By: Mizuno Race Team Member, Mike Aish
So I thought I was on my way. I thought that I was past all the hurdles and that it was just going to be easy sailing from here on out. Like they say, “Plans are great until someone punches you in the face,” and that’s just how I’m feeling.
To catch you up, I had to have lower leg surgery in January to get a bone spur removed from my fibula. After that I had to take a month off to recovery (which I took full advantage of) so by the time I was able to start training again it was February and I was 15lbs overweight.
At about this point, I decided that it would be a good idea to get out of the ice and snow and head back to the New Zealand summer for a ‘Training Camp’ to get myself back into shape. Things went really well and I was able to push myself hard in the mountains each morning and along the beach in the afternoons. I was running 3-4 hours in total each day and getting myself back in to the rhythm of things again.
It’s always really nice to get back to the old country and reconnect with the same training spots that I started out on as a 15 year old kid. Even though it was only ten days, I came back to Colorado feeling that I was over the bump and that everything in my running was starting to click. That was until last weekend….
One thing I like to do when I start the season is to find a local race that has good competition to test my fitness and give me a mark as to where I’m at and what I need to do before my first major race. This year I chose the ‘Run Through Time Marathon’ is Salida, Colorado. It’s a great race and over the past few years has had some great runners use it for the same kind of fitness test I wanted. It was going to be hard, but would give me a true measure of fitness.
The race starts off with a flatter loop before it turns up in to the mountains. As usual, I used this time to stretch out the legs and try and get in to a good position before the single trail hit. As we started to head up I backed off a little and tried to keep in control (from mile 2 to 14 the race climbs almost 4,000ft).
One thing that I’ve discovered about racing up in the mountains is that no matter how fit you are, it always hurts. The only difference is how long you can hold the effort and if you’re still in control of what is going on. Halfway up one hill I was running well but I was starting to get out of control; I started taking a little more risk running over the ice than I probably should have.
I fall on the trail a lot (mainly because I’m to busy trying to tell a good story and not paying attention) but this time it was different. One second I was pushing hard along the trail and the next I was tied up in a mess and flat on my back. It really shook me up and by the time I was on my feet again, runners had started to go past and I didn’t even care. Hurting now, I tried to get my head back into the game but I could feel something was off – I felt out of alignment. Long story short, I made my way to the finish about an hour slower than I was hoping. At the time I was beat up, but still in one piece and already looking forward.
However, after a week I’m still feeling broken. I feel like I have a broken hip and it still hurts to bend over to tie my shoes. As much as I’d like to try and push through this, I think a little rest and a lot of PT are the only things that might help. It’s been a real set back but what can you do?
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.