very nervous about the Westport run. I had done some running at about a 15-minute-per-mile pace. I was okay, but I usually had to take something later in the day for the aching. Amy and Jane came to pick me up. Jane had not been feeling well and decided to walk it as well. We did our packet pick-up and then hung out at Kelly’s. We even had a breakfast shot my husband and I had once when we did the race together. I can’t remember what year that was. Amy and I both realized we never walked an entire race before today.

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We had a pretty good pace going. There were parts of the course I don’t remember. I think the last time I did this race in person was the year before COVID. I’m pretty sure it was switched to virtual the year of COVID. We have not done the race since then except last year when My Girl and I did it virtually because we went to Virginia to see my brother. He is taking care of our mother who has Dementia. She had just been living with him for about a year at the time of our vacation.

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  They said they were changing him for St Patrick’s Day

We were about halfway through the race when my good ankle started to hurt like I was getting a blister. I tried to rearrange my socks and shoes, but it didn’t work. Later when we were back at Kelly’s to help celebrate The Back of The Pack Podcast’s second year, I saw that not only did I get a blister, but it had already popped.

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  So happy to finish!

Our time wasn’t bad for walking. We did run a bit at the end when we saw the finish line. Actually, my injured ankle felt better doing a slow run. My time was 1:02:59. I mean our pace wasn’t much slower than a 15-minute-per-mile pace. As we sat in Kelly’s, I chit-chatted and formed a plan for the next day at the B.E.A.R.D. 10K. My plan was to run/walk and just listen to my body. If I had to quit, then I’d do that because I still have to think about the Liberty Half Marathon coming soon. Amy had not signed up for the race yet, but she said she was going to. She had not decided on the 5K or 10K, but she said she would pick me up again for the race the next day. I spent the rest of the day resting as much as I could.

I was even more nervous about this 10K. It is one thing to do 4 miles. I mean I had been doing 3 miles already just fine. A 10K in case you didn’t know is 6.2 miles. Usually, that is nothing for me because I normally run that every weekend. Because of my ankle injury, I had not run 6 miles in over three weeks!

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Amy and Denise came to pick me up Sunday morning. They were both doing the 5K. That made me nervous. Then I found a really fast runner friend, Karen, was also doing the 5K. She mentioned a bunch of killer hills for the 10K. I found a few people I knew were doing the 10K. They were not going to be running with me though because again my plan was to go slow, listen to my body, and if I couldn’t finish, that was okay. I was here to show my support, and I still have to be ready for Liberty Half soon. I just kept telling myself this over and over again.

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I ran most of the 10K. It was very pretty since it was at Shawnee Mission Park. I caught up to Scott. He was in a wheelchair of sorts surrounded by a large group of people. He still wanted to do this race because come to find out it was his 300th race. My ankles were both hurting. The little band-aid over my blister was not doing it for me and my injury on my other ankle was not great. I was worried passing Scott and the others might seem rude, but I needed to be done. I thought they might understand since this was a race after all. I slinked by them a little bit before the end. People could see him a bit behind me. I heard them gather at the finish. It was a little weird having so many people at the finish as I crossed the line. My time was 1:18:02.64 which I think is awesome with everything that has happened!

I went straight for the Shatto milk and got back in time to see Scott finish. A lot of people were very emotional. I do not know Scott really. I feel for him and his family and wanted to show support by running the race. I tried really hard not to think of my brother I mentioned earlier. We found out very recently that he has a brain tumor. We hope it isn’t cancer and he is getting it out this Friday.

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  I’ve never had a pretty hot chocolate

Amy, Denise, and I left and went to get coffee and hot chocolate. Well, they had coffee and I had hot chocolate. I don’t drink coffee. I tried to rest most of the day. I’m still super nervous for Liberty and now I have a blister on the other ankle to heal. I’m not real positive about getting my 2:30 goal for Liberty Half. At this point, I hope I can just finish.