Recovery and more Pics

Recovery from Angel's Staircase has been great except one thing...

       Angel's may not have been as long as Pocatello but it made up for it in elevation and ruggedness. That being said I didn't have swollen feet and the legs where barley sore the day after. In fact I was at work the next day and in the gym pounding the weights on Monday. I even lifted legs heavy on Wednesday. I didn't do any running but did some biking every day and was feeling great. That was until Saturday morning. I had woken up early to go lift legs at the gym but for whatever reason my 24hr card wouldn't let me in the door (its happened before something wrong with the computer system at the gym) so I decide that I would do a couple mile run. I drove over to the Syringa trail and started up the trail. The first 1/2 mile went great and I was feeling strong and light, then somewhere between there and the mile marker my right shin muscle (where it connects to the knee area) started hurting. It really lit up as I came back down creating not only pain there but in my right knee and hip as well; leaving me in a lot of pain by the time I made it back to the car. My diagnoses is that I have a sever case of shin splints where the muscle attaches to the knee area. I am really bummed about this because I can't run for a while and this is the same type of injury that Anton Krupicka (one of the best ultrarunners in the world) suffered from and it kept him out of racing/running for a year and a half. Hopefully mine heals much faster and is not as severe. The good news is that it only affects running not hiking or lifting (Anton was able to do a ton of hiking that kept him in grate shape). This injury puts a big question mark on the Mt. Spokane 50k. It might be smart not to even think of doing it regardless of how the shin is feeling. That realization really sucks, I really wanted to kill that course, I had a ton of motivation coming out of Angel's to train harder and really do well at Spokane. So depending on how the next few weeks go I might have to adjust some goals and concentrate on working towards something else for a while.     

Coming down the backside of Angel's Staircase

The trail was really rocky as you can see

Another picture of the trail