This post will be a rolling commentary on what Trevor wrote about Stage 6. I'll post what he wrote in italics and quotation marks, then follow up with my comments.
"Instead I had a different variety today" He's referring to the challenge he would have today, which was mostly exercising patience, minimizing frustration with me, and trying to motivate me. I know the feeling. I did 8 days of Outward Bound in 1999 and despite the constant reminders from Outward Bound to train hard for this endeavor, several gals in our group showed up woefully unprepared. Instead of long distances, big climbs, and hard days, I had to do what Trevor did today. It's not terribly fun. Guys like us aren't used to using these skill sets; we'd much prefer the ones that make us cross-eyed with exertion. Alas.
"But today JP was in so much pain that he told me he couldn't talk." Indeed, conversation on the steep (read: painful) downhills of stage 4 were great for me. Today, I needed to think. I had to figure out how to manage the pain, how to shift my gait to be faster, how to, basically, keep moving forward. I couldn't come to grips mentally with how awful this situation was. Had it been a hike I would've bailed on the road and called for a ride. Had it been a solo race I would've...I don't know. Quit? Laid on the ground for a while? Just walked at whatever pace I decided was comfortable? Had it been a training run, I never would've started. It was none of these things, though, and I had to figure out how to get it done. The answers were not apparent. In the end, it was simple. Gut it out, tough it out, finish it. It's not going to be fun, it's not going to be pretty, but you're out of options, so deal with it as best you can.
"We have never really raced/trained together, thus we have never experienced each other in Camp Shit while competing. So I didn't know how to react when things turned bad." These were the same questions I had in the early stages of the race; I wanted to call KJC and ask her what to do. I still don't know what I need to hear when I go bad. Historically it's been my stomach, which just takes time to clear. But this was altogether different. There wasn't much help anyone without a needle and some pain-killers could do for me I don't think.
"I do recall in Stage 1 JP telling me when I was in the red, that when he goes, he goes hard. It was all happening as he said." Cut to Trevor Mills, Mark Beaty, Andrew Kurzon, Joe Aubin, Matt Berrien, and David Bertino all nodding in agreement.
"I also continued to jog albeit at a very slow pace and sometime in place. I wanted to keep going. I'm not sure if this shuffling of feet behind him was motivating or annoying." It was highly encouraging. I remember thinking, "Geez, if he's still jogging, I must be walking really fast!" I told you my mind had seceded from the union.
"I had constant fears that an argument/blow out between us was imminent. These were uncharted waters for me and for JP and I." Haha, had I only known at the time, I would've calmed Trevor's fears. I had no energy to be pissed off. Though when his Garmin shit the bed (mine had quit at mile 4, perhaps its way of telling me to bag it up) with 1 mile to go up the climb, and beeped every 5 seconds, I wanted to rip it off and chuck it in a stream.
"I also insisted that he eat something. Unfortunately all we had was gels." You've never seen someone eat a 1oz gel in 5 slurps over 10 minutes before. I was in a - bad - way.
19 September 2011
01 September 2011
Stage 6...not the ending we hoped for
This is 3 weeks and 2 days late in the writing. It's basically taken me almost this amount of time to get my head around what happened that day. And a change of jobs and several doctors appointments have kept me pretty busy.
Before we get to Stage 6, let me talk more about Stage 5, as it has so much to do with what happened, and didn't happen, the next day. With about 2 miles to go on Stage 5, I tripped on a root and put the inside of my left knee into a tree, while going downhill, on a very good day. We were moving decently and I hit the deck backwards and on my back, knowing right away my knee was in trouble. Blood was running down my leg and it hurt pretty badly immediately. We finished the stage and when I should've spent the post-race time doing the things that had kept me going all week. Instead, my family was in town and so was the US Pro Cycling Challenge. My recovery would not be what I needed on this day.
I showered, got some food, had the medical tent doctor up my feet a bit, and walked on down to the bike race. This all sounds normal, but the truth is every day I specifically got off my feet for as much time as possible in between the race finish and dinner. On this day, I walked quite a bit and was playing with my 2-year old son, swinging him up in the air, carrying him on my shoulders, and towing him in his wagon back to the car. Now, before I come across as an asshole, I loved seeing my wife, my son, and my mother-in-law. I loved playing with Colin. I was in pain this whole time, but I was mostly ignoring my senses and enjoying myself. ...not unlike how I spent some of my racing.
I returned back to camp and set about icing and getting off my feet. Dinner wasn't far away and I only managed a 15-minute nap. Again, this is all coming across as selfish, but when you've run 100 miles in 5 days with 24 to go the next morning, you've got to be serious about recovery and taking care of all parts of your body. None of these activities helped me at all. Dinner was incredible; grilled steaks and vegetables and yams, and I loaded up. Also, for the first time all week, I allowed myself a cookie for dessert. Then another. I figured the furnace was burning so hot and so fast I was fine. Maybe next time I would've stopped at 1. Alas.
My night was tough; I had to pee in the middle of the night and was accused of being drunk as I stumbled, staggered, and limped to and from the bathroom. My right foot, with 5 blisters on it was killing me. My knee on the other side, was no better. I'd been dinged up all week, but typically with some elevated extremities overnight as well as some doctoring in the morning, I'd been able to make it.
I was wrong about my body this time.
I woke up and for the first time all week I couldn't get out of bed. The swelling had not subsided, nor had the pain and throbbing. My toes. My ankles. My knee. And, also for the first time all week, my muscles were sore. The pace we set up the climb on Stage 5 caused my calves to be a bit sore, something that would only contribute to the extreme amount of pain I would find myself in a few hours later. Trevor got up and did some things, I just laid there. I had a bad feeling about that day. 23+ miles, 5,000' of climbing, 3 monster climbs and worse, 3 monster descents.
The climbing I could fake. The pounding was minimal, and our pace relative to our competition was close. The descents, though, were excruciating. My toes, 6 of which were blistered, would slam into the front of my shoes. It was awful. My left knee, swollen, bruised with at least 3 colors (brown, yellow, and purple were all distinguishable), when called to perform like a brake, felt as if someone was hitting it on the cap with a metal hammer. To take the pressure off my knee, I'd land only on my toes on my left leg, causing my already sore calves more stress. This hitching on my left side caused me to compensate on my right side. Basically, I looked, ran, sounded, and felt like someone twice my age. It was horrible. And all the while, I knew our rivals were literally running away from us.
I keep it loose at races. My personality, my demeanor. I'm not pro, nor ever will be, and after logging 350+ races in my life, I've found it better to be loose and free than nervous and tight. To anyone listening to me, I was perfectly fine at the start line. To anyone looking at me, they'd wonder just what in the hell I was doing there. My only hope, the only thing keeping me somewhat optimistic, was that each morning it was chilly my joints would ache. This morning was again chilly, and I was hoping against hope that I would warm up after a few miles and the pain would subside. We started off uphill on some trail and then onto a couple of miles of concrete and asphalt, and I was a dead man running. I ran hard-ish on the rollers to the first climb, trying to get some blood flow going and loosening up. No such luck. My knee was getting worse, not better. The first paved descent let me know: JP, you're in trouble today.
We had 19 minutes on 10th place overall, and we were happy to be in the single digits in the highly competitive Open Men field. My goal for the day was to preserve that placing. I actually believed we could do it until half-way through. I had to call Trevor back (maybe only the 3rd or 4th time all week) before check 1, and at that station I was looking for anything that would help me. Arnica, Traumeel, or some NSAIDs perhaps. Nada, just the usual stuff (which was awesome). But I was in a bad way. Everything below the waist was failing, and it was starting to affect things north of the equator. My stomach was getting upset from the pain.
That's the way things usually go. The first to quit the fight is the muscles or joints. It's not their fault; they're the ones taxed the hardest, and if you're not sufficiently trained - which I wasn't - then they're going to have some complaints for you. Next is the stomach; it's a fragile organ, needing the right balance at all times. Water, sugar, salt, and vitamins all are needed in abundance. Getting them in the right portions at the right times takes years to perfect, if you ever do at all. Your last ally is your mind. It can will muscles to fire long after they lodge their first concern. It will tell your stomach to get its shit together; put up or shut up and move on. It can recall your greatest triumphs, your seemingly endless training and give you the confidence to keep going. But when your mind sends up the white flag, you've got nothing left. I know for a fact I've never gone where I went on Stage 6.
I've hiked massive miles in one day and over several days. I've done cycling stage races with 5-hour stages. Mt. Evans, Mt. Washington, and Magnolia Road are all places I've had relative success. I've finished bike rides in epic conditions. I've had bruises from hail on bike rides with nowhere to hide, laid in ditches waiting for the wind to subside, and found myself in the dark in the woods more times than I'd like to admit. I rode on I-70 and Highway 285 and down Boulder Canyon on Saturday afternoons. But this. This pain. This fear. This was new to me.
Coming into check 2 after a pit (read: poop) stop in the woods, I was a mess. My socks were bloody and I needed the wounds re-dressed. I had taped them myself that morning because the line for the medics was an hour long, and between getting all out stuff together and packing up, I didn't have time to wait. I apparently suck at dressing wounds. Taking my shoes off felt good, but then looking at them was awful. What wasn't bleeding was blistered; what wasn't blistered was a hot spot; what wasn't a hot spot wasn't part of me. They re-bandaged me and off I went, as miserable as I've been in some time. We had 12 miles to go, and I was, you guessed it, in a bad way.
This was the most brutal stretch - from check 2 to check 3. There was a lot of (beautiful) downhill through aspen groves, but I was in sheer misery. I had to fight back tears all day, but sometimes I gave in and let a few fly. It was painful, but more so, it was unrelenting. Every step caused pain in numerous locations. It was like someone was torturing me, but it was me inflicting the pain.
I told Trevor not to come around me. I was going as fast as I could, as hard as I could. If he had lead, the number of times I would've told him to slow down or come back would've drained all the energy out of me.
Had it not been the last check on the last day, check 3 would've been my final resting place for TRR. Lots of people dropped out (about 20%), lots of teams fell apart, it would've been reasonably acceptable. But not with only 8 miles to go. Not after I covered 112 in 5+ days. Not with Trevor flying from Ireland. Not with the money I spent. Not with my pride on the line. I sat down (first time) and poured some water over my head. I checked the map they had. I had a bit to eat and drink. Mostly, I delayed the inevitable.
Leaving check 3 was no better, which isn't surprising. It was a lot of concrete, and several street crossings. We were walking and nothing but walking at this point. Jogging across the asphalt streets was horrible. We hit the trail for the final climb, and these next few miles would, without exaggeration, be the hardest miles of my life. The climb wasn't steep, but it didn't matter. We had been out for 4+ hours at this point, and my will, my mind, wasn't cooperating anymore. By some cruel twist of fate, I had Bruce Springsteen's "The River" on my repeat in my head. The slow beat and message of a life gone wrong couldn't've arrived in my head at a worse time. I didn't look up from my shoes and the few feet of trail in front of them for a very long period of time, creating an awful tunnel vision, with no light at the end of it. I wouldn't realize this until I threw up on the side of the trail and rolled over to see the leaves on the trees and the sky above; everything seemed so different so quickly.
The final climb seemed endless. It wasn't particularly pretty; there weren't nice vistas like Hope, Silverhorn, or the back bowls; it kind of looked like central Maine. I threw up once and that, combined with ginger chews from the very charitable Rebecca (of Rebecca and Ben), felt so much better. It didn't last more than 5 minutes. I asked Trevor if he wanted to run, and in a response that really indicates where we each were on that day, Trevor said, "I'm cool to do whatever you can do." He was being kind, charitable, and a good teammate. But what I was really asking was for him to run up to Rebecca, who had passed us, and get more of those ginger chews. When I explained this to him, he ran like he was shot from a cannon. I hope he enjoyed those 30 seconds of fun; they were probably his only of the whole stage.
We made it to the top, largely thanks to Trevor pushing me on my back and some race staff had come up. "Are you the guy that was on the ground?" "Well yeah, but that was by choice. I don't like to throw up standing up." I promptly stole their Coke (they gave me permission, but uhh, only kinda) and cracked it open. There is something about Coke that can really re-power you. It helped, I won't lie. But it came at the wrong place. I didn't need energy to get down the hill on the last 2.5 miles. I needed local anesthesia in about 9 places. I won't get into the details, but a certain team (not our rivals, they flew the coop hours ago) passed us and I really, really didn't like them. I vowed not to let them beat us. Sure, we were up by 10 hours probably, but to lose to them on a stage I could not live with. They beat us. Handily.
Trevor urged me on, encouraged me, challenged me, pushed me, and I swear bro, I gave you all I had. It was horrible. We made the finish, and the relief and the pride was outweighed by the disappointment, the pain, and the need to find a bathroom. We didn't take our picture together, I didn't kiss Cynthia from W.L. Gore. We didn't do anything. I came back from the bathroom, complained to anyone I could find (a great shame on me, especially as Red and Fern had moved into and captured 2nd overall for their division by 13 seconds {after 17 hours}, a huge result), went back and got my "Finisher" shirt and laid in the grass with my feet up. The only place I would move to in the next hour would be the medic tent, and that was partly because it started to rain.
Tory worked on my feet, but not without grabbing an open wound, prompting me to call her Devil Woman. She was not nicer to me after that - you're shocked, I know. Courtesy of Charlie and Eric, 8th overall in our division, we hit the showers in their hotel room and waited for Dana to arrive for dinner that night. I could barely walk. I shuffled along as if I were 80 years old. Actually, I've seen 80 year olds do better.
Dinner wasn't a fun affair. I had to excuse myself shortly after the meal to get horizontal on a picnic table outside as my stomach was still furious. I hardly ate, and passsed on dessert altogether. But once dinner was over and the movies, the photos, the awards, and the speeches flowed, it was awesome. I was so proud of what we had done. Top 10 in the most competitive category was cool, but finishing unto itself had a lot of meaning. Cynthia didn't hold back in her praise of us, and it was just what I needed to remind myself what I had accomplished. At least the pain and suffering wasn't in vain.
I'll do one more post, a re-cap part II if you will, but this was the story of Stage 6, or, forever after known as: the worst athletic day of my life. But I finished it, it didn't finish me. At least I think it didn't. Physical therapy starts on Wednesday on my knee.
Before we get to Stage 6, let me talk more about Stage 5, as it has so much to do with what happened, and didn't happen, the next day. With about 2 miles to go on Stage 5, I tripped on a root and put the inside of my left knee into a tree, while going downhill, on a very good day. We were moving decently and I hit the deck backwards and on my back, knowing right away my knee was in trouble. Blood was running down my leg and it hurt pretty badly immediately. We finished the stage and when I should've spent the post-race time doing the things that had kept me going all week. Instead, my family was in town and so was the US Pro Cycling Challenge. My recovery would not be what I needed on this day.
I showered, got some food, had the medical tent doctor up my feet a bit, and walked on down to the bike race. This all sounds normal, but the truth is every day I specifically got off my feet for as much time as possible in between the race finish and dinner. On this day, I walked quite a bit and was playing with my 2-year old son, swinging him up in the air, carrying him on my shoulders, and towing him in his wagon back to the car. Now, before I come across as an asshole, I loved seeing my wife, my son, and my mother-in-law. I loved playing with Colin. I was in pain this whole time, but I was mostly ignoring my senses and enjoying myself. ...not unlike how I spent some of my racing.
I returned back to camp and set about icing and getting off my feet. Dinner wasn't far away and I only managed a 15-minute nap. Again, this is all coming across as selfish, but when you've run 100 miles in 5 days with 24 to go the next morning, you've got to be serious about recovery and taking care of all parts of your body. None of these activities helped me at all. Dinner was incredible; grilled steaks and vegetables and yams, and I loaded up. Also, for the first time all week, I allowed myself a cookie for dessert. Then another. I figured the furnace was burning so hot and so fast I was fine. Maybe next time I would've stopped at 1. Alas.
My night was tough; I had to pee in the middle of the night and was accused of being drunk as I stumbled, staggered, and limped to and from the bathroom. My right foot, with 5 blisters on it was killing me. My knee on the other side, was no better. I'd been dinged up all week, but typically with some elevated extremities overnight as well as some doctoring in the morning, I'd been able to make it.
I was wrong about my body this time.
I woke up and for the first time all week I couldn't get out of bed. The swelling had not subsided, nor had the pain and throbbing. My toes. My ankles. My knee. And, also for the first time all week, my muscles were sore. The pace we set up the climb on Stage 5 caused my calves to be a bit sore, something that would only contribute to the extreme amount of pain I would find myself in a few hours later. Trevor got up and did some things, I just laid there. I had a bad feeling about that day. 23+ miles, 5,000' of climbing, 3 monster climbs and worse, 3 monster descents.
The climbing I could fake. The pounding was minimal, and our pace relative to our competition was close. The descents, though, were excruciating. My toes, 6 of which were blistered, would slam into the front of my shoes. It was awful. My left knee, swollen, bruised with at least 3 colors (brown, yellow, and purple were all distinguishable), when called to perform like a brake, felt as if someone was hitting it on the cap with a metal hammer. To take the pressure off my knee, I'd land only on my toes on my left leg, causing my already sore calves more stress. This hitching on my left side caused me to compensate on my right side. Basically, I looked, ran, sounded, and felt like someone twice my age. It was horrible. And all the while, I knew our rivals were literally running away from us.
I keep it loose at races. My personality, my demeanor. I'm not pro, nor ever will be, and after logging 350+ races in my life, I've found it better to be loose and free than nervous and tight. To anyone listening to me, I was perfectly fine at the start line. To anyone looking at me, they'd wonder just what in the hell I was doing there. My only hope, the only thing keeping me somewhat optimistic, was that each morning it was chilly my joints would ache. This morning was again chilly, and I was hoping against hope that I would warm up after a few miles and the pain would subside. We started off uphill on some trail and then onto a couple of miles of concrete and asphalt, and I was a dead man running. I ran hard-ish on the rollers to the first climb, trying to get some blood flow going and loosening up. No such luck. My knee was getting worse, not better. The first paved descent let me know: JP, you're in trouble today.
We had 19 minutes on 10th place overall, and we were happy to be in the single digits in the highly competitive Open Men field. My goal for the day was to preserve that placing. I actually believed we could do it until half-way through. I had to call Trevor back (maybe only the 3rd or 4th time all week) before check 1, and at that station I was looking for anything that would help me. Arnica, Traumeel, or some NSAIDs perhaps. Nada, just the usual stuff (which was awesome). But I was in a bad way. Everything below the waist was failing, and it was starting to affect things north of the equator. My stomach was getting upset from the pain.
That's the way things usually go. The first to quit the fight is the muscles or joints. It's not their fault; they're the ones taxed the hardest, and if you're not sufficiently trained - which I wasn't - then they're going to have some complaints for you. Next is the stomach; it's a fragile organ, needing the right balance at all times. Water, sugar, salt, and vitamins all are needed in abundance. Getting them in the right portions at the right times takes years to perfect, if you ever do at all. Your last ally is your mind. It can will muscles to fire long after they lodge their first concern. It will tell your stomach to get its shit together; put up or shut up and move on. It can recall your greatest triumphs, your seemingly endless training and give you the confidence to keep going. But when your mind sends up the white flag, you've got nothing left. I know for a fact I've never gone where I went on Stage 6.
I've hiked massive miles in one day and over several days. I've done cycling stage races with 5-hour stages. Mt. Evans, Mt. Washington, and Magnolia Road are all places I've had relative success. I've finished bike rides in epic conditions. I've had bruises from hail on bike rides with nowhere to hide, laid in ditches waiting for the wind to subside, and found myself in the dark in the woods more times than I'd like to admit. I rode on I-70 and Highway 285 and down Boulder Canyon on Saturday afternoons. But this. This pain. This fear. This was new to me.
Coming into check 2 after a pit (read: poop) stop in the woods, I was a mess. My socks were bloody and I needed the wounds re-dressed. I had taped them myself that morning because the line for the medics was an hour long, and between getting all out stuff together and packing up, I didn't have time to wait. I apparently suck at dressing wounds. Taking my shoes off felt good, but then looking at them was awful. What wasn't bleeding was blistered; what wasn't blistered was a hot spot; what wasn't a hot spot wasn't part of me. They re-bandaged me and off I went, as miserable as I've been in some time. We had 12 miles to go, and I was, you guessed it, in a bad way.
This was the most brutal stretch - from check 2 to check 3. There was a lot of (beautiful) downhill through aspen groves, but I was in sheer misery. I had to fight back tears all day, but sometimes I gave in and let a few fly. It was painful, but more so, it was unrelenting. Every step caused pain in numerous locations. It was like someone was torturing me, but it was me inflicting the pain.
I told Trevor not to come around me. I was going as fast as I could, as hard as I could. If he had lead, the number of times I would've told him to slow down or come back would've drained all the energy out of me.
Had it not been the last check on the last day, check 3 would've been my final resting place for TRR. Lots of people dropped out (about 20%), lots of teams fell apart, it would've been reasonably acceptable. But not with only 8 miles to go. Not after I covered 112 in 5+ days. Not with Trevor flying from Ireland. Not with the money I spent. Not with my pride on the line. I sat down (first time) and poured some water over my head. I checked the map they had. I had a bit to eat and drink. Mostly, I delayed the inevitable.
Leaving check 3 was no better, which isn't surprising. It was a lot of concrete, and several street crossings. We were walking and nothing but walking at this point. Jogging across the asphalt streets was horrible. We hit the trail for the final climb, and these next few miles would, without exaggeration, be the hardest miles of my life. The climb wasn't steep, but it didn't matter. We had been out for 4+ hours at this point, and my will, my mind, wasn't cooperating anymore. By some cruel twist of fate, I had Bruce Springsteen's "The River" on my repeat in my head. The slow beat and message of a life gone wrong couldn't've arrived in my head at a worse time. I didn't look up from my shoes and the few feet of trail in front of them for a very long period of time, creating an awful tunnel vision, with no light at the end of it. I wouldn't realize this until I threw up on the side of the trail and rolled over to see the leaves on the trees and the sky above; everything seemed so different so quickly.
The final climb seemed endless. It wasn't particularly pretty; there weren't nice vistas like Hope, Silverhorn, or the back bowls; it kind of looked like central Maine. I threw up once and that, combined with ginger chews from the very charitable Rebecca (of Rebecca and Ben), felt so much better. It didn't last more than 5 minutes. I asked Trevor if he wanted to run, and in a response that really indicates where we each were on that day, Trevor said, "I'm cool to do whatever you can do." He was being kind, charitable, and a good teammate. But what I was really asking was for him to run up to Rebecca, who had passed us, and get more of those ginger chews. When I explained this to him, he ran like he was shot from a cannon. I hope he enjoyed those 30 seconds of fun; they were probably his only of the whole stage.
We made it to the top, largely thanks to Trevor pushing me on my back and some race staff had come up. "Are you the guy that was on the ground?" "Well yeah, but that was by choice. I don't like to throw up standing up." I promptly stole their Coke (they gave me permission, but uhh, only kinda) and cracked it open. There is something about Coke that can really re-power you. It helped, I won't lie. But it came at the wrong place. I didn't need energy to get down the hill on the last 2.5 miles. I needed local anesthesia in about 9 places. I won't get into the details, but a certain team (not our rivals, they flew the coop hours ago) passed us and I really, really didn't like them. I vowed not to let them beat us. Sure, we were up by 10 hours probably, but to lose to them on a stage I could not live with. They beat us. Handily.
Trevor urged me on, encouraged me, challenged me, pushed me, and I swear bro, I gave you all I had. It was horrible. We made the finish, and the relief and the pride was outweighed by the disappointment, the pain, and the need to find a bathroom. We didn't take our picture together, I didn't kiss Cynthia from W.L. Gore. We didn't do anything. I came back from the bathroom, complained to anyone I could find (a great shame on me, especially as Red and Fern had moved into and captured 2nd overall for their division by 13 seconds {after 17 hours}, a huge result), went back and got my "Finisher" shirt and laid in the grass with my feet up. The only place I would move to in the next hour would be the medic tent, and that was partly because it started to rain.
Tory worked on my feet, but not without grabbing an open wound, prompting me to call her Devil Woman. She was not nicer to me after that - you're shocked, I know. Courtesy of Charlie and Eric, 8th overall in our division, we hit the showers in their hotel room and waited for Dana to arrive for dinner that night. I could barely walk. I shuffled along as if I were 80 years old. Actually, I've seen 80 year olds do better.
Dinner wasn't a fun affair. I had to excuse myself shortly after the meal to get horizontal on a picnic table outside as my stomach was still furious. I hardly ate, and passsed on dessert altogether. But once dinner was over and the movies, the photos, the awards, and the speeches flowed, it was awesome. I was so proud of what we had done. Top 10 in the most competitive category was cool, but finishing unto itself had a lot of meaning. Cynthia didn't hold back in her praise of us, and it was just what I needed to remind myself what I had accomplished. At least the pain and suffering wasn't in vain.
I'll do one more post, a re-cap part II if you will, but this was the story of Stage 6, or, forever after known as: the worst athletic day of my life. But I finished it, it didn't finish me. At least I think it didn't. Physical therapy starts on Wednesday on my knee.
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