Leuven, Belgium

Journey to ‘Sweetwater’

When I asked Philippe if there was a nice place to have a relaxed stroll, he told me of the beautiful land of ‘Sweetwater’ about 10k outside of the city.  If you try to google ‘Sweetwater Leuven’ you will get a bunch of Sweetwater locations in Texas and Georgia.  But I eventually figured out that Sweetwater translated to Zoet water in Flemmish.  I also discovered that the route to Zoet water looked like it went through some nice areas outside of the city with lakes and trails.  So I figured I would just take a backpack with some snacks and walk there.  If I was too tired to walk back, there was apparently a regular bus back to the city.  I had no map, no phone, but a general sense of where Zoet water lay in relation to the train line and river.  Zoet water ho!

Plantar fibromatosis

Plantar fascial fibromatosis, also known as Ledderhose’s disease, Morbus Ledderhose, and plantar fibromatosis, is a relatively uncommon^[1] non-malignant thickening of the feet’s deep connective tissue, or fascia. In the beginning, where nodules or cords start growing along tendons of the foot, the disease is minor. Eventually, however, the cords thicken, the toes stiffen and bend, and walking becomes painful. The disease is named after Dr. Georg Ledderhose, a German surgeon who described the condition for the first time in 1894.^[2][3] A similar disease is Dupuytren’s disease, which affects the hand and causes bent hand or fingers.

As in most forms of fibromatosis, it is usually benign and its onset varies with each patient.^[4] The nodules are typically slow growing^[1][4] and most often found in the central and medial portions of the plantar fascia.^[1] Occasionally, the nodules may lie dormant for months to years only to begin rapid and unexpected growth.^[4] It need to be surgically removed only if discomfort hinders walking.^[5]

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In October I discovered I that a plantar fibroma had developed on my left foot.  My left arch had given me intermittent pains for several months, but I had thought it was just a bit of plantar fasciitis.  It only bothered me when I ran very rocky trails, giving me a sharp zing if I hit a rock the wrong way.  But after running in Shenandoah with Matt, Heather, Keith, and Aaron I noticed there was a little bump in the center of the arch that was very tender to the touch.  I went to see an orthopedist, a podiatrist, and my PT, who all diagnosed it as a fibroma with no real treatment options.  Interventions like cortizone, surgery, and orthotics are likely to do more harm than good.  Sometimes, when I’m feeling electric shocks zing through my foot waking me up in the middle of the night (I was dreaming I was walking through an electrical current until I woke up and realized it wasn’t a dream*), I fantasize about just cutting that little sucker right out.  But I only have one long-term option: pain management.  This injury is making the old days of IT band and plantar injuries look pretty darn good: at least with those injuries I could do things to alleviate the problem.  But a fibroma is unlikely to go away, and all I can do is back off and try not to make stupid mistakes that will accelerate the hardening and eventually will make it painful even to walk.  The first stupid mistake would certainly have been trying to run Masochist through the pain.

The first sign of the new order is my attendance at the Wilson pool.  I am about as aquatic as my cat Leda.  I’m pretty good at getting in and out of a hot tub.  And I can swim enough to save my life.  But I don’t do ‘laps’.  When I was injured in college, my track coach tried to get me to aqua jog.  After two weeks I couldn’t take it anymore and quit for the season.  But Aaron and his Magic have gotten me into the lap lane for the first time in my life, and I’m getting the hang of it.  Bubbles, breathe, bubbles, breathe…….

*The dream was actually a bit more detailed.  In it I was trying to follow my father as we walked through this ankle-deep swirl of electricity.  For anyone who has seen my father’s real feet, they’re what you’d get if you crossed the feet of an immuno-compromised ogre with a velociraptor, with thick green toenails that curl all the way around the front of his toe to click on the ground when he walks and splotches of untreated fungus on the top of his foot.  In the dream my father couldn’t understand why I kept hopping and yelping in pain with each electrical yap, while his Shrek feet were entirely impervious to the electrical current.

‘B-E-A double-R U-N, Bear Run!  And bear and her cub and a rub-a-dub-dub, c’mon little bear come ‘n give me a hug, bear run!’

I kept this little jingle up for far longer than Aaron could bear (pun intended), as we trotted along Jeremy’s run with Matt, Heather, and Keith.  Heather was very amused that the first time Keith called out ‘Bear!’ that her instinct was to run in the opposite direction of the bear while Matt, Aaron, and I shot back towards Keith to try to catch a glimpse.  The black bear of course took off like a bat out of hell, and I just caught a glimpse of its head (or maybe it was its butt).

But our second ursine encounter was amazing.  Matt and Heather must be bear-whisperers because in all our running in Shenandoah Keith, Aaron, nor I had ever been able to watch a family of bears so casually as they shimmied up and down trees, rooted around in a creek bed, and balanced along fallen logs.  It was a mom and two cubs, so we made sure to keep a comfortable non-threatening distance.  Although black bears aren’t nearly as dangerous as grizzlies for humans, you still have to respect the aggression that a momma bear has around her cubs.

We saw one more bear in a tree — as soon as it caught a whiff of us it lumbered down with a smack, bringing the canopy down with it.  Remarkable how such large animals can run so fast.

I was in high heaven — FIVE bears.  Maybe the bears were so active because the park was technically closed due to the government shut-down, so humans had been scarce for the past week or so.  Or maybe because it’s October and those bears are busy stuffing in the acorns before the cold weather hits.  There must be a very health bear population in Shenandoah because in addition to the five live bears we saw many huge piles of bear scat of all different designs littered all along the trail.  I was having awful PMS as well as a sore hamstring, so I took every opportunity to stop the group to look at more poop.  I don’t know if any other women experience this, but for me PMS feels like being slammed by a bus.  Each month my period can’t come soon enough because I’d way rather have daggers in my belly than have those days of droopy malaise that feels like a combination of a hangover, a cold, and what I imagine to be how the end of a 100 mile run feels.  I try to be careful not to schedule races during PMS time, because trying to get that loaf to move is hopeless.

Matt and Heather are great fun to run with (and clearly good luck for spotting bears), so I’ll do my best to get them to come and liven up WUS from time to time.  Each of them have come to WUS a couple times, but it’s a trek from where they are out in Virginia.  B-E-A double-R U-N, Bear Run!

This is the last time I’m gonna say it: Wussies, you all are missing out on a treasure trove of beautiful, challenging technical trail races just a short ways north in Pennsylania (we drove there in 3.5 hrs on Friday) that are impeccably organized with hard competition and great shwag (check out videos and photos at the website).  Greg Zaruba (who has no excuse not to come to WUS now that he has a trail-running lady friend in Cleveland Park) is the only other one who gets it that these races are AWESOME.  The fact that it takes the first male 4.5 hours to complete the ~26-mile Megatransect is testament to how gnarly this trail is (it runs more like a tough 50k).  The iconic section is the 1-mile boulder field ascent that occurs around mile 6, which is made all the more challenging by the fact that you can’t use your hands to help navigate the rocks because you’ve been forewarned that the rock field is home to copperheads and rattlers.  Although the weather was cool enough today that the snakes were unlikely to be active yet, I was still inclined to keep my nose out of chomping distance.

The Mega is an extremely popular race: the field of 900 sells out in 2 hours on New Year’s Day, nine months before the event is held.  I failed to sign up (I was off doing the Redeye), but there were so many computer glitches during registration that a few more spots opened up and I was able to snag a spot a week later.  As soon as I saw that spots were open, I emailed Zaruba so he could enter as well, as we had run together at the Magnus Gluteus in December and spent several miles fawning over the beauty and gnarliness of Pennsylvania trail races.

Greg had initially wanted to camp at the start/finish area, but with temperatures in the 30s at night I wasn’t so keen.  Fortunately my wonderful friend Kathy is always generous about letting me stay at her place when I visit State College, so Greg and I were able to crash with her.  The Tussey MountainBack relay is only a couple weeks away, so also took advantage of our trip to State College to have Happy Hour with my team and sort out our shirt designs and leg assignments (tricky because some legs are flatter and longer and other legs are shorter but hillier, so it’s not clear which is more suited for the slower runner).  Now that my former PhD advisor Eddie has moved to the University of Sydney I don’t get up to State College so frequently, so it was great to have a chance to catch up with the gang over some pitchers.

Neither Greg nor myself were planning to treat Mega as anything but a long enjoyable day in the woods.  Greg has the Oil Creek 100 next week.  And I had already expended all my competitive juices at the Women’s Half two weeks ago.  But of course Zaruba blasted out at the start and I had to go chase after him.  That would become the theme of the run, as I let Zaruba go again as I took some time to adjust to the rocks early on.  After 10 miles or so I finally figured out that I felt all wobbly on the rocks because my shoes weren’t snug enough.  Once I adjusted the laces I was good to go, but by that time Zaruba had a good 5+ minutes on me (I couldn’t even see him during the slow mile-long boulder climb when you have a long field of vision).  Nor could I spot the first-place woman, who was also up with Zaruba (who turned out to be my friend Meira, a perennial winner of the Mega, Hyner, Rothrock, and the other major PA trail races).

I wondered whether I would  ever catch Greg and Meira.  But this was a race I wasn’t going to push, and I just kept going my own pace.  And there was plenty to enjoy along the way: beautiful vistas over the valley, fields of ferns turning their autumn hues, massive waterfalls.  Every year the Mega designs a new course (and each year a little longer), so every year brings new scenic surprises.

I caught up to Meira at around mile 14 at the fatty waterfall (she had fallen several times and described her day as a ‘mudfest’), and to Zaruba shortly thereafter.  Greg and I ran together for a while until I got a large rock in my shoe during a creek crossing.  By the time I got my shoe back on again, two more runners had passed and Zaruba was out of sight.  I passed those guys back and made an effort to catch Greg.  But I had to stop at an aid station and re-fill my bladder, which took a couple minutes.  And after already catching up to Zaruba twice that day, I had lost some of my zeal for chasing Greg all day.

So instead I ran alone.  I passed a couple more guys, but never saw Zaruba again until the finish.  I was in good spirits, the course was spectacular, full of rocks and roots and hazards.  Perfect for someone like me who gets bored easily.  There were loads of lethal 2-inch stumps that I kept getting snagged on, but I managed not to fall the whole day.  I had a hard near miss where I really should have gone down, but my legs had the strength to catch me, which I found surprising so late in the race.

After the mile 22 aid station the course went up a gravel road briefly and then turned back into the woods onto single track.  Unfortunately I didn’t see the blaze for the turn (all other major intersections had volunteers directing — overall the course was impeccably marked) and kept heading up the steep gravel road.  I didn’t see any blazes for a while, but thought they might have figured they weren’t necessary on a straight road.  But after what was at least a half mile I got a sinking feeling about the lack of blazes.  It was so late in the race I desperately didn’t want to backtrack.  But after there were still no blazes after another bend, I made myself trot back down.

My heart sank when I saw the ribbon going into the woods, realizing that I probably had lost the lead.  But there was nothing to do but solider on.  At this point the race decided to kick a girl while she was down, and I had to ascend the most gruelingly steep and long climb of the day.  Just as I desperately needed some sugar and energy, my gel malfunctioned (I ripped the top off, but it didn’t make a hole and no matter how I tried to use my fangs to spear the gel like a rabid wolf I could not extract the liquid inside).  My heart sank even further when I spotted a guy I had passed miles ago at the top of the climb, giving me an indication of just how much ground I had lost during my ‘bonus miles’.

But I eventually passed him back and received confirmation from a volunteer along the course that I was still the first female, and finished the race in a good mood, despite the wicked ‘Green Mile’ finish — a mile straightaway of high grass along a highway.  The finish area was wonderful — free barbecue chicken and pizza and great beer for all.  My friend Kathy was waiting at the finish, along with Greg, who seems to know every PA trail runner (so there was lots of schmoozing).  Kathy’s quasi boyfriend Dan also ran (who quickly became a winner in my book after informing us that he owns a stable of Arabians he competes in endurance riding).

The Mega doesn’t give prizes for winners, but every runner got a great zip-up sweatshirt that was  superior to most race prizes I’ve gotten.  In many ways the Mega is a classic that has remained true to the roots of ultra running, where the emphasis is more on enjoying a beautiful day in the woods than on finish order, even among the top runners.  At several times I had to plant my feet and take in the view for a couple moments.

The registration process for Mega is admittedly an ordeal.  At the finish area they were even selling t-shirts that said ‘I Survived the Mega Registration’.  But its cult following reveals it’s worth it.  Wussies who like challenging courses should go see for themselves.

RESULTS

Grand Canyon, Zion NP, and Bryce Canyon with the Italianos

September 2013

Five recommendations for wussies traveling to Arizona and Utah:

(1) Definitely visit Kerry, Doug, Joe, and Michele in Sedona.  Even if they happen to not be there (a rarity for Joe).  If we move to Minnesota, maybe I can maintain my sanity by joining the real estate Red Train to Sedona.

(2) If possible, travel with Italianos.

(3) Caveat: if you do travel with Italianos, make sure you prep them for the quality of the American coffee they will encounter, the difficulty of finding beer on a Sunday in Utah, and the tendency for Americans to masquerade fried cheese curds as ravioli.

(4) Two words: BRYCE CANYON.  Big yes.  [If you stay at Bryce Canyon we highly recommend the nearby town of Hatch, Utah as a delightful road stop where you can get a clean cheap room (you have to go over to the gas station with cash to purchase it) and an excellent hole-in-the-wall pulled pork BBQ.]

(5) Bring along a boyfriend who takes good pictures.  We haven’t even downloaded Aaron’s high quality shots yet, these are just from my iPhone camera:

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