By: Mizuno Race Team Member, Mike Aish
Well, after two weeks of sitting on the couch, watching TV and feeling sorry for myself I put my shoes back on and convinced myself to get back at it.
Not finishing the Leadville 100 was a huge blow and to be honest, had me questioning if I really wanted to keep running. The problem with putting all your eggs in one basket is that if things don’t go to plan, you’re kind of left in no man’s land of what to do next. I traveled up to the mountains just about every week from the beginning of June to train, and as far as my lead up races went it showed I was in pretty good shape. I had focused well on the task at hand and worked my ass off to get to Leadville as prepared as possible. There was only one plan and that was to win or to make it as painful as I could for anyone to beat me. So much for that plan..
I’m not 100% sure what I did wrong, but somewhere between mile 40 and 60 my stomach turned and I just couldn’t get anything in, or keep anything down, so it was just a matter of time before I ran out of gas and I knew it. Unlike last year, there was no “Come Back”. This year I had flat tires all around and they were unrepairable.
Anyway…. Like I said, it’s been the best part of 4 weeks since the race. I spent two of those weeks trying to dull the pain with as many bags of chips and as much ice- cream as I could hold down. I think I’ve watched most of the shows on Netflix and I’m pretty sure I’m the best dart player in my neighborhood.
I spent a good number of days pretending to be a mountain biker, developing no real skill, just the holding on to the advice Dave Wiens gave me last year, “If you can keep the tires on the dirt then your doing just fine.” There were a few days on my skateboard and a few days messing around in the garage trying to build something that I could rest a cup of coffee on. The time just flew by and in the back of my mind I think I was kind of trying to keep myself busy so I didn’t have to think about training or the race.
At the start of last week I’m not sure if it was only because I ran out of things to do around the house or not, but I put my shoes back on for the first time and headed out the door. I’m not going to lie to you and say it was the best run of my life. The truth is I may have gained a little weight with my high-calorie diet, so after the first few minutes I was in a world of hurt but if felt good to be out and I’d made that first step forward.
After being able to run most of last week I decided that this week I was going to get back into some real training. This meant moving from some easy enjoyable runs around North Table Mountain to some real workouts. This seemed like a good idea? I got halfway through my workout yesterday, my legs were crying out and my lungs were screaming. I was seeing double and sweating like a pig but I made it, I got it done. One more step forward….
I think the hardest part of a bad race is hours and days after the race when you second and third guess yourself being inside your own head with nothing but time. What I could have and should have done. It’s hard to let go of and that craziness is only compounded when you do get yourself back out the door and get back after it, only to realize that you’re going to need a few weeks of training just to get back to the place where each run is enjoyable.
Right now I’m a little out of shape, I’m dead tired after each run and it takes me 15-20 minutes before I can walk normal in the mornings, but it kind of feels good. I can tell I’m getting stronger and I’m on my way back to maybe being a runner again.
Michael Aish is a former New Zealand Olympian, 2000-10,000/2004-5,000m, and current ultra marathoner for the Mizuno Race Team. With PR’s of 13:22 for 5K and 27:46 for 10K, Michael has been tearing up the ultra scene for the last four years, with his most notable performance being a 2nd place finish in the 2014 Leadville 100.