My training was a little rocky leading up to the 2015 Sun Mountain 50 miler. The week after my first race of the year, the Diez Vista 50k in April, I managed to strain my left hamstring. A couple of weeks after that, I rolled my ankle pretty bad while running on some technical trail at night, resulting in a grade 2 sprain.

Rainshadow Running’s Sun Mountain was my first 50 miler back in 2013, and I’d always wanted to go back to see by how much I could improve my time. After getting injured at the 2014 Diez Vista 50k, I had to skip last year’s race, so there was no way I was going to miss out on toeing the line this year. I just wasn’t sure if I’d be able to finish. But if I was gonna run, I would aim for about 7:45 and top 10 overall.