Thankfulness … and Making “B Goals” Your “A Goals”

I finished 2019’s running year on a bit of a high that shared twinges of what could have been. I was proud of the work put in, but honestly felt that was much left on the table…so when 2020 came around, going into my third year of trail running, I thought I’d shoot for the moon — 1000 miles of hard earned miles this year and my first ultramarathon, the Oak Mountain 50k in Birmingham.

Two Things Happened

COVID and injury.

ok ok, i’ll toss out the first one, because well, 2020 happened and COVID did what it did to everyone’s running schedule — cancel races. For perspective’s sake, I agree with race directors who cancelled races early in 2020. We knew very little about how to manage larger gatherings, even ones outside, so i don’t hold a grudge about a March race being cancelled. However, being halfway through my training block, i decided to continue training and drive to Oak Mountain anyway for race day and see what kind of fruit my work would produce. I left disappointed.

Backstory on the training however, revealed there was a significant issue with my shoes that led to some really painful foot pain in my mid-foot and the bridge of my foot that i couldn’t explain. I had been running in Altra’s for two years, but the latest Lone Peaks and Timps both had lower volume in the mid-foot than the previous two iterations that was leading to serious pain and bruising on longer runs when my feet would swell. All that aside, and excuses where they…