The Arizona Trail: Lessons learned
June 21, 2024
By: LOWA Pro Team Athlete Sunny Stroeer
A week before Thanksgiving I set out to run the length of the Arizona Trail, all 800 miles of it. I wanted to do it in record time, too, which meant that I needed to beat the standing women’s record of 17 days and 11 hours.
I am no stranger to endurance missions. The harder and more remote the route, the more I tend to thrive on it (case in point: my Aconcagua, Annapurna Circuit, Pfiffner Traverse and R2R2R-alt speed records). The Arizona Trail was giving me pause, and not because of the difficulty of the trail; in fact I expected it to be flatter and faster than most other routes that I have attempted. What was giving me pause about the Arizona Trail was its sheer length - 800 miles is a word! - and the fact that I would be launching into this adventure without much if any specific training: between my responsibilities as the owner-manager of two small businesses and a non-profit, and my usual exuberant optimism, most of my recent miles were slow and casual desert backcountry miles in my capacity as a guide; a far cry from the big training weeks of mountain miles that should precede an attempt like this.
That said.. I have tackled various adventures with inadequate preparation and, to-date, have not had to pay the price for it: my first-ever ultra marathon, a 100 kilometer race in Madagascar, with just three weeks notice and no proper running shoes (thankfully the latter is no longer an issue, now that I am an athlete for LOWA Boots!); the iconic Western States 100 Mile Endurance Race on less than 20 weekly miles of training; the remote Tuckup Trail, off the couch; theIditarod Trail Invitational 350 on cross-country skis with no prior skiing or winter ultra experience. All of these adventures made me work for them, yet I was able to complete them and without severe injury. Combine the learnings that I have taken away from these prior experiences and you may understand why I decided to yield to the siren song of the Arizona Trail despite my utter lack of preparation.
I won’t bore you with the day-to-day account of what happened out there on the trail (you can find those on my personal blog here). To cut to the chase: things did not work out this time. Not only did I not set a new speed record; I didn’t even make it halfway through my intended distance, and when I dropped out at just over 300 miles after seven days on the trail I was in so much pain that I could barely walk. As I am writing this I am still waiting for a definitive diagnosis of my injury. All signs are pointing towards a stress fracture in my left tibia - a textbook overuse injury from textbook overuse circumstances.
Do I regret embarking on this adventure? I do not. I knew it was an audacious if not arrogant plan. I knew that I was risking overuse injuries (though, having been very lucky until now, I admittedly did not expect a stress fracture). I was monitoring myself closely and anticipated many an issue related to my usual overuse trouble spots: Morton’s neuroma, IT bands, knees, ankles, blisters. And while this show-stopping presumed stress fracture crept up on me rapidly and unexpectedly, I am utterly content with my days on the trail leading up to the point where I quit, as well as with my decision to quit when I did; I left no iota of doubt on the trail.
I rested early and often; I slept when I needed to
I fueled consistently and proactively
I asked for helped when I needed it
I did not let weather or late nights get to my head
And here’s what I learned in the process:
1. The obvious lesson. Don’t go from 15 miles a week straight to 300 miles a week. Nobody is immune to overuse injuries, and even though I’ve been able to get away with murder in the past - like ramping up from minimal miles straight to 245 weekly miles during the Iditarod Trail Invitational - I still have physical limits. This attempt on the Arizona Trail showed me mine.
2. The mundane lesson. Sweat the little stuff. I have always known to identify and fix issues early (say blisters, temperature management, or nutrition), but I didn’t pay good enough attention to my hygiene. Peeing on the trail without TP or pee rag meant that I started to chafe a bit after Day 2. By Day 5, the nuisance of some mild chafing had turned into a show stopper as my nether regions became so raw that I seriously struggled to make progress. I sheepishly had to call my crew and ask them for help with, you guessed it, thoroughly taping my behind.
Note: Thank you, Mel, for your personal sacrifice as you taped me up, and for sacrificing your Kula Cloth for my latter days on the trail — it is my stated goal to never have to ask my crew for that sort of assistance again, in any future endurance endeavor. This also means that I will never again head out on a long adventure without carrying a Kula Cloth with me. Hold me to it!
3. The desert conditions lesson. Out of all the things that pose challenges for an endeavor like this, I primarily struggled with: the stress fracture; the aforementioned chafing; and my lungs, which are known to give me trouble after sustained exercise particular in cold conditions - think Alaska, or the high mountains. Living in the desert I know how cold it gets here in the winter, yet I treated my airway management much more casually than I would for a high altitude speed record or winter ultra. The result was that I was regularly hacking up a lung by the time I pulled the plug at 309 miles. While the coughing itself wasn’t utterly problematic (yet), it did impact my sleep quality and made rest that much more tenuous. I will be a lot more careful on my next attempt.
4. The footwear lesson. I have been training and adventuring in LOWA footwear for years - most recently in the LOWA ATR Fortux which I love. Due to my history with Morton’s neuroma, a painful nerve overuse injury that is best addressed by staying off your feet (ha!) and wearing shoes with ultra-wide toe boxes, I did also bring a pair of off-brand trail shoes to use for decompression should I have a bad spell of neuroma. After encountering neuroma issues in the Grand Canyon between mile 77 and 98 I pulled out my non-LOWA footwear and, against my own better judgment, used them for all 52 miles that next day before switching back into LOWA for Day 4 onward. While I didn’t have neuroma issues again after the Grand Canyon, this “alternative footwear day” was the day that my shin issue began to rear their ugly head. In retrospect, I might have seen it coming: the LOWA Fortux that I log 95% of all my miles in have a (for me) comfortable and familiar 6mm heel drop, whereas my “decompression” shoe was a zero drop model. Add cumulative fatigue and huge daily mileage, and this abrupt change in biomechanics makes for a terrific recipe for overuse injuries. For future attempts I will be sticking to my tried and true LOWAs.
All in all, this was an excellent adventure. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: in the end, it’s not about the record - what matters is everything BUT the record. And while I certainly would have loved to walk away from my time on the Arizona Trail with one record more and one stress fracture less, I am beyond grateful for the time that I got to spend out there… and for the fact that I still have a big unknown and exciting effort to work towards: my return to this trail next season.
Photo credit: Sunny Stroeer