Bear scratch
I just emailed the Bear 100 race director, Cody Draper, and said that I'm injured and won't recover in time to start in 6 weeks. I'm also too injured to do Black Squirrel in 3 weeks and will be emailing Nick and Brad next.
What's the injury? When I came home from vacation and started to ramp up my running, my right Achilles tendon became sore and very inflamed. On July 17 I went out for a 30 mile run and had to bail at mile 20. I took some time off from trail running and have been chugging on an elliptical trainer at my gym. Yesterday I tried some running on the bike path behind my house and couldn't even go a mile without excruciating pain. I'm calling it, my season is over. The last time I had serious Achilles tendonitis like this was at the end of my ultimate frisbee career 20 years ago. It took 4 months before I could run without pain. I'm going to keep going to the gym, ice and rest, see some specialists, and get ready for 2025.