Tales from the Trails

After getting pneumonia in October 2016, I had to sit out the race I had spent the last 6+ months training for. It was a 50k in the Red River Gorge in KY, and it was to be my first ultra marathon. Luckily I had run my fall "A" race in September - the Moose Mountain Marathon in Northern MN - and everything about that day had been amazing and perfect. I was devastated to be so sick I couldn't run my first ultra. But I was so sick I hardly even noticed what I was about to miss out on. I was also very worried about and devastated for my friend Jeanette, who had been diagnosed with a rare salivary gland cancer the week before our MN race. Jeanette would be having a second surgery a few days before the 50k, and so both of us were focused on getting well and taking care of ourselves (and each other, a bit). I finally tried running again around Thanksgiving, but took it slowly and struggled to get my mojo back and find motivation to increase mileage again. Jeanette found out