Back on August 5^th, Karl Meltzer began his attempt to run the 2,147 mile Appalachian Trail in a record 47 days. The run may not be over, but his attempt at the record is:

“My Anterior Tibialas is tweaking. It’s swollen and unrunnable right now. Needless to say, the record will remain in AT’s (Andrew Thompson) hands.”

Apparently, he got a bad case of poison ivy on his left foot, which caused him to change his running gait enough to cause unnatural stresses on his body that led to tweaking his muscle. He still plans to continue running after taking a little rest and drugging himself up, but he is no longer to make an attempt (this year at least) at breaking the trail record.

While I applaud what he has done so far, 538 miles in 14 days for an average of over 38 miles per day, I have to disagree with his self-medication regimen that he is embarking on. I would avoid Prednisone unless I was in dire circumstances as a general rule, and taking it just to reduce inflammation so you can continue a feat like this doesn’t strike me as the best of ideas. At least he has conceded the attempt at the record and won’t try to push himself too far beyond his limits in continuing the record attempt.

I hope that Karl gets another opportunity to make the record attempt in a year or two, and I’m sorry that he had to take time off after 2 weeks of running. If you’d like to track Karl’s latest updates, he is keeping all of his relevant info at his website, Where’s Karl.com.

(More Info: KarlMeltzer.com – Photo Credit: Matt Hart)