Rush the Butte

Spring of this year was difficult for me, running-wise. I was running strong, up until our trip to Utah – I was up to 4 miles 3 times a week. I felt great while we were in Utah, though some of the backpacking hikes felt very overloaded due to our need to pack in water. I was sore, but no more than usual for me on these trips. During the week after our return, I started running again – I figured I’d be even stronger after the trip and pick up where I’d left off in March. But, suddenly I would feel a tightness in my calves as soon as I so much as jogged onto the track. I don’t really know for sure what shin splints feel like but I wondered if it was a similar problem, but on the inner side of my legs, within or under the muscle. Kinda scary. I didn’t feel anything when walking, riding my bike, or stretching so I kept doing those things, but stopped running all together after “taking it easy” with short runs didn’t seem to make a difference.

May rolled around and I wanted to try running again, though I didn’t see how I’d work my way back up in time to run the Butte to Butte 10K. That was a sad thought, that I’d miss it this year… But, I just tried to focus on getting “back on track” without injury. I would run a few laps, walk a lap, repeat. I would run 3/4 of the Adidas mile trail, and walk the last 1/4 of it – once I got to the point where I was going around 4 or 5 times, I started running the Rexius portion as well – the whole trail is 5.5 miles round trip. By the week before the race, I was running the whole thing with only 3 short stops at the stoplight intersection and the halfway point where there is a drinking fountain.

On race day, it was fixing to be a hot one. I ran the whole way, except made sure to drink a whole cup of water at the 3 water stations. My time was 1 hour and 8 minutes – not my best, but not my worst, either! I was so happy to have worked past my mysterious “injury” and participate in the fun community event once again.

In the afternoon we took a drive to Wildwood Falls, a swimming hole that we had been to last summer. It’s a really neat place to swim but the atmosphere is not great – it’s a favorite place for partying teens to spill beer and scatter cigarette butts. On the 4th it was crowded but at least we knew what to expect. I was pretty tired from my race so after a “thrilling” jump (I hate jumping!) and a cooling swim (I love swimming in natural water) I sat up on the creek bank and read a book.

In the evening we rode our bikes to watch the fireworks in Alton Baker park. This year we tried something different and joined a crowd that gathered in an office courtyard with a fountain, on the other side of the river. That was exciting – people were setting off small (and some very big) fireworks on the concrete. Some were a little too close for comfort! It was one of those fountains that come up out of a paved space and kids can run through the columns of water. One little guy was taking his duties as fire-fighter very seriously – he had a fireman’s hat and a bucket and would come running to make sure the fireworks were not getting out of hand.

I wonder who designs fireworks displays? Both of the ones we saw this year (the other one was in our “backyard” on the 3rd after the Ems game) were not very well choreographed. Each burst was pretty, but they were a bit off on timing and sequence.