2019 Lil' Rhody Runaround- USATF-NE Trail Championship

MWRR 2019

I only just found the above photo that Peter Maksimow took after he gave me a Heady Topper at the Mt Washington Road Race. I look SO old, but I'm pretty sure everyone ages a little after doing this race. Haha.

There wasn't too much going on this week. I worked a lot of overtime so I was at work for what seemed like the entire week. haha. I worked 70 hours, but I was in dire need of the money with whatever was going on with my car. I assumed it was just a seized caliper and then the cost of putting my new winter tires on. So I'm thinking $300. Well, I was in for a bit of a surprise. I made an appointment for Wednesday, but they couldn't get to it so when I came back on Friday to work a 10 hour shift I dropped it off again. I got a phone call around noon telling me that the car had a broken ball joint in addition to the seized caliper, plus a new rotor and brake pad for that same wheel due to the broken ball joint ruining everything. This explains everything! The completely bald tire, the pulling to left and the sliding of the wheel to left at times while driving in the rain. I asked what the monetary damage was going to be... $1030! What?! I had moment there where I didn't know what to do. I didn't even have $1000 to my name. I told them I would call them back. My eyes got teary as I tried to figure out what to do. That's when I realized I had to do something I've never done before...ask my parents if I could borrow the money. I don't know if I can even describe how awful that felt. I felt like a failure and a total loser. Just writing this is bringing back a lump in my throat. I never wanted to go back in time more than I did at that moment. Rewrite my life's decisions to fix the mistakes. But that wasn't happening. I had to pick up the phone and make the call. Of course, they were more than willing, but I fucking hate it. I hate it so much. But at least I had the option. Called the car place back and gave them the go ahead.

I had an a-ha moment immediately after. How did I break the ball joint? OMG. That time when I knew for sure I broke my car while driving Sandwich Notch Rd and that crazy bump. I knew I broke it then. I even wrote about it here. It made a loud noise and started squeaking immediately. I honestly thought at the time that I'd have to leave the car in Lincoln and hitch hike home across the Kanc...but then the squeak stopped. The car seemed ok. It wasn't until a month later that I noticed the car had really gotten "out of alignment" and was pulling hard to the left. Figured I'd just have that fixed when I put new tires on. It wasn't until I smelled the obvious burning brake smell of a seized caliper that I realized the car needed to be taken to the shop ASAP. But omg. I was right at the time. I knew I broke it. But I drove on it for 2 more months! All the way to the Cape and back and to Paddy's and everywhere else in between. I'm lucky the wheel didn't fall off! Dodged a bullet with that one. One positive to this is that I at least knew this wasn't a defect with the car. This same car place did the inspection on it after I bought and literally said it was "perfect". So it's good to know that it was something I did to it and not a problem I inherited when I bought it.

Part in my blog post where I thought I broke the car. I did!

Because there was so much work to be done, they couldn't finish it until Monday so I had to leave it. If I had known it wasn't coming home with me, I would have brought clothes to run home in then come back to get my stuff in my Kia Soul, but I didn't so the car shop gave me a loaner for the weekend. A Honda Civic which had amazing gas mileage so I used it all weekend, even for the drive down to Rhode Island on Sunday. The only bad part about this car was that it was SO uncomfortable. I was in agony driving it around on Saturday. I added a pillow for the drive on Sunday, but the damage was already done. My legs were a lot of pain on Sunday from it. Oh well.

The loaner

That was my drama for the week. Haha. I ended up cancelling the hotel for Saturday night in West Greenwich because I couldn't justify spending the money now that I owed my parents $1000. It meant no beer purchases in Rhode Island either. Only gas, 2 coffees and a book for John to read.

I'll do the week recap before the race one. There honestly isn't much to write about the race other than that it wasn't a good one for me, but I'll elaborate a little later on. Haha.

Week of November 11-17, 2019- 36.8 miles. Working 70 hours made it really hard to get much running in this week. You can see why I started to gain weight around this time. Less running and A LOT more sitting + eating cookies, candy, donuts and increased beer drinking. I started to actually feel and see the change in my body during this week. And if I'm honest, I'm definitely a heavy drinker. I drink beer every day except when I'm at work. I didn't drink Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday this week, but I made up for it on the back end. You'd think I was an alcoholic, but I never once wanted it for those 3 days. I never want it when I'm at work. I think it's more that I like beer and it's become a habit as opposed to an addiction. When you drink really good beer, you aren't pounding them to get drunk; you drink it because it tastes good. But that doesn't mean it's good for you in such large amounts. Not only does it keep my belly flabby, it also makes me eat sugary foods. Sugar/carbs are my true addictions, and I think it's the carbs in beer that make me want more it, not the alcohol. A study done by the CDC concluded that only 10% of heavy drinkers were also alcoholics. I'll be honest that I've never looked this up until just now, but it's reassuring at least. Haha. I'm not trying to justify the amount I drink. It definitely isn't healthy, but I'm not an alcoholic. And sorry, got off on a tangent here, but I thought it was worth writing about.

Monday, 11/11-Worked my usual 24 hour shift. Did 10 minutes of glutes (just learned I've been doing this wrong for the last year as far as strengthening my glutes for running). I walked in circles around the ambulance bay at night for 34 minutes.

Tuesday, 11/12- 7 miles. I opted for the treadmill today since it was snowing. I was pretty bummed having to run completely flat on it. I like to vary the incline, but I opened it up and the motor is completely shot. I tried calibrating it first, and then when that didn't work, I looked at the motor. Junk. It was still a good run, though. I sang along to my music. 49:59. 7:08 avg/pace, but it felt way too easy with zero incline.

John was out of school for a snow day so we took a walk down the RR tracks behind Walmart later on. We only walked a mile because the shoes I gave John to use ended up being really uncomfortable and hurt his feet.

We got home in time for a pretty sunset. These photos were taken only 29 minutes apart. Cool to see the difference.

Heard a thud and laughter from John's room. Came in to find this. Haha.

I had to be at work at 7pm, but I made us dinner then packed up enough food for the 36 hour shift...then walked out the door without it. If I wasn't going to be gone for 36 hours, it wouldn't have been an issue, but as soon as I got to work and realized the food wasn't there, Craig offered to stay and cover for me while I drove back home to get it. Only took 15 minutes total, but it was worth it. I lost 15 minutes of pay, but I would have spent much more than that if I had to buy all of my food the next day.

Wednesday,11/13- 3 miles. I had to bring a lot of clothes for this shift since I ran on the trail out back for my first run in the snow of the season. 3 miles. 25:19. Not fast since it was slippery snow on a lot leaves. Happy to get something in, though. Showered after that and put on my other uniform set. I was glad to get something in today in between calls. We were actually really busy today and only a BLS truck, but we did ok without it. When we brought our last patient in that night, one of the stupid seatbelts that's been annoyingly sticking finally wouldn't open at all. My partner and I both tried, but we were standing there with all of the nursing staff looking like morons to due our shitty equipment. I'd had it. So I said, "I know how to fix this." I reached down, unhooked my trauma shears from my pants and cut the fucking thing. All fixed! Ha! I was just so sick of it.

Thursday, 11/14- 9.1 miles. Beth died today. November 14th is interesting because I have 2 family members and 2 friends who share this as a birthday. And sadly, now, this is also a death day.

I didn't know that Beth was on life support until after my run which was probably a good thing because the run was really fun. It had been a long time since I'd gone for a regular run in Whitaker Woods. I had to make up 3 different loops to get the miles in, but it reminded me of the first snow day of 2011 when the White Mountain Milers Half Marathon got cancelled. I drove over to Whitaker instead to run in the snow with Spot and Chill. This was only a week after Coy died. So that run was on my mind. Little did I know that another death was to come so unexpectedly. I ran in the snow for 9.1 miles. 1:23:43. Slow running, but if you have to run in the snow, this was the perfect snow for running. No microspikes or snowshoes needed. This is the snow I don't mind.

Somehow in the morning, I missed this photo John put on the fridge to be funny. I got home, and it was the first thing I saw. I died laughing.

Shortly thereafter, I found out from Muddy Puddin' that Beth was brain dead and on life support. I couldn't believe it. I was so sad. I took a walk up Heavenly Hill with Phoenix trying to keep my mind occupied.

Beth passed away that night. Beth loved dark beers so I honored her with one that Rachel Flaksman (also a friend of Beth's) had given me.

Friday, 11/15- Zero miles. I worked another overtime shift today. We were also pretty busy and again only a BLS truck. One call was potentially serious, and the paramedic who does QA/QI got onto me a bit after reading my report for not calling for ALS. Honestly, it's rarely available so I've gotten into the habit of not calling, but it was good advice since he said that, if anything, I was covering my ass by saying I at least tried. I definitely appreciated the feedback and wish I had more of it.

Planned to run on the treadmill when I got home, but I just didn't feel like it so I took a zero day.

Saturday, 11/16- 5.3 miles. I was really glad I had cancelled the hotel in RI for the night because John got invited over to his friend's house for the afternoon. I would have felt awful if he had had to miss that because of one of my races. I decided to wait and run after I dropped him off since his friend didn't live far from Green Mt in Effingham. I love running there, so I decided to do that.

I took Phoenix and Chill up Heavenly Hill before we left and ran into one of my neighbors up at the top who was hunting. He hunts on foot instead of a tree stand so that he can enjoy getting exercise and seeing things while he walks around. He's pretty cool and super nice so we chatted for awhile. He had no idea I had a trail up there from my house. He had bushwhacked up from the Rt 16 side where there is still a trail up, but I assume it's not visible with the leaves, and he didn't even know about that one either.

John and I took the loaner car to his friend's house. It's 45 minutes away so I ended up doing way too much driving today. My tendons were in serious agony after all of that.

I drove over to Green Mt to run up and down two of the trails. I usually do all 3, but I thought it would be too much the day before Lil' Rhody. The run up the Dearborn Trail was pretty icy. The warmer temps on this side of the mountain had melted the snow and then it froze back up into an icy layer which made running a little dicey. Once at the top, I ran down the other side on the Highwatch Trail. This side was mostly a thin layer of crunchy snow that some people had broken up for me making it easy to get some grip. It was a gorgeous day. A little chilly but gorgeous. I stopped at the first tower after my second summit then "ran" back down the icy Dearborn Trail. 5.3 miles in 1:21:57. 2,437ft of elevation gain. It never feels like it's a much gain as it is when you break it up into multiple up/downs.

John told me to pick him up at 5pm so I killed time by driving over to Sandwich to fill up the water jugs at the spring and then drove back to Porter, Maine arriving 5 minutes before 5pm. I called John and he said he wasn't ready and could I just drive around for another hour.

I did need to go to the store so I agreed to give him another half hour while I went to the store nearby. When I got back he still asked for another half hour. I had to put my foot down this time since my tendons were in agony from all of the sitting. I would end up with over 3 hours total of driving today. Not ideal at all. I felt bad making him leave, but he told me 5pm and it was just too far away from home for me to there then come back.

I was dreading the next morning's drive to Charlestown, RI. It's 4 hours. The last time I did that was to the winter trail race at Burlingame. My muscles were so tight, and I was so tired that I ended up not feeling good for that race. I swore to never drive to a race day-of that was over 3 hours away. Well, I was up 3:15am to make this mistake again. Except, it would be even worse this time.

Sunday, 11/17- Lil' Rhody Runaround

John begged me not to have to go to this one, and while I leave him at home alone, this race was just too far away if something happened. I did make a deal with him, though, that he no longer had to go to a race that was under 2 hours away (unless it's a really long distance race). 2 hours still makes me nervous, but he's about to turn 14 and he's been mostly responsible when he's been home alone. I think I'll give it a chance. Today wasn't too bad because it would be the last race he has to come to until probably mid-January (I was planning to do Nooseneck, but once again injury will probably stop me for the second year in a row). So he's getting a good break.

Getting up early and driving 4 hours in an uncomfortable car was excruciating. I just wanted to go back to sleep by the time I arrived. Instead I had to go down to registration to verify any day-of registrations who put down they were USATF-NE. Turned out there was a guy there who had just paid for his membership that morning and was day-of registration. I verified him. Good thing he became a member because he won the race and got the $200 for 1st place. It was still early and no one else was registering yet so I ran a mile then came back down.

Most people were registering for the 4 mile, but I did have a group of 4 people register for the 10 mile who put down their USATF numbers. Turned out all 4 were USATF-Connecticut. I didn't realize that this would turn into such a confusing situation for people. Rhode Island is in the USATF-NE Association so any USATF-NE event means you have to be a member of USATF-NE. This was NOT a USATF event, only a regional one. For some reason, most people did not understand the concept. USATF-NE provides the medals and the prize money, not the USATF. It's basically a members-only event. Unfortunately a lot of people were confused, even the woman who would win the race. And of course she would be the one person who fell through the cracks when it came to verification. She had pre-registered but was not on any of the pre-reg lists we received so Paul never verified her. She didn't register day-of so I didn't verify her. So she left there thinking she won $200. I decided to go through all the prize money winners one more time just to double-check they were USATF-NE, and I'm glad I did because the first woman ended up being a member of USATF-Mid-Atlantic. She moved to RI from Pennsylvania but probably didn't know she needed to change her membership to NE. The reason this sucked the most was because I'm the one who had to email her to tell, and what made it even worse that it was me...I ended up moving to the championship spot (2nd female wasn't USATF-NE either!) and took not only the 1st place prize money, but also 1st master prize money. This made me look totally shady, but I was sure to send the first woman a screenshot of her USATF membership clearly showing USATF-Mid-Atlantic. But still, I didn't feel good about this. I definitely need the money, but I feel like a fraud since I was 3rd.

But anyway, I got ahead of myself. I had a little more time to run another mile then came to verify more. I think Todd Callaghan and Tim Van Orden I think were the only other two who registered day-of and I knew they were USATF-NE. Still had to verify them to write their USATF numbers down. Sadly, by race start, we only had 23 USATF-NE members registered. That's pretty sad. Part of the problem was that the race wasn't promoted AT ALL by the USATF-NE. I texted Brandon Newbould on Thursday or Friday before the race asking if he was going. He had no idea it even existed and already had other plans. He was bummed out. Brandon always does the trail champs so I just assumed he knew.

The timing company requested I come up to their trailer just to verify that I wanted a list of just USATF-NE finishers at the end. I did. (Unfortunately, the timers would screw up the results because of this so Jeff (RD) would hand out the wrong awards to the wrong people. Ugh.) By this point I only had about 10 minutes to get ready to race. John was sound asleep still. I covered Phoenix in my coat. I headed over towards the start to runaround and keep warm. Ran into Crutchley who was having a hard time with Beth's passing. I had teared up on the drive into town because I felt like Beth should be here, not me. But she was no longer with this place and her friends. Westerly Track & Athletic Club puts on the Lil' Rhody Runaround, and Beth was a member. So nearly everyone there knew Beth. The announcer did a quick moment of silence, and that did me in. There were tears, but I had to dry my eyes. We were about to start.

I knew coming into the race that I wasn't going to win. I only knew of the woman who finished 2nd ahead of time and knew she would beat me. When I saw the woman who won, I had a feeling she would beat me, too. I was right on both counts. And they didn't just beat me. They destroyed me. Haha. There were a few other women (one a young girl) standing in front of or next to me whom I didn't recognize so I had no idea how I was going to finish today. The 4-hour drive had made me feel really tired, and my tendons were aching from the sitting. I hoped for the best, but I was skeptical.

The race started off fast as usual down the road. But this year all of the potholes had been filled so we weren't running through puddles. One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that this year's course had been changed to a 10-mile from the 8-mile for the Trail Champs. This meant some (awesome) changes in the course. The first one was either around mile 1 or just before it where we went left on some great, winding single track instead of running the paved road through the campground. I loved this change. I know of one certain naysayer who didn't race because he didn't like the course change. I guarantee if he wasn't trying to copy my stubbornness and raced, he would have really liked the course changes. 😁 They definitely made the course so much better.

I felt good for the first mile and through this single track. It was fun. The first woman had bolted way out ahead at the start, but for this section I was running with the 2nd woman (who would actually run a really great race and came from behind almost catching 1st place; only missed it by less than 20 seconds I think). We finally came across a road and entered the trail back on the old course at the start of the bog bridges. I had passed a group of guys just before this. One was wearing a Block Island Sports top and another this really tall dude. I kept sneaking a peek back to see them both right behind me. One of them said something like, "How many of these bridges do we have left, Leslie?" I was wondering how they knew my name, but I didn't look back. I replied that we still had a lot because we hadn't gone through the covered bridge one yet. At this point I was still right behind the 2nd woman but as soon as we got off the 1st set of bridges, she started to pull away. I was able to hang on close through the 2nd set of bridges, but after that, she moved on ahead and I started fading. I was suddenly feeling awful. Both legs felt ached and felt like lead. I have no idea why the quads felt this way. And I was suddenly feeling fatigued. I should add that the covered bridge we ran through would have the first "BLS" in tape on the floor that Jonny Hammett put out along the course for Beth. They made me smile and yelled, "BLS!" every time we ran over one.

I watched the 2nd woman fade away into the distance, and suddenly had some guy right on my heels refusing to pass me. It was pretty annoying. I don't know how long he ran there, but I was relieved when he finally went on ahead. As we came out on the road, I took a peek back to see if any women were nearby. I noticed the Block Island top guy out of the corner of my eye. As he got closer, I realized it was Jim Boule!! Hahaha. I had no idea it was him! He was the one who spoke to me about the bridges. So funny. The Block Island top threw me off. After realizing it was him, I was like wait a second. Why is Jim behind me? He said he was hurting. I told him I was, too. We would run the rest of the race together on our struggle bus. Haha. I had started stumbling at this point once we reentered the woods. Like literally stumbling. Kept tripping since I couldn't seem to lift my legs. I had zero energy as we ran through this section of the original course. I kept looking back and seeing a bunch of guys catching up to Jim and me. I could see Ralph Lufkin and Seth Acton back there and some kid in between. It didn't take long for the first one to pass us. I didn't have to look to know we were about to get passed because he was blasting music on his phone. The first person back the last time I looked was Ralph so I thought, "Wow. Why would Ralph do something like that? That doesn't seem like him." Haha. I breathed a sigh of relief when he finally passed and it was just a really young guy. I'd let it go; kind of an age appropriate thing to do. He seemed like a nice kid since we ran behind him for awhile and finally ended up passing him back.

We entered the new section of singletrack that was awesome. Too bad I felt so awful that I couldn't enjoy it much, but it was great. A lot of small rollers and a little more technical trail for Lil' Rhody. I really loved it. Just wished I didn't feel so bad. Ralph finally passed us about mid-way through the section. Seth and another guy caught up to us and chose to just hang back behind. So sadly, this hot mess was leading the way for the next mile or so. I continued to stumble through this whole section. I didn't feel awful like I did at the end of the Pisgah 50K. This was a different awful. Like overly fatigued or something. I don't know, but I was never so happy to get out on the road for the last .9 miles to the finish. Seth and the other guy passed us right away. And Jim and I mostly ran right next to each other with Jim getting ahead of me a few steps until we were just coming down to the finish. Jim slowed and got behind me to let me finish ahead of him. I wanted to finish together, but he's the nicest person and let me "beat" him. 3rd female in 1:16:58. Over 3 minutes back from 1st and 2nd. I was 27th overall. My GPS came out to 9.7 miles so I'd say the course was probably just over 10 miles. So my average pace was actually pretty decent for a trail race (7:42avg for 10 miles). Sad, though, that in 2016, my average pace was 6:42, exactly a MINUTE faster per mile. But I was also not dealing these fucking chronic injuries. What it would feel like to run without this pain again! I can't even remember.

But anyway, I got over it pretty quickly. I hadn't had a shitty race in awhile so I was due. I honestly was totally ok with it after I finished. It is what it is. That's what my body could do today. Full Results.

I chatted with a few people then put on some clothes to take Phoenix out. I tried to wake John up, but he only grumbled and went back to sleep. I didn't have time to get Phoenix back to the car when the timers paged me to the trailer. I thought it was early to be giving me the results, and I was right. They just wanted to give me a separate list of the USATF-NE who had registered. I put Phoenix in the car, grabbed my warm coat and the medals and went down to the cabin. As results started to be posted, we noticed that it as the 4-mile and 10-mile combined into one list. And people had these different numbers for their division next to their names. We couldn't make any sense of it. I decided to just put out the medals so they were easy to hand out.

Finally the USATF-NE results were handed to me and the full results handed to Jeff. Tim Van Orden immediately noticed he wasn't on my sheet so I added him manually. He was 1st master. Other than that it all looked correct. Jeff started doing race awards, but for some reason his last had all the wrong people. He had already called out top 3 overall finishers and a few age groups before anyone realized they were all wrong. I felt bad for Jeff because he was totally embarrassed about the mistake even though it wasn't his fault at all. The timers were notified about the issue and fixed Jeff's list. Fortunately, everyone seemed to be understanding of the mistake, but I know the feeling as a race director when something goes wrong. Even if it's not your fault, you still feel like it's on you.

It was finally my turn to do awards, and I'll admit that I was a bit awkward using the microphone. Jeff offered to help hand out the medals and I should have taken him up on it because I ended up handing out medals and W-9 forms to fill out as the prize money winners came up. Before I did the awards, I attempted to explain the whole USATF-NE thing since I knew a lot of people were confused. I guess many left still confused. I'm not sure why the confusion because it's a very concept to me, but obviously, people still didn't get it. I was able to get W-9s from all but two people which would speed up their receiving the prize money. I'd have the other two forms to the USATF-NE treasurer in less than a week.

After the awards, one of the timers came down to apologize for the results mistake and explain what happened. He said they do a lot of USATF-Connecticut races where they aren't allowed to double-dip in awards. He thought it was the same today so they removed all USATF-NE finishers from Jeff's list. And the reason they had people labeled with strange numbers on the original posted results was because the USATF-NE racers were separate divisions. That part I didn't really understand, but it didn't matter. I thought my results were all correct... until later with the 1st woman, but I've already gone over that.

So anyway, it turns out that I'm the 2019 USATF-NE Female Trail Champion (thank you, Kassandra Marin for not showing up, even though it meant you had to be sick!). I honestly didn't brag about this "win" or post about it anywhere. There absolutely zero photos from the race to share so that made it easy to keep it on the DL. But speaking of photos, that's something I should have thought of sooner than the night before the race. Being a championship race, photos would have been a really good idea. The only photo I have from last year was taken by Beth. :( So I figured no one would be out there. I did think of it the night before and thought oh yeah, Michael Scott should be there. Yay! Michael is an official USATF photographer who is paid to travel around the country shooting photos at USATF events, mostly championship ones. He was at Run with the Beavers last year. He also lives close to Burlingame so I messaged him asking if he was going to be there shooting. He didn't even know about it since he wasn't scheduled for it. If he's not scheduled, he doesn't get paid, so he didn't come out to take photos. I was kind of hoping he would anyway just because he basically lives right down the street, but I'm sure he was enjoying a day off at home. Oh well. But like I said. This is a good thing since I didn't have any photos to share and I'm sure I looked as awful as I felt anyway.

Everyone dispersed and then Jennifer & Steve and John & I followed Muddy up to Jonny's house for what has become a yearly tradition. Jonny's wife always makes great food and Jonny gave me really good dark beer from the Tilted Barn (I miss going there; it's been years now). John came in and ate. Fortunately, he was in a really good mood, but I didn't make him stay long. I felt bad enough dragging him down there. He hasn't had to go with me for this race the last two years since he normally sleeps over at the same friend's house he had been to the day before. Every year, I wish this race was on a Saturday so that I could stay the night down there after, but I always have to work Monday at 7am (this might change for next year!).

John and I headed out and stopped at Barnes & Noble in West Warwick. This wasn't our first time here. Haha. We had forgotten John's book to read since he was supposed to read 150 pages for school so I decided to stop and buy him one of his manga books. We also grabbed coffee there then headed home. John read his whole book in less than an hour then went back to sleep. Haha. The drive was BRUTAL. I was so tired to the point of delirium by the time we got home. I don't even remember the rest of the night I was so out of it.

So I'm finishing this blog post on Dec 4th, but I'm not publishing it until the weekend. I think I can get caught up next week! There won't be much in the next post. Thanksgiving and the week before that.

So race plans that included the BU Mini Meet on 12/21 and Nooseneck 18K on 12/26 are pretty much scratched. My hip is improving, but it's not even close to being healed. I don't plan to run for at least 2 weeks, although I'm guessing it will be longer. If I can run by Nooseneck then I'll still go down, but I won't "race". I'll just run it easy for "fun". But right now that's not looking good. My only other plans were Whitaker Woods Snowshoe Race and the Master Indoor Meet in January. Hopefully those can still happen...even if I'm out of shape for them for a second year in a row. The USATF-NE Grand Prix Road Race was voted upon, and I'm actually really happy for some of it. I wasn't planning to run a marathon in 2020, but hell froze over, and the Vermont City Marathon got chosen!! I have to do it. I want to! The last time it was in the GP was in 2015 when I ran the best race of my life and my marathon PR, 2:55:49. Although that time won't happen again, I really wanted to go back to VCM anyway since my last time there was a DNF. This time I won't go back as part of the elite field that I was in the 3 times I raced it, but I'm totally ok with that. I kind of want to fall back in the crowd now. We got two new races to the GP for the 5-mile and 5K so I'm excited about those, too. I might even do New Bedford! But I'm not sure yet. Other than that, I have zero big plans for 2020. No goal race...yet! First I need to heal up and get back in shape.