September 29, 2025 • 31 mins
Sometimes the smartest call is also the one that hurts the most. In this episode of The Back of the Pack Podcast, Kyle opens up about pulling out of his first planned 50-mile ultra and the Marine Corps Marathon after a freak knee injury derailed training. We talk honestly about why stepping back can feel like failure even when it’s the right choice—touching on identity, sunk costs, community expectations, and that heavy mix of FOMO and grief runners know too well. We also break down how nagging pain and uncertain recovery magnify the mental load, and why “doing less” can actually be the bravest move for long-term health. Then we reframe: replacing shame with strategy, setting new goals that fit right now, and letting community support do what it does best. If you’ve ever DNS’d, DNF’d, or just felt crushed by circumstances, this one’s for you. Strength isn’t only found at the finish line—it’s found in the choice to live to run another day.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello, everyone, greetings and salitations. Welcome back to another episode
of the Back of the Pack podcast. I'm your host,
Kyle Walker. Thank you so much for tuning in. Before
we jump into anything else, I just want to say
today is September twenty ninth as this episode airs. Coming
up on October second, that Thursday night is the next
meeting of the Chasing Rabbits Run Club. If you haven't
been out to one of our run club meetings yet, A,
(00:33):
you're missing a great time. B. This is the week
you definitely want to come. This is Casey Marathon week
for the Chasing Rabbits Run Club. There's gonna be a
representative there from the Casey Marathon. They're gonna have swaged
to give away discount on race distances, and then someone's
going to win a free entry into the Kansas City
Marathon half marathon takare five k your choice, So make
(00:54):
sure you are there Discourse Brewery. I would say get
there a little before we start at six thirty pm Thursday,
October second, for Casey Marathon Night at the Chasing Rabbits
Run Club. So wanted to do that before I said
anything else. So if you turn me off now, fine,
at least now you know you need to be there
Thursday evening. Well, we're gonna talk about today. This episode
(01:15):
has been a long time coming. You will probably wonder
why there's been so many guests lately and why it
has not been an episode with just me for a while.
There's reasons I wanted to avoid this episode at all cost.
I wanted to not have to do this episode. But
here we are now. I will say that if this
had come out last week, it would have a very
(01:36):
different ending than what is going to happen and what's
going to be said this week. So and it's a
good thing. It's positive. It is a good thing this
episode did not come out a week ago because things
have changed a little bit. So what we're going to
talk about today? All right, So this is supposed to
be the episode here on September twenty ninth where I
tell you all about my very first Ultra marathon. I
(01:57):
break down everything from Ultra Palooza in my fifty minths miler,
the first time I'd ever done anything over marathon. And
if you paid any attention whatsoever to our social media platforms,
you will know that that didn't happen. Nope, there was
no fifty miler for me. As much as I had
hoped and tried and done everything I absolutely could, there
(02:19):
was no way I could get the training ind that
was necessary to complete a fifty mile race in here
is why. Back in June, I went on a trip
with a buddy of mine. We took our motorcycles. We
rode up to Sturgis, South Dakota. Yes, the world famous
place for all bikers, Sturgis, and we had an awesome weekend.
It was a long weekend. It was I think we
(02:41):
had a guest host on Monday because I was out
of town again, not race related, just we wanted to
go see kind of the mecca of motorcycle riding, and
so we went up to Sturgis. The weather was terrible.
We had horrible writing conditions, driving rain, cold temperatures, freaking hypothermia,
getting not really law. But we were kind of out
in the middle of God's nowhere and stayed at the
(03:02):
one hotel we could find because we could not complete
our journey in the one day we expected to do it,
so we ended up at this Indian casino and hotel
out in the middle of nowhere South Dakota. That the
place was barely functioning, but we got a room. Good
rooms were available, and so we stayed the night there
and finished up the next day. Like it was just
it was the craziest trip. It was, but it was
(03:23):
so much fun, Like we had a blast. So we're
leaving Sturgis and we're coming home. We decided to make
the ride home a two day trip. We stop and
we're staying the night at a hotel I think in
Sioux Falls, somewhere around. I think it was Sue Falls.
The morning that we're about to come home, we are
leaving the hotel, We're going to the Continental breakfast. I'm
walking through in my motorcycle boots and my jeans and
(03:45):
all this that and the other, and I take a
weird step. I take just I don't know. It didn't
seem weird, didn't feel weird. Felt like my knee exploded,
like it exploded all over the ground in this hotel lobby.
As I am to breakfast so much, I had to
sit down, like I could not continue on. I just
I slid in the booth right there, and I was
(04:08):
just in shock. I was trying to forgarent what in
the world happened. I could not walk on my knee,
and so I eventually get up and I'm trying to
walk it off, and I'm trying to get you know,
gut it out, grit through the pain, get breakfast. I
know that once we get on the motorcycles and start
to ride back home to Kansas City, it was another
unseasonably cold morning for June. That was going to feel
like an ice pack on my knee the entire way home.
(04:30):
So I was actually kind of excited about that because
I had this horrible, horrible pain in my knee. Now
the pain has subsided a bit. You know, over time,
I come back, I get back into training ISH, I
get back into running. ISH. My times are terrible at races.
You know, I'm not training during the week, like I've
told you all before. I'm only doing races because my
knee since early June has just been completely jacked up
(04:54):
to the point where there were times I would take
a step and I thought it was going to just
crumple underneath me, like it was going to fold in.
I have but fold over front ways and that's non comfortable,
to the point it's popping, it's making noises, it's extreme
agonizing pain, and it's so bad that I cannot train.
And if you can't train for a fifty miler, if
(05:15):
you're just gonna try and go out there and do
it live, as they say, you're making a terrible decision.
And I didn't want to make a terrible decision. And
as most of you know, I was real close. I
was real close to gutting it out and saying, you
know what, I'm just gonna go out there and if
my knee falls off, falls off and falls apart and
I can't finish, I'll crawl to the finish line. I'll
(05:35):
worry about everything afterwards. I'm just gonna go do it.
That's what I was gonna do. It was would not
have been the right decision, so I decided against it.
I finally decided the pain had gotten so bad I
needed to go see a doctor. I went. I saw
the knee guy, shall we say, and I talked to
them about it, and I said, listen, here's what I'm thinking.
They said, you're an absolute moron. If you do this.
(05:58):
There is no way with what we can I can
just see on the X ray, there is no way
you would complete a fifty miler. So what they were
seeing on the x ray was I have cartilage that
is messed up in my knee. There are bone spurs
in my knee. These bone spurs are like hooking on
the cartilage and causing pain and agony and problems. And
that was just from the x ray. Now I do
(06:20):
have an MRI coming up. I haven't had it yet.
It takes a little time to get in. It is
scheduled for Thursday, same day as the Jason Rabbit's Run
Club six thirty discourse Bury Breathe be there, but I
will get my MRI that day, and then of course
I'll get back with the doctors and we'll figure out
what in the world is going on. They gave mystery
restauant my knee. It has helped immensely. It has helped
(06:40):
a whole whole bunch, So that is encouraging news. I
am encouraged by this. But my overall thing that I'm
trying to tell you is I couldn't do the fifty miler.
Also to the point when I discussed it with them,
I also can't do Marine Corps Marathon. Yep, I'm gonna
have to miss it. I have to miss all of it.
And I did. I did what I had to do.
I kind of kind of burned the boats behind me.
(07:02):
I went ahead and canceled my flight. I canceled the hotel,
and I left it so that there's no way I
could just last minute decide I'm going to Washington and
try and run Marine Corps because again, my knee wouldn't
be able to tolerate it. At least I don't think so.
The prevailing thought is that overall, other than what they
saw on the X ray, what they're gonna see on
the MRI is a torn meniscus. Could be partially torn,
(07:25):
could be all the way torn. I think if it
was all the way torn, it would be worse than
it is now, but it's not great. However, the steroid
shot helped a lot, which also leads to it might
not be the meniscus they said. If it was, then
the steroid shot wouldn't help a lot. Well, unless it's
complete placebo effect. I think the shot helped a lot,
but either way, fifty miler gone, Marine Corps Marathon gone.
(07:48):
I am keeping on the calendar December and going back
to Mississippi for the Gulf Coast Marathon, which I'm whearing
last year's shirt from for the entraining to try and
get my redemption race. They don't think that's unreasonable. Again,
I talked to him. I talked to the kne guy
about that, that's not unreasonable. But of course everything's gonna
come down to the MRI, which we're gonna have here
(08:09):
in a few days. So that's great. But what I
want to talk about, of course, is really what happens
when you aim for something so high and then of
course you fall woefully short. Woefully short isn't even the DNF,
it's the did not start, it's the DNS. I couldn't
even make it to the start line of this race.
So of course I was super excited about the ALTAR
(08:30):
and super excited about the Marine Corps. Freak accident, freak
step going through a lobby cost me all these things,
and then there, of course there's the agonizing decision that
it was right to pull out of these events, even
though it sucks, because what happens is when we build
something up like this, Okay, we build up a fifty
miler or a full marathon, or a destination race or
(08:53):
World Marathon major or a redemption race, whatever you might have,
you make that your identity because how many times. If
you're listening to this and you saw me, did you
ask about the fifty miler? Many people did after I
announced I was doing it. It's what I heard about
at most races. Hey, how's the training going for the ultra?
How's your first ultu looking? What are you gonna do
about the ultra? Kind of a thing that kind of
(09:13):
became my running identity for the summer period of twenty
twenty five. And so then when that goes away, when
you can't do it, when you have to withdraw, when
you're injured, when your training's not right, you almost feel
like you've lost your identity in running, and that can
really mess with your head. We've talked about it before.
What happens after you complete that goal race? You kind
of lose your identity, you know, if the whole thing.
(09:36):
And I know some people who very recently have gotten
accepted to the Boston Marathon, and that is super great,
and I am so proud of you guys for bequeuing.
And then they're gonna make the Boston Marathon. All the
way up until April, their complete identity every race they're
gonna run is to prepare themselves for Boston. Well, when
Boston is over, then you lose your identity. It's like,
I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I
don't know what I'm aiming for. I don't know what
(09:57):
to do with my hands, kind of a thing. And
you get that the same way when whe of your
goal races, your big commitments gets laid to waste, and
it really can mess with who you are, your identity
as a runner. And then of course there's also the
I sunk money into this, I sunk time and trouble.
I've got a stack right here at my feet of
(10:19):
all the Ultra Marathon gear that I bought. Then it's
still sitting there in its packages, never to be opened,
at least not yet, not for a while, not when
they were supposed to be. I've got a whole bag
of trail wind. I have got gators to cover my shoes.
I have a hydration vest, I had a belt. I
had trail shoes that have now been worn one time
because I went and got Ultra Marathon trail shoes. Because
(10:41):
we're going to be on crushed gravel. A whole bunch
all of that money out the window, at least for
now as it pertained to this particular goal of the
fifty mile or in September of twenty twenty five, which
of course has come and gone, and I wasn't there.
You don't see the metal around my neck because stress me.
If I had gotten it, i'd be there. Then there's
always the community pressure, you know, again, everyone asking you
(11:03):
about it, not to be obscene, not to be aggravating,
not to hurt your feelings, but because they care about
how it's working out for you, and how your training's
going and how you're feeling how things are looking. Everyone cares,
But you feel that pressure when everyone's asking you about it,
especially because I have still been running races. I still
did the Heartland thirty k series right the three ten
k's in a row, and people are asking me about
(11:25):
it at the events most of the time. For most
of that series, I had already decided I was probably
gonna have to withdraw, But there's that pressure and people
are asking, and yeah, I was still at races. I
was gutting it out to get through that series or
a five k or the Autumum half marathon. But I
couldn't train during the week. The races were all I
could do. They were everything I could do, because after
(11:47):
that it was kind of damage control for what I
had done to it, you know, dealing with the pain,
dealing with the after effects, whatever that case might be.
Then of course the next thing is follmo. You don't
want to miss out. I don't want to miss out
on these things. You think I want to miss out
on the fiftieth Marine Corps Marathon hel to the No, Absolutely,
I do not. I want to be there. I want
to I was at the fortieth. I want to be
at the fiftieth. I want to get that cool metal.
(12:09):
I want to get the swag. I want to go
back to Washington. I want to do all those things,
and I can't. But I certainly am having the phomoms
to certainly having the fear of missing out because I
am going to miss out now. I missed out on
Ultra Pluoza that's already coming gone. Thankfully, Sydney sent me
a message saying, eh, maybe a good thing you didn't
make it. There were issues issues, We'll just say issues,
(12:29):
and so makes the FOMO a little less. But I
know when we get to the end of October, and
especially if my knee maybe doesn't need surgery, if it
only needs maybe this that or the other, or you know,
things could get better quickly. Then of course I am
going to be just absolutely dismayed that I'm not in
Washington running that race. But it's the right move, and
it was the right move at the right time when
I asked the guy, is this the right move right now? Yeah,
(12:52):
So FOMO is definitely going to be a thing. And
then there's also cognitive dissonance. There we go, you're head
and this is right. Your heart tells you you're a failure,
and that definitely pertains to me. I don't know about you,
but yeah, oh, in my heart, I'm a complete failure.
(13:13):
I didn't do the fifty mile, or I didn't do
what I told everyone I was gonna do. I talked
this up, I talked it out, or we were gonna
do podcasts about it. I was already planning in the
tiktoks I was gonna do from the course, I was
gonna have everything, just all of this, every freaking running
thing I do is to try and get more eyes
on this dang podcast. And it was a complete bus,
complete bust. So my heart says, dude, you failed, And
(13:35):
of course I've told you before in my particular position
as the ugly face of this podcast, it's not only
did I fail me, I failed you. I can't bring
you the substance. I can't bring you the topic. I
can't bring you the information or the creativity or any
of that's. I can't bring any of it to you
because I wasn't there. So for me, it kind of
(13:55):
feels like double failure. And again that in my head,
I know that's not right, and I know people are
going to say, oh no, no, it's fine, you did
the right thing, this, that and the other, and that's great,
thank you very much, you're very supportive. But my heart says,
I failed not once, but twice, and really not once,
not twice, not three times, not well yeah four, because
I failed twice me and you for the fifty miler
and then twice me and you for Marine Corps Marathon.
(14:17):
And it's it's a bad, bad feeling. I don't like it,
bad bad feeling. So that's kind of where we're au
in on how that feels. All right. So the physical
toll kind of also fuels the mental. So whenever you're
running in pain, whenever you've got pain somewhere, it can
be a foot can be, a knee, can be, a
calf can be, a quad, can be, a hammy, can
(14:39):
be whatever you're using a run hips. Hips are getting
a lot of people right now. Pain plus uncertainty equals
constant stress. And if you've been listening to the Back
of the Pack podcast Second Wind episodes on Friday, We've
done a whole series now, a complete month long on
what stress does to us as runners and people. If
(14:59):
you have not listened those four episodes, go back and listen,
because yes, this is another reason why stress really spoke
to me in September, because I was going through it
as I knew I was hurt. I got hurt in June,
and you know, June wasn't great, July wasn't great, August
wasn't great. Things are just getting worse, not better. And
I'm in September and now I have to make the
decision because it's damn near go time and my training
(15:20):
was not good. I'm under stress about it, I'm freaked
out about it. I hurt, so it ups the stress
and we had all the things working against us. And
so yes, pain plusant certainty equals constant stress, and it
does affect your body and It affects every part of you.
If you listen to the Friday episodes. What have I said?
It rewires you, stress rewires your body. Go listen to
those episodes. Next, there's chronic injury stress. Chronic injury stress
(15:45):
mimics grief. Okay, so you go through like the same
process of what the seven steps when you're hurt. You
go through the denial all the way up to acceptance
and the bargaining and the anger and all that stuff.
And I absolutely do that denial was minue, will be fine.
We need a new pair of shoes. Okay. Denial is
that was a complete hoax that happened up in Sturgis
(16:05):
in June. And denial is I'm gonna run through this,
and denial with the I'm gonna run through this goes
to the anger of I'm gonnaff and run through this.
Screw this knee. I don't care if you're hurt. We
committed to doing this. We're gonna do it, and then
you bargain. Okay, let me just get through this race.
After this race, I'll go get the MR and I'll
talk to the guy and we'll figure it out. I
(16:26):
didn't again, all those all the way up to accept it.
I can't do the race withdraw burn the boats, cancel,
the hotel, cancel, the plane, tickets, can't go, and it sucks,
and it really sucks when you have to go there.
And then of course this entire time June through September,
(16:46):
every day we got closer, and every day I'm not
putting down the miles that need to be put down.
Then that is that that just magnifies your frustration. You
can't train the way you want or the way you
know you need to, and you just get more and
more frustrated as that goes along, and there's there's nothing
(17:07):
you can do when you're hurt. You're hurt, but then
you're just you're piling more on yourself. Okay, I'm so
behind on mileage, I'm so behind on cross training, I'm
so behind on this, so behind in the other and
you're just getting angry about it, more frustrated, and that's
never good for you. That's never going to lead to
good results, because then you might try and overtrain, you
might try and train through that injury, you might injure
yourself further, which of course is what I was worried about.
(17:30):
And so just These are the physical tolls that can
mess with your mental minds when you're dealing with this stuff,
and look to the outsider looking in. If there's a
first running podcast you've ever listened to, you might be
sitting there thinking, man, this guy is freaking nuts. Like,
no one takes this that seriously. Into that altogether we
say bull dinky, all right, we as runners take it
(17:54):
this seriously. All right. I know I am not alone
in what I am talking about here, the way I feel,
the way I have felt, what I've been going through.
Many a runner goes through this, and menial runner goes
through that same level of frustration, if not worse. Trust me,
we've all been there. We've all done that, and we've
all probably gotten the T shirt we shouldn't have gotten
because we went to a race we shouldn't have run.
That's what I'm trying to avoid at this point. So
(18:19):
it was the right decision to withdraw from the news races.
All right. I can I celebrate the things I've done.
Sure I finished the Heartland Series, Sure we did the
first Autumn half marathon. Sure I've made some five k's.
It's not what I wanted. I'm not wearing those things
like badges of honor or anything. But I got them done.
I've not injured myself further, which is good. So next
(18:41):
we go to new goals. Right, this is just one
of the things we're gonna have to do. We need
to go to new goals. The fifty mile Yer is
dead and Marine Corps is dead. My goal now is
get through the MRI. My goal is to meet with
the doctor after the MRI to see what they see.
I want to know, and then my goals will have
to adjust based on what I am told. I hope
(19:05):
and they think it's possible. I can still make Mississippian December. Okay, great,
I hope that's the case. That's what I'm kind of
expecting to be the case. If this is, we're going
to require some kind of surgery, though, then everything is
off the table and the surgery gets done instantly, all right,
That will mean no good life haves ee, or at
least I'm only up there as a supporter, not a runner,
(19:28):
because I still am gonna work the booth. I'm still
gonna have our table up there, but I might just
be up there supporting y'all and not running it. That
could be a thing. Garment Kin City Half Marathon is
coming up. We're gonna see what happens there. Everything comes
back to what that MRI says. But I do plan
on doing what the doctor tells me. Okay, but so
those are my new goals. So those are the real
short term goals. We're gonna get to the long term
(19:49):
goal here in a second. Trust me, in times like
this you can lean into the running community. The people
who do know that I didn't run the race and
know why have been very supportive. Trust me, no one,
No one has sent me a message and said, you
chuckle f how did you not do that race? You
jerk face? How did you not go? You worthless waste
(20:10):
of a runner? Why weren't you there? That has not happened,
nor is it going to, because the running community knows
that when an injury actually takes us out of a race,
not the ones that it should have taken us out of,
but when it actually takes us out of a race,
it's serious. Because we, as stubborn ass runners, we run
through a lot of injury and do a lot of
races we should not do, because we don't withdraw from
(20:34):
races unless it's absolutely critical and this is kind of
where it's been, and so really you kind of have
to you gotta switch around yourself talk all right. So
I've been trying to get out of that. Not you know,
I screwed up or man, I'm really bombed or anything. No,
it was the right decision. It was the doctor approved decision.
(20:55):
And as much as I like to pretend I'm a doctor,
as much as I think I stated a holiday and
express last night, I am not and I am not
a knee person now due to two open heart surgeries,
I feel like I know a little bit more about
the heart than the average every day Joe knees. I
got nothing. I got nothing. It's down there. It's kind
of like below the fat part of my legs. It's
(21:16):
about the extent one I know about knees. But I
went to the guy who does and I'm talking to
them and I'm going to do what they said. And
they said, do not do a fifty miler and do
not count on doing Marine Corps marathon. So I'm not
all right. So I'm not a quitter. I'm not a failure.
I am doing what was told. I am making the
(21:37):
smart move for longer term running. Okay, so that's what
we're gonna do that. That's what I'm doing right now now.
The reason that this has a twist ending from what
would have been if I did this last week. If
you are on our social media platforms, which you should
(21:59):
be Facebook and in Sta Grammar A number one, you'll
see I'm made a particular race that happens in twenty
twenty six. I don't know how I made it. I
still can't believe that I did. But what I like
big butts, and I cannot lie. But this is going
to switch around everything, which is why I went screaming
(22:20):
into the knee office to get covered, to get things
figured out, to start the process of whatever needs to
happen to get the armor I schedule. If they need
to do surgery, we are doing it immediately, if not sooner,
because in twenty twenty six, we're going to Tokyo. Yep.
If you ud missed it on social media, through the lottery,
(22:41):
through the friggin lottery, man, I got selected for the
Tokyo Marathon. I'm shocked, absolutely shocked, shocked, floored, flabbergasted. As
I think I said in the post, I can't believe it.
I still can't believe it. I have already been doing
so much research on Tokyo and Japan and that race.
That race is crazy. It is supposed to be the
(23:04):
easiest of the world marathon majors. You start with a
downhill and then it's perfectly flat, like there is nothing
flatter than Chicago, and Chicago is really freaking flat. My
friends say that one three times fast. So we're going
to Tokyo. We're gonna run that race. But another issue
that they have is timing. Okay, they have I believe
(23:27):
eighteen different timing mats on that course, and you have
to be in front of them every single time. And
if you miss a timing mat, if you're not in
front of it when they close it, you're done. You're finished, alfony,
do not pass, go, do not collect two hundred dollars
like you're done. So they are very strict on the timing.
And what they have is a seven hour window. And
(23:47):
how you're thinking, Okay, well, that's fine, no problem. Most
of the time, you're right, but it is a seven
hour window from when they fire the starting gun, not
from when the last person crosses the start line. So
when they say the race starts at nine excuse me,
nine ten am. Where are these hiccups coming from? Then
it starts at nineteen am, and so does that seven
(24:09):
hour timer. So if you don't start until nine thirty
nine forty, you're already that far behind the gun. Okay,
so you you've already got a deduct twenty thirty forty
minutes from that seven hour. Now there's a reason this
is called the back of the Pack podcast. And we're
not talking elite level here. My full marathon PR is
(24:30):
still five hours forty eight minutes. That was Boston, and
that was the most motivated I'd ever been for a
race in my life. I have to get this knee
right and I gotta find that motivation again because Tokyo
has to be faster. I have to be faster than
five forty eight because I'm already gonna be starting behind
the gun. I'm gonna be starting twenty thirty to forty
(24:52):
minutes behind. What needs to happen to beat that seven hours?
And look, my last full marathon, which I'm trying to
think of what that was, was it Berlin? It might
have been Berlin a year ago, which is right out
a year from the day that I am recording this podcast.
It was I think I was at like five point
fifty three for Berlin. Gotta be faster. I've had full
(25:14):
marathons over six. You can't afford in over six Tokyo,
not with their timing restrictions. Now that it is a
smaller field, thirty nine thousand, okay, thirty nine thousand for
the Tokyo that's smaller than any of the other world
marathon majors, Way smaller than Berlin, way smaller than New York,
a little bit smaller than Boston. But that's still thirty
nine thousand people that got to get through that starting
(25:35):
corral in on the road, and with every minute that
passes you, I have to make up that time. So
that is kind of how we're gonna reframe this. That's
how we're going from short term goal to long term goal.
Long term goal is a little over one hundred and
fifty days away. It is March first, twenty twenty six
(25:56):
in Tokyo, Japan. Now I am going over and I'm
staying late. This is gonna be the only time I
think I will ever visit this country. It's never been
high on my priority list unless it was gonna be
about this world marathon major, and now it is. So
I'm gonna go. I'm gonna see the things, and I'm
need to do the stuff, and I'm gonna line up
some guest hosts for while I'm gone. If you know
(26:18):
anyone or if you are someone, I'm looking at you, Lisa, Elaine, Gretchen,
Karen Hillary, if anyone wants to go ahead and volunteer
to guest host while I'm out of the country, I
will welcome it. And you're in, like already, you're in.
So that's what we got coming up though. So again,
this could have been a lot worse last week because
(26:38):
it would have been before the news of Tokyo. I
got the email on Tokyo on September twenty sixth, the
day before my would be Ultra marathon. So as difficult
as it was to its difficult as it was to
swallow missing the Ultra, it was made a little easier
with the acceptance in the Tokyo Marathon. Trust me, I've
(27:01):
already filled out their paperwork and I've already given them
payment and I have my receipt. So I am in
for that race now. If the knee issue does not resolve,
if the doctors don't clear. If surgery has to happen
and the recovery is long, I can defer. I can
defer to next year. No, trust me, I don't want
to do that. I one do not want to defer
to twenty twenty seven, because in twenty twenty seven, by
(27:24):
hook or crook, I am going to get into that
London marathon and complete my six World Marathon majors. I
have four. I'm now on the hook for five in Tokyo.
I want six in twenty twenty seven in London. I
don't care how I have to make it happen, but
Dad nab, I want my six before my legs completely explode.
But anyway, well that's going to be a different problem
(27:45):
for a different year. Right now, everything is Tokyo forward facing.
We just we are on our way to the land
of the Rising Sun. Trust me, I will bring you
absolutely everything that I can from over there. I will
do better in Tokyo than I did in Berlin. I
was a terrible influencer in Berlin. I will do better.
(28:08):
I will be the most wonderful podcast host that you
have overseas doing that race. How about that? Fair? Fair?
So there we go listen, really just to kind of
close this up, the disappointment and relief can coexist. I
get it. If you're injured, if you have to miss
a race, if you have to miss a big goal
(28:28):
race that has been your identity for four to six months,
It's okay. It does get better after the fact. And
I'm not just saying that because, holy crap, timing wise,
I made Tokyo. It does get better. Look, I do
still plan to run an ultra marathon. I want that
on my resume, and I told you guys at this
point with my a number one dream list already being
(28:50):
accomplished in twenty twenty three in Boston. Everything else I'm
doing i'm doing because I want to. I want an
ultra marathon. I want to be able to tell you
about it. I want to have a metal saying I did,
and then I want to tell people a story about
it so that they can go ooh ah, oh man,
that's really far. Yes, yes it is, and I did
it because we do hard things. Mm hm. So that's gonna.
(29:11):
That's gonna do it. I'm gonna I'm gonna shut my
pie hole. Thank you very much for listening. I do
hope to see you Thursday at the Chasing Rabbits Run
Club for Garman Kansas City Marathon night again. That race
is coming up on October eighteenth. I will be down
there at the expo. I'll have a table. If you're
doing that race, please come by and say hello. Take
a sticker. I think I've still got some bracelets. Lup,
(29:32):
sign the sign because if we have a sign again,
I want everyone to sign the sign because really we
still have Little Rock up here, and they smoked Kansas
City last year. The people at Little Rock went nuts
with this thing two years in a row, and last
year at Garman Kansas City it was full, but not
this full. If you're watching the screen, I'm kind of
dancing back and forth, pointing at the sign that has
all the signatures that's always in the background. So we
(29:53):
can do better Kansas City, right, right, So all right,
I think that's it. I don't think of anything else.
I've been dreading doing this episode admitting that again I
feel like I failed. But it's not a failure. Not
a failure. We're just gonna regroup and we have other
things to focus on, now, that's the truth. Other things
to focus on, and we're gonna do that and if
(30:14):
the doctor says so, we're gonna knock it out the park,
right right, all right, that's gonna do it. For this
week's episode of the Back of the Pack podcast, I
am your host, Kyle Walker. It is my pleasure. As always,
I hope to see Thursday nine at the Chasing Rabbits
Showing Club. If I don't, everyone have a safe week
of training. The freaking heat is back. We're going in
October and we're touching ninety boo hiss, So again, go
(30:35):
back to your hot running schedule. You're hot running conditioning
and awareness and be safe this week until that, you know,
the next fall cold front gets here. Everyone have a
safe week of training, watch the heat. We'll see you
next week.
Hello, everyone, greetings and salitations. Welcome back to another episode
of the Back of the Pack podcast. I'm your host,
Kyle Walker. Thank you so much for tuning in. Before
we jump into anything else, I just want to say
today is September twenty ninth as this episode airs. Coming
up on October second, that Thursday night is the next
meeting of the Chasing Rabbits Run Club. If you haven't
been out to one of our run club meetings yet, A,
(00:33):
you're missing a great time. B. This is the week
you definitely want to come. This is Casey Marathon week
for the Chasing Rabbits Run Club. There's gonna be a
representative there from the Casey Marathon. They're gonna have swaged
to give away discount on race distances, and then someone's
going to win a free entry into the Kansas City
Marathon half marathon takare five k your choice, So make
(00:54):
sure you are there Discourse Brewery. I would say get
there a little before we start at six thirty pm Thursday,
October second, for Casey Marathon Night at the Chasing Rabbits
Run Club. So wanted to do that before I said
anything else. So if you turn me off now, fine,
at least now you know you need to be there
Thursday evening. Well, we're gonna talk about today. This episode
(01:15):
has been a long time coming. You will probably wonder
why there's been so many guests lately and why it
has not been an episode with just me for a while.
There's reasons I wanted to avoid this episode at all cost.
I wanted to not have to do this episode. But
here we are now. I will say that if this
had come out last week, it would have a very
(01:36):
different ending than what is going to happen and what's
going to be said this week. So and it's a
good thing. It's positive. It is a good thing this
episode did not come out a week ago because things
have changed a little bit. So what we're going to
talk about today? All right, So this is supposed to
be the episode here on September twenty ninth where I
tell you all about my very first Ultra marathon. I
(01:57):
break down everything from Ultra Palooza in my fifty minths miler,
the first time I'd ever done anything over marathon. And
if you paid any attention whatsoever to our social media platforms,
you will know that that didn't happen. Nope, there was
no fifty miler for me. As much as I had
hoped and tried and done everything I absolutely could, there
(02:19):
was no way I could get the training ind that
was necessary to complete a fifty mile race in here
is why. Back in June, I went on a trip
with a buddy of mine. We took our motorcycles. We
rode up to Sturgis, South Dakota. Yes, the world famous
place for all bikers, Sturgis, and we had an awesome weekend.
It was a long weekend. It was I think we
(02:41):
had a guest host on Monday because I was out
of town again, not race related, just we wanted to
go see kind of the mecca of motorcycle riding, and
so we went up to Sturgis. The weather was terrible.
We had horrible writing conditions, driving rain, cold temperatures, freaking hypothermia,
getting not really law. But we were kind of out
in the middle of God's nowhere and stayed at the
(03:02):
one hotel we could find because we could not complete
our journey in the one day we expected to do it,
so we ended up at this Indian casino and hotel
out in the middle of nowhere South Dakota. That the
place was barely functioning, but we got a room. Good
rooms were available, and so we stayed the night there
and finished up the next day. Like it was just
it was the craziest trip. It was, but it was
(03:23):
so much fun, Like we had a blast. So we're
leaving Sturgis and we're coming home. We decided to make
the ride home a two day trip. We stop and
we're staying the night at a hotel I think in
Sioux Falls, somewhere around. I think it was Sue Falls.
The morning that we're about to come home, we are
leaving the hotel, We're going to the Continental breakfast. I'm
walking through in my motorcycle boots and my jeans and
(03:45):
all this that and the other, and I take a
weird step. I take just I don't know. It didn't
seem weird, didn't feel weird. Felt like my knee exploded,
like it exploded all over the ground in this hotel lobby.
As I am to breakfast so much, I had to
sit down, like I could not continue on. I just
I slid in the booth right there, and I was
(04:08):
just in shock. I was trying to forgarent what in
the world happened. I could not walk on my knee,
and so I eventually get up and I'm trying to
walk it off, and I'm trying to get you know,
gut it out, grit through the pain, get breakfast. I
know that once we get on the motorcycles and start
to ride back home to Kansas City, it was another
unseasonably cold morning for June. That was going to feel
like an ice pack on my knee the entire way home.
(04:30):
So I was actually kind of excited about that because
I had this horrible, horrible pain in my knee. Now
the pain has subsided a bit. You know, over time,
I come back, I get back into training ISH, I
get back into running. ISH. My times are terrible at races.
You know, I'm not training during the week, like I've
told you all before. I'm only doing races because my
knee since early June has just been completely jacked up
(04:54):
to the point where there were times I would take
a step and I thought it was going to just
crumple underneath me, like it was going to fold in.
I have but fold over front ways and that's non comfortable,
to the point it's popping, it's making noises, it's extreme
agonizing pain, and it's so bad that I cannot train.
And if you can't train for a fifty miler, if
(05:15):
you're just gonna try and go out there and do
it live, as they say, you're making a terrible decision.
And I didn't want to make a terrible decision. And
as most of you know, I was real close. I
was real close to gutting it out and saying, you
know what, I'm just gonna go out there and if
my knee falls off, falls off and falls apart and
I can't finish, I'll crawl to the finish line. I'll
(05:35):
worry about everything afterwards. I'm just gonna go do it.
That's what I was gonna do. It was would not
have been the right decision, so I decided against it.
I finally decided the pain had gotten so bad I
needed to go see a doctor. I went. I saw
the knee guy, shall we say, and I talked to
them about it, and I said, listen, here's what I'm thinking.
They said, you're an absolute moron. If you do this.
(05:58):
There is no way with what we can I can
just see on the X ray, there is no way
you would complete a fifty miler. So what they were
seeing on the x ray was I have cartilage that
is messed up in my knee. There are bone spurs
in my knee. These bone spurs are like hooking on
the cartilage and causing pain and agony and problems. And
that was just from the x ray. Now I do
(06:20):
have an MRI coming up. I haven't had it yet.
It takes a little time to get in. It is
scheduled for Thursday, same day as the Jason Rabbit's Run
Club six thirty discourse Bury Breathe be there, but I
will get my MRI that day, and then of course
I'll get back with the doctors and we'll figure out
what in the world is going on. They gave mystery
restauant my knee. It has helped immensely. It has helped
(06:40):
a whole whole bunch, So that is encouraging news. I
am encouraged by this. But my overall thing that I'm
trying to tell you is I couldn't do the fifty miler.
Also to the point when I discussed it with them,
I also can't do Marine Corps Marathon. Yep, I'm gonna
have to miss it. I have to miss all of it.
And I did. I did what I had to do.
I kind of kind of burned the boats behind me.
(07:02):
I went ahead and canceled my flight. I canceled the hotel,
and I left it so that there's no way I
could just last minute decide I'm going to Washington and
try and run Marine Corps because again, my knee wouldn't
be able to tolerate it. At least I don't think so.
The prevailing thought is that overall, other than what they
saw on the X ray, what they're gonna see on
the MRI is a torn meniscus. Could be partially torn,
(07:25):
could be all the way torn. I think if it
was all the way torn, it would be worse than
it is now, but it's not great. However, the steroid
shot helped a lot, which also leads to it might
not be the meniscus they said. If it was, then
the steroid shot wouldn't help a lot. Well, unless it's
complete placebo effect. I think the shot helped a lot,
but either way, fifty miler gone, Marine Corps Marathon gone.
(07:48):
I am keeping on the calendar December and going back
to Mississippi for the Gulf Coast Marathon, which I'm whearing
last year's shirt from for the entraining to try and
get my redemption race. They don't think that's unreasonable. Again,
I talked to him. I talked to the kne guy
about that, that's not unreasonable. But of course everything's gonna
come down to the MRI, which we're gonna have here
(08:09):
in a few days. So that's great. But what I
want to talk about, of course, is really what happens
when you aim for something so high and then of
course you fall woefully short. Woefully short isn't even the DNF,
it's the did not start, it's the DNS. I couldn't
even make it to the start line of this race.
So of course I was super excited about the ALTAR
(08:30):
and super excited about the Marine Corps. Freak accident, freak
step going through a lobby cost me all these things,
and then there, of course there's the agonizing decision that
it was right to pull out of these events, even
though it sucks, because what happens is when we build
something up like this, Okay, we build up a fifty
miler or a full marathon, or a destination race or
(08:53):
World Marathon major or a redemption race, whatever you might have,
you make that your identity because how many times. If
you're listening to this and you saw me, did you
ask about the fifty miler? Many people did after I
announced I was doing it. It's what I heard about
at most races. Hey, how's the training going for the ultra?
How's your first ultu looking? What are you gonna do
about the ultra? Kind of a thing that kind of
(09:13):
became my running identity for the summer period of twenty
twenty five. And so then when that goes away, when
you can't do it, when you have to withdraw, when
you're injured, when your training's not right, you almost feel
like you've lost your identity in running, and that can
really mess with your head. We've talked about it before.
What happens after you complete that goal race? You kind
of lose your identity, you know, if the whole thing.
(09:36):
And I know some people who very recently have gotten
accepted to the Boston Marathon, and that is super great,
and I am so proud of you guys for bequeuing.
And then they're gonna make the Boston Marathon. All the
way up until April, their complete identity every race they're
gonna run is to prepare themselves for Boston. Well, when
Boston is over, then you lose your identity. It's like,
I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I
don't know what I'm aiming for. I don't know what
(09:57):
to do with my hands, kind of a thing. And
you get that the same way when whe of your
goal races, your big commitments gets laid to waste, and
it really can mess with who you are, your identity
as a runner. And then of course there's also the
I sunk money into this, I sunk time and trouble.
I've got a stack right here at my feet of
(10:19):
all the Ultra Marathon gear that I bought. Then it's
still sitting there in its packages, never to be opened,
at least not yet, not for a while, not when
they were supposed to be. I've got a whole bag
of trail wind. I have got gators to cover my shoes.
I have a hydration vest, I had a belt. I
had trail shoes that have now been worn one time
because I went and got Ultra Marathon trail shoes. Because
(10:41):
we're going to be on crushed gravel. A whole bunch
all of that money out the window, at least for
now as it pertained to this particular goal of the
fifty mile or in September of twenty twenty five, which
of course has come and gone, and I wasn't there.
You don't see the metal around my neck because stress me.
If I had gotten it, i'd be there. Then there's
always the community pressure, you know, again, everyone asking you
(11:03):
about it, not to be obscene, not to be aggravating,
not to hurt your feelings, but because they care about
how it's working out for you, and how your training's
going and how you're feeling how things are looking. Everyone cares,
But you feel that pressure when everyone's asking you about it,
especially because I have still been running races. I still
did the Heartland thirty k series right the three ten
k's in a row, and people are asking me about
(11:25):
it at the events most of the time. For most
of that series, I had already decided I was probably
gonna have to withdraw, But there's that pressure and people
are asking, and yeah, I was still at races. I
was gutting it out to get through that series or
a five k or the Autumum half marathon. But I
couldn't train during the week. The races were all I
could do. They were everything I could do, because after
(11:47):
that it was kind of damage control for what I
had done to it, you know, dealing with the pain,
dealing with the after effects, whatever that case might be.
Then of course the next thing is follmo. You don't
want to miss out. I don't want to miss out
on these things. You think I want to miss out
on the fiftieth Marine Corps Marathon hel to the No, Absolutely,
I do not. I want to be there. I want
to I was at the fortieth. I want to be
at the fiftieth. I want to get that cool metal.
(12:09):
I want to get the swag. I want to go
back to Washington. I want to do all those things,
and I can't. But I certainly am having the phomoms
to certainly having the fear of missing out because I
am going to miss out now. I missed out on
Ultra Pluoza that's already coming gone. Thankfully, Sydney sent me
a message saying, eh, maybe a good thing you didn't
make it. There were issues issues, We'll just say issues,
(12:29):
and so makes the FOMO a little less. But I
know when we get to the end of October, and
especially if my knee maybe doesn't need surgery, if it
only needs maybe this that or the other, or you know,
things could get better quickly. Then of course I am
going to be just absolutely dismayed that I'm not in
Washington running that race. But it's the right move, and
it was the right move at the right time when
I asked the guy, is this the right move right now? Yeah,
(12:52):
So FOMO is definitely going to be a thing. And
then there's also cognitive dissonance. There we go, you're head
and this is right. Your heart tells you you're a failure,
and that definitely pertains to me. I don't know about you,
but yeah, oh, in my heart, I'm a complete failure.
(13:13):
I didn't do the fifty mile, or I didn't do
what I told everyone I was gonna do. I talked
this up, I talked it out, or we were gonna
do podcasts about it. I was already planning in the
tiktoks I was gonna do from the course, I was
gonna have everything, just all of this, every freaking running
thing I do is to try and get more eyes
on this dang podcast. And it was a complete bus,
complete bust. So my heart says, dude, you failed, And
(13:35):
of course I've told you before in my particular position
as the ugly face of this podcast, it's not only
did I fail me, I failed you. I can't bring
you the substance. I can't bring you the topic. I
can't bring you the information or the creativity or any
of that's. I can't bring any of it to you
because I wasn't there. So for me, it kind of
(13:55):
feels like double failure. And again that in my head,
I know that's not right, and I know people are
going to say, oh no, no, it's fine, you did
the right thing, this, that and the other, and that's great,
thank you very much, you're very supportive. But my heart says,
I failed not once, but twice, and really not once,
not twice, not three times, not well yeah four, because
I failed twice me and you for the fifty miler
and then twice me and you for Marine Corps Marathon.
(14:17):
And it's it's a bad, bad feeling. I don't like it,
bad bad feeling. So that's kind of where we're au
in on how that feels. All right. So the physical
toll kind of also fuels the mental. So whenever you're
running in pain, whenever you've got pain somewhere, it can
be a foot can be, a knee, can be, a
calf can be, a quad, can be, a hammy, can
(14:39):
be whatever you're using a run hips. Hips are getting
a lot of people right now. Pain plus uncertainty equals
constant stress. And if you've been listening to the Back
of the Pack podcast Second Wind episodes on Friday, We've
done a whole series now, a complete month long on
what stress does to us as runners and people. If
(14:59):
you have not listened those four episodes, go back and listen,
because yes, this is another reason why stress really spoke
to me in September, because I was going through it
as I knew I was hurt. I got hurt in June,
and you know, June wasn't great, July wasn't great, August
wasn't great. Things are just getting worse, not better. And
I'm in September and now I have to make the
decision because it's damn near go time and my training
(15:20):
was not good. I'm under stress about it, I'm freaked
out about it. I hurt, so it ups the stress
and we had all the things working against us. And
so yes, pain plusant certainty equals constant stress, and it
does affect your body and It affects every part of you.
If you listen to the Friday episodes. What have I said?
It rewires you, stress rewires your body. Go listen to
those episodes. Next, there's chronic injury stress. Chronic injury stress
(15:45):
mimics grief. Okay, so you go through like the same
process of what the seven steps when you're hurt. You
go through the denial all the way up to acceptance
and the bargaining and the anger and all that stuff.
And I absolutely do that denial was minue, will be fine.
We need a new pair of shoes. Okay. Denial is
that was a complete hoax that happened up in Sturgis
(16:05):
in June. And denial is I'm gonna run through this,
and denial with the I'm gonna run through this goes
to the anger of I'm gonnaff and run through this.
Screw this knee. I don't care if you're hurt. We
committed to doing this. We're gonna do it, and then
you bargain. Okay, let me just get through this race.
After this race, I'll go get the MR and I'll
talk to the guy and we'll figure it out. I
(16:26):
didn't again, all those all the way up to accept it.
I can't do the race withdraw burn the boats, cancel,
the hotel, cancel, the plane, tickets, can't go, and it sucks,
and it really sucks when you have to go there.
And then of course this entire time June through September,
(16:46):
every day we got closer, and every day I'm not
putting down the miles that need to be put down.
Then that is that that just magnifies your frustration. You
can't train the way you want or the way you
know you need to, and you just get more and
more frustrated as that goes along, and there's there's nothing
(17:07):
you can do when you're hurt. You're hurt, but then
you're just you're piling more on yourself. Okay, I'm so
behind on mileage, I'm so behind on cross training, I'm
so behind on this, so behind in the other and
you're just getting angry about it, more frustrated, and that's
never good for you. That's never going to lead to
good results, because then you might try and overtrain, you
might try and train through that injury, you might injure
yourself further, which of course is what I was worried about.
(17:30):
And so just These are the physical tolls that can
mess with your mental minds when you're dealing with this stuff,
and look to the outsider looking in. If there's a
first running podcast you've ever listened to, you might be
sitting there thinking, man, this guy is freaking nuts. Like,
no one takes this that seriously. Into that altogether we
say bull dinky, all right, we as runners take it
(17:54):
this seriously. All right. I know I am not alone
in what I am talking about here, the way I feel,
the way I have felt, what I've been going through.
Many a runner goes through this, and menial runner goes
through that same level of frustration, if not worse. Trust me,
we've all been there. We've all done that, and we've
all probably gotten the T shirt we shouldn't have gotten
because we went to a race we shouldn't have run.
That's what I'm trying to avoid at this point. So
(18:19):
it was the right decision to withdraw from the news races.
All right. I can I celebrate the things I've done.
Sure I finished the Heartland Series, Sure we did the
first Autumn half marathon. Sure I've made some five k's.
It's not what I wanted. I'm not wearing those things
like badges of honor or anything. But I got them done.
I've not injured myself further, which is good. So next
(18:41):
we go to new goals. Right, this is just one
of the things we're gonna have to do. We need
to go to new goals. The fifty mile Yer is
dead and Marine Corps is dead. My goal now is
get through the MRI. My goal is to meet with
the doctor after the MRI to see what they see.
I want to know, and then my goals will have
to adjust based on what I am told. I hope
(19:05):
and they think it's possible. I can still make Mississippian December. Okay, great,
I hope that's the case. That's what I'm kind of
expecting to be the case. If this is, we're going
to require some kind of surgery, though, then everything is
off the table and the surgery gets done instantly, all right,
That will mean no good life haves ee, or at
least I'm only up there as a supporter, not a runner,
(19:28):
because I still am gonna work the booth. I'm still
gonna have our table up there, but I might just
be up there supporting y'all and not running it. That
could be a thing. Garment Kin City Half Marathon is
coming up. We're gonna see what happens there. Everything comes
back to what that MRI says. But I do plan
on doing what the doctor tells me. Okay, but so
those are my new goals. So those are the real
short term goals. We're gonna get to the long term
(19:49):
goal here in a second. Trust me, in times like
this you can lean into the running community. The people
who do know that I didn't run the race and
know why have been very supportive. Trust me, no one,
No one has sent me a message and said, you
chuckle f how did you not do that race? You
jerk face? How did you not go? You worthless waste
(20:10):
of a runner? Why weren't you there? That has not happened,
nor is it going to, because the running community knows
that when an injury actually takes us out of a race,
not the ones that it should have taken us out of,
but when it actually takes us out of a race,
it's serious. Because we, as stubborn ass runners, we run
through a lot of injury and do a lot of
races we should not do, because we don't withdraw from
(20:34):
races unless it's absolutely critical and this is kind of
where it's been, and so really you kind of have
to you gotta switch around yourself talk all right. So
I've been trying to get out of that. Not you know,
I screwed up or man, I'm really bombed or anything. No,
it was the right decision. It was the doctor approved decision.
(20:55):
And as much as I like to pretend I'm a doctor,
as much as I think I stated a holiday and
express last night, I am not and I am not
a knee person now due to two open heart surgeries,
I feel like I know a little bit more about
the heart than the average every day Joe knees. I
got nothing. I got nothing. It's down there. It's kind
of like below the fat part of my legs. It's
(21:16):
about the extent one I know about knees. But I
went to the guy who does and I'm talking to
them and I'm going to do what they said. And
they said, do not do a fifty miler and do
not count on doing Marine Corps marathon. So I'm not
all right. So I'm not a quitter. I'm not a failure.
I am doing what was told. I am making the
(21:37):
smart move for longer term running. Okay, so that's what
we're gonna do that. That's what I'm doing right now now.
The reason that this has a twist ending from what
would have been if I did this last week. If
you are on our social media platforms, which you should
(21:59):
be Facebook and in Sta Grammar A number one, you'll
see I'm made a particular race that happens in twenty
twenty six. I don't know how I made it. I
still can't believe that I did. But what I like
big butts, and I cannot lie. But this is going
to switch around everything, which is why I went screaming
(22:20):
into the knee office to get covered, to get things
figured out, to start the process of whatever needs to
happen to get the armor I schedule. If they need
to do surgery, we are doing it immediately, if not sooner,
because in twenty twenty six, we're going to Tokyo. Yep.
If you ud missed it on social media, through the lottery,
(22:41):
through the friggin lottery, man, I got selected for the
Tokyo Marathon. I'm shocked, absolutely shocked, shocked, floored, flabbergasted. As
I think I said in the post, I can't believe it.
I still can't believe it. I have already been doing
so much research on Tokyo and Japan and that race.
That race is crazy. It is supposed to be the
(23:04):
easiest of the world marathon majors. You start with a
downhill and then it's perfectly flat, like there is nothing
flatter than Chicago, and Chicago is really freaking flat. My
friends say that one three times fast. So we're going
to Tokyo. We're gonna run that race. But another issue
that they have is timing. Okay, they have I believe
(23:27):
eighteen different timing mats on that course, and you have
to be in front of them every single time. And
if you miss a timing mat, if you're not in
front of it when they close it, you're done. You're finished, alfony,
do not pass, go, do not collect two hundred dollars
like you're done. So they are very strict on the timing.
And what they have is a seven hour window. And
(23:47):
how you're thinking, Okay, well, that's fine, no problem. Most
of the time, you're right, but it is a seven
hour window from when they fire the starting gun, not
from when the last person crosses the start line. So
when they say the race starts at nine excuse me,
nine ten am. Where are these hiccups coming from? Then
it starts at nineteen am, and so does that seven
(24:09):
hour timer. So if you don't start until nine thirty
nine forty, you're already that far behind the gun. Okay,
so you you've already got a deduct twenty thirty forty
minutes from that seven hour. Now there's a reason this
is called the back of the Pack podcast. And we're
not talking elite level here. My full marathon PR is
(24:30):
still five hours forty eight minutes. That was Boston, and
that was the most motivated I'd ever been for a
race in my life. I have to get this knee
right and I gotta find that motivation again because Tokyo
has to be faster. I have to be faster than
five forty eight because I'm already gonna be starting behind
the gun. I'm gonna be starting twenty thirty to forty
(24:52):
minutes behind. What needs to happen to beat that seven hours?
And look, my last full marathon, which I'm trying to
think of what that was, was it Berlin? It might
have been Berlin a year ago, which is right out
a year from the day that I am recording this podcast.
It was I think I was at like five point
fifty three for Berlin. Gotta be faster. I've had full
(25:14):
marathons over six. You can't afford in over six Tokyo,
not with their timing restrictions. Now that it is a
smaller field, thirty nine thousand, okay, thirty nine thousand for
the Tokyo that's smaller than any of the other world
marathon majors, Way smaller than Berlin, way smaller than New York,
a little bit smaller than Boston. But that's still thirty
nine thousand people that got to get through that starting
(25:35):
corral in on the road, and with every minute that
passes you, I have to make up that time. So
that is kind of how we're gonna reframe this. That's
how we're going from short term goal to long term goal.
Long term goal is a little over one hundred and
fifty days away. It is March first, twenty twenty six
(25:56):
in Tokyo, Japan. Now I am going over and I'm
staying late. This is gonna be the only time I
think I will ever visit this country. It's never been
high on my priority list unless it was gonna be
about this world marathon major, and now it is. So
I'm gonna go. I'm gonna see the things, and I'm
need to do the stuff, and I'm gonna line up
some guest hosts for while I'm gone. If you know
(26:18):
anyone or if you are someone, I'm looking at you, Lisa, Elaine, Gretchen,
Karen Hillary, if anyone wants to go ahead and volunteer
to guest host while I'm out of the country, I
will welcome it. And you're in, like already, you're in.
So that's what we got coming up though. So again,
this could have been a lot worse last week because
(26:38):
it would have been before the news of Tokyo. I
got the email on Tokyo on September twenty sixth, the
day before my would be Ultra marathon. So as difficult
as it was to its difficult as it was to
swallow missing the Ultra, it was made a little easier
with the acceptance in the Tokyo Marathon. Trust me, I've
(27:01):
already filled out their paperwork and I've already given them
payment and I have my receipt. So I am in
for that race now. If the knee issue does not resolve,
if the doctors don't clear. If surgery has to happen
and the recovery is long, I can defer. I can
defer to next year. No, trust me, I don't want
to do that. I one do not want to defer
to twenty twenty seven, because in twenty twenty seven, by
(27:24):
hook or crook, I am going to get into that
London marathon and complete my six World Marathon majors. I
have four. I'm now on the hook for five in Tokyo.
I want six in twenty twenty seven in London. I
don't care how I have to make it happen, but
Dad nab, I want my six before my legs completely explode.
But anyway, well that's going to be a different problem
(27:45):
for a different year. Right now, everything is Tokyo forward facing.
We just we are on our way to the land
of the Rising Sun. Trust me, I will bring you
absolutely everything that I can from over there. I will
do better in Tokyo than I did in Berlin. I
was a terrible influencer in Berlin. I will do better.
(28:08):
I will be the most wonderful podcast host that you
have overseas doing that race. How about that? Fair? Fair?
So there we go listen, really just to kind of
close this up, the disappointment and relief can coexist. I
get it. If you're injured, if you have to miss
a race, if you have to miss a big goal
(28:28):
race that has been your identity for four to six months,
It's okay. It does get better after the fact. And
I'm not just saying that because, holy crap, timing wise,
I made Tokyo. It does get better. Look, I do
still plan to run an ultra marathon. I want that
on my resume, and I told you guys at this
point with my a number one dream list already being
(28:50):
accomplished in twenty twenty three in Boston. Everything else I'm
doing i'm doing because I want to. I want an
ultra marathon. I want to be able to tell you
about it. I want to have a metal saying I did,
and then I want to tell people a story about
it so that they can go ooh ah, oh man,
that's really far. Yes, yes it is, and I did
it because we do hard things. Mm hm. So that's gonna.
(29:11):
That's gonna do it. I'm gonna I'm gonna shut my
pie hole. Thank you very much for listening. I do
hope to see you Thursday at the Chasing Rabbits Run
Club for Garman Kansas City Marathon night again. That race
is coming up on October eighteenth. I will be down
there at the expo. I'll have a table. If you're
doing that race, please come by and say hello. Take
a sticker. I think I've still got some bracelets. Lup,
(29:32):
sign the sign because if we have a sign again,
I want everyone to sign the sign because really we
still have Little Rock up here, and they smoked Kansas
City last year. The people at Little Rock went nuts
with this thing two years in a row, and last
year at Garman Kansas City it was full, but not
this full. If you're watching the screen, I'm kind of
dancing back and forth, pointing at the sign that has
all the signatures that's always in the background. So we
(29:53):
can do better Kansas City, right, right, So all right,
I think that's it. I don't think of anything else.
I've been dreading doing this episode admitting that again I
feel like I failed. But it's not a failure. Not
a failure. We're just gonna regroup and we have other
things to focus on, now, that's the truth. Other things
to focus on, and we're gonna do that and if
(30:14):
the doctor says so, we're gonna knock it out the park,
right right, all right, that's gonna do it. For this
week's episode of the Back of the Pack podcast, I
am your host, Kyle Walker. It is my pleasure. As always,
I hope to see Thursday nine at the Chasing Rabbits
Showing Club. If I don't, everyone have a safe week
of training. The freaking heat is back. We're going in
October and we're touching ninety boo hiss, So again, go
(30:35):
back to your hot running schedule. You're hot running conditioning
and awareness and be safe this week until that, you know,
the next fall cold front gets here. Everyone have a
safe week of training, watch the heat. We'll see you
next week.
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