There's No Place Like Home...

Finally home after a LONG drive across Oklahoma, Kansas, and eastern Colorado yesterday. I made a special stop for an ice cream sandwich, recovery food.

I am not so sore as I am stiff from the drive. I got in the hot tub when I got home last night, and that helped. It's funny, the only place I am really sore is my deltoids. I guess I'm not doing enough work on my shoulders, I need to add something to my weight routine.

I don't have a sore throat, and I don't feel sick. Must have been allergies. I do need to get my flu shot soon, but I'll wait until the soreness in my arms ges away. I was planning on getting it when I go to work tomorrow, but today it feels like someone punched me in both arms!

The final distance of what I covered in the race has been posted: 63.89 miles. Still no official word on course record, but previous women's 12 hour road course record was 62.6 miles, so it looks like I got it.

Next year I'd like to go back there, if a 24 hour race makes sense for me at that time. I've found another gem...this race is awesome! The people make the difference too: the volunteers, the other runners, and the crews.

If I do come down for the 24 hour, I'll want to race it, so I will bring someone to crew for me, because it makes things go much more smoothly. I usually rely on only myself for these races, but I'm finding that as I move to shorter, faster races and run them more competitively, I will need to go back to having a crew person.

It's too easy to lose time when you're having to look for things and grab stuff. Even though I have almost perfected my table organization and wasted very little time at this race, when you're running for performance you need to make every second count. I think anyone crewing here would have a great time with all the other people, too.

The drive back was pretty. I love farmland, and I love the colors of the grass against the sky, especially this time of year with the light the way it is. Afternoons are awesome, as the sun begins to set earlier, so many opportunities for beautiful pictures. Here are a few I took on my way home yesterday:

It's cool and breezy this morning, sort of cloudy, and the trees have a lot fewer leaves on them than when I left. It's starting to look like winter around here, things don't start to get green again until April, 5 full months of winter away.

As I approached Denver on I-70, I could see a bank of clouds covering the Rocky Mountains and the trees were mostly bare.

For all my whining this year about the long hot summer, topped off by how cold I was this weekend at the race, I can't say I'm thrilled about the change of seasons, but I have to get in that mindset again. I'm just a big wimp when it comes to cold weather.

I do enjoy running in the snow, I like how quiet it is when there's a white blanket over everything. And now that the hot tub is fixed, I know I can always come home and get warm.

I plan to get out on my bike today while the weather is still warm, by Wednesday night I'll be at it again, I have my run with Wheaties Boy. This week probably won't be hard at all, as I'm recovering, but I'm hoping by next week to get back to it.

I have a slight change in plans for the end of the year, will be writing a post about that as soon as I dig my way out of my unpacking mess from the trip!