Melisa Callison

Hi Melisa! How are you doing? I hear you had a tough time at the Rock & Roll. But you did finish, right? That's winning.   I attempted JFK 50 miler this year but had a bad day. About 4 weeks earlier, I ran the Marine Corps Marathon and had a great day. Felt good the whole race and was very strong at the end. About 2 weeks after that I did a 20 mile training run and felt a very annoying pain in my left thigh and leg and it didn't get any better before running the 50. The race was a week ago Saturday. It begins in a town called Boonsboro, MD. You run for a about a mile and a half, then start a long climb up a 1400ft mountain to the Appalachian trail. You then jump on the trail and run (walk...fall...trip) for about 165 miles before exiting at a place called Weaverton Cliffs. You then jump on the C&O canal tow path and run a flat, boring 26 miles, before jumping off and then run 8 more miles on rolling hills! It's a tough race no matter how you cut it.   The weather was very cold & windy, albeit sunny for most of the day.  I did the Appalachian trail portion pretty well but took a hard tumble toward the end of that section and hurt my knee and back pretty bad. So, I then got on the tow path and things began to unwind pretty fast. My legs got real heavy, I had no power, and it was getting colder. So I DNF'd at mile 22 and called it a day.   I feel crappy that I couldn't finish it but there's always next year. My brother-in-law wants to run it as he's turning 50 next year so he wants to do 50 at 50. We're both warped.   I'll be in Disney World in January for the "Goofy" challenge and a half: that's where you run the 1/2 marathon on Saturday, and then the full marathon on Sunday. As I said I'm warped. Hope you're doing well. Please don't forget to let me know if you're ever in DC and we can hook up. Take care and run happy! Glenn