Day 4,234—Easy Recovery Run—

 

I figured it was okay to do a 10-mile run if I was mainly on dirt and was going slow. I was tempted to run to Big River so I could buy a new pair of sunglasses because I cannot find the pair I brought to the Ozark Trail 100. I am surprised to see my video still getting views today, and it is easily my most watched video ever. Even though it is not that many, it is still progress after a year of having my most-watched video in January.

        It is the benefit of having an incredibly tough run. January was one of my toughest 100-mile runs ever. With all the ice and snow, it was truly insane how little I was prepared and what I was able to do. This one was similar, with my shoes breaking and me having to be flexible and not knowing how things were going to work out. In the future, maybe I will start throwing my sandals in my early drop bags just in case, because that’s what I was thinking when I tied the rope around my shoes. I had run plenty of trail miles in sandals, so I knew I could do the trail almost barefoot, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I was thinking, why not just wear one shoe if one is working better? All the rocks would have made running barefoot slow going, but now I do want to keep some sandals around just in case, because that was such a scary experience not knowing how I was going to make it, but I never thought about stopping. Now it seems like an almost made up reason to stop running a 100 mile run. I can imagine someone asking me. 

“Why did you stop running?” 

“My shoes broke.” 

“What? You didn’t bring another pair of shoes?” 

“I did they just were 50 miles away.”

I am not sure why I think that’s such a bad reason to stop but I do. It just seems like I am either not telling the truth, or I am not very smart. This run was pleasant, and my leg bothered me a bit, but not too badly. I could tell it would bother me more if I tried to speed up, but I looked at my watch to make sure I was hitting around a 10-minute mile. That's what I have been doing all week, and that seems like a good speed where I am not risking injury. I saw this huge deer on my path at one point. I took some pictures, but he seemed so far away; it was striking to see such a big deer with antlers looking at me, fewer than 50 feet away. My day is always a little better when I am able to interact with an animal I find while I am running.