It has been two months since Black Canyon 100k, and I’ve been doing very little running. That is to say, for an ultrarunner, I’ve been doing very little running. I’m down to about 20 miles per week, so compared to 60-80 miles, that is super low volume for me.

Over the years, I have had to take a lot of time off running for various illnesses and injuries. Every time I do, it seems frustraing in the moment, but I have always managed to come back stronger. Training for ultramarathons is extremely time-consuming. Typically, I’ll train 12-20 hours per week, depending on where I am in a training cycle. Take that off my calendar, and suddenly a whole lot of time opens up to do things like…actually take care of nagging issues.

The past couple of months have been filled with an obscene number of doctor appointments, physical therapy visits, MRI, and ultrasound. Unlike previous breaks, taking time off running hasn’t been hard. With all the issues I was having (and all the super cold temperatures), training through this winter wasn’t all that enjoyable for me. Honestly, my body and mind have been really ready for the break.

The pain and numbness in my left thigh, which has been progressive for well over a year now, has finally been diagnosed. Meralgia paresthetica – which is due to severe inflammation in a branch of my femoral nerve up near my hip. The doctor thinks it was probably a stretching injury, and as the pain developed, I did more and more stretching and massaging, trying to fix it, which was just causing further irritation of the nerve until it became the giant swollen mess they saw on ultrasound. After lots of PT went nowhere, I moved forward with a steroid injection and I’m hoping that will start me on the path towards resolution.

During all this work, one of my physical therapists recommended I go back to vestibular therapy to improve my balance. It turns out that while I can run 100 miles, I can’t stand on one foot if I close my eyes. Seriously, I immediately and unexpectedly fell over in the therapist’s office. Back in 2015 and 2016, I did a lot of vestibular therapy and thought I had fixed all of that and everything was better now. Apparently, I should have continued working on it. This is why I still struggle so much on the trails in poor light conditions or visually complicated footing. My vestibular system is still EXTREMELY vision dependent, and without the visual input, my brain doesn’t know where up is. Ah brain injury- it is the gift that keeps on giving.

Since I’m not running as much, and the weather has very slowly started improving, Josh and I have been spending more time on our gravel bikes. We have a lot of work to do to get ready for our big fall trip. In September we will spend 3 whole weeks on a self-guided gravel biking tour through Slovenia and Croatia with Life Bike Adventures. I’m excited and also nervous. It will be our first trip back to cycle in Europe since my crash. Ironically, we leave the morning after my 8th Crashiversary. It wasn’t planned that way, but that is how the timing worked out. We will be traveling with friends that we met on our first bike trip in France, and they also happened to be with us when I crashed in Austria. It seemed only fitting for them to be on our big return trip.

We are ramping up our bike mileage and finding fun new routes to explore. After reading Stacy Sims’ new book “Next Level” about athletic physiology in perimenopause, I’ve been sleeping in some days, dramatically increasing my protein intake, and lifting much heavier weights. This should be required reading for every woman in her 40s. We have to do things differently as our hormones shift, and I can already see changes in my energy and recovery after workouts since taking some of the recommendations from this book (including some of the adaptogens like holy basil and ashwaganda, which have some really great research behind them). I plan to maintain low running mileage through the fall and then see where things are at. My hope is that just like every previous running break, I’ll be able to once again bounce back stronger than before because I have some big running goals for 2024. And who knows, maybe I’ll even be able to stand on one foot with my eyes closed.