Artichoke's Running Blog (Ken Spence)

Disaster at the Moab Canyonlands 1/2 Marathon.  I had decided to just run this from start to finish as a training run to be safe.  I've been in P.T. all week.  I never pushed a single mile, but still could not get loosened up until mile 8.  I had run 18 miles each of the previous two Saturdays and have always felt pretty good after about 6 miles or so and have felt no back issues during the last miles, so I thought 13 easy ones would not cause any problems.  Believe it or not Moab only falls 77 feet overall from start to finish.  My 18 milers started at 5100 ft. and climb to about 5500+ ft. and then the last 12 miles fall from 5500' to about 4300', so the downhill at Moab was not the problem.  Finally I felt somewhat better from miles 8 through 11, but then started hurting again the last 2 miles.  I was super tight at the finish, limped to the car and then into the hotel.  Took a hot bath, then about a 1 1/2 hour nap, and when I got up I could not walk.  I had so much pain putting weight on my left leg with extreme pain from my lower back to my left hip.  We opted not to hike to Delicate Arch that afternoon and I just stayed in the hotel limping around in great pain.  I even had to opt to miss our annual post race dinner at the Fiesta Mexicana and my son went to get take out instead.  I was not any better the next morning.  The drive back was okay.  I had no pain while sitting, but I just couldn't walk.  My piriformis was so painful.  By the time we got home I actually could walk a bit better with somewhat less pain.  I think I'll take two weeks off, have some more PT and see what next week brings.  Boston may not happen, but we'll go anyway and watch.  Or maybe I'll be good enough to at least start out and drop.  We'll see.