Redrum: Estes Park Half Marathon 2014

Redrum. That was what I thought at mile 11 when we were running by the Stanley Hotel, where the movie The Shining was filmed.

At that moment, I felt like I was going to puke something that looked like red rum.

I ran the Estes Park Half Marathon this morning as a hard training run. Might as well have been a race, except I wasn't thinking about competing. The effort was close to what I'd do in a race, except my legs are dead at the end of an 80 mile week.

The race started at 6:20 so I woke up at zombie o'clock and dragged myself out of bed. I was so tired, didn't want to wake up. But I got my act together by 4:15 and drove up the canyon to Estes Park in the darkness. It was just getting light when I arrived.

As the sun rose it looked like it would be a perfect day, it was calm, with a few clouds, and cool. In past years it always seemed to get hot in the marathon by about halfway through.

I told Wheaties Boy the other day that I would happy with a sub-2 hour effort at the half marathon. This race is TOUGH. The fact that it starts at 7500 feet and tops out at 7900 feet, with lots of hills in between, is enough. The temperatures were perfect, it was about 50 degrees, but there was a stiff headwind for about 4 miles on the downhill section in the second half, which made running the downhill part a bit more difficult.

I was doing this run more for my head than my body, even though it is a hard training run. Since I rarely train above 7000 feet, I don't generally run well at altitude anymore. I want to be able to carry a 9 minute pace easily, for hours, as part of my ultra training, but a 9 minute pace at this altitude, on this course, would be a challenge.

I was hitting 8:30 to 9:30 pace consistently, with one 7:54 and a 10 minute mile or two. I knew the effort was hard because I felt nauseated the whole time, which is typical for me when I make any kind of effort at altitude. The best I ever did at this marathon was a 4:12, in 2007, and I ran well that year in all of my other races. I've never done the half before.

The course climbs consistently from about mile 4 through 7, then there's a fairly steady downhill until mile 11 that's broken up by a few steep little uphill pitches. I was fighting that headwind and my splits were down in the 8 minute range but it was so hard.

I was working too hard to want to try a gel. It probably would have helped. I stuck to water. I carried my pack with a full water bottle and a couple of gels so I wouldn't have to stop at the aid stations. That turned out to be a good plan because every time I got to an aid station table, there were a lot of people and it was crowded.

It was interesting and somewhat entertaining to be running a distance that I rarely do anymore. I noticed a lot of funny things watching the runners. Lots of those multi-bottle waist packs, lots of compression socks, lots of camelbacks and running vest-packs. Looked like these people were out for a long day in the woods, like they packed a lunch and then some. But they were doing a road race that might take them 2 or 3 hours. Just interesting to see what people think they need for this distance. There were aid stations nearly every mile.

I ate a big breakfast at 4 am, but it was long gone and when I finished I was starving. When I got to 11 miles, we run by the Stanley hotel and I was to the point of taking deep sighs and wishing for it to over. So as we ran past the Stanley, I was thinking about how I felt like death, like redrum spelled backwards (for anyone who never saw or read The Shining). I looked at my watch at 11 miles and it was 1:39 something. Oh shit. I better push hard to get in under 2.

The last two miles of the race go on a fairly flat bike path until the last half mile, which is a steady climb up to the high school track. You finish with about 3/4 of a lap on the track. I felt a little better on the flats and picked it up, passing a lot of people. But I couldn't turn my legs over much faster, I know I would have been on the side of the path puking then. I just wanted to be done. My watch time was 1:57:29, and the chip time was a second or two off of that. My last 5K split was sub-27 minutes.

I checked the results as soon as they were posted, while I ate a breakfast burrito inside the school and stayed warm. A storm was moving in, which made me even happier that I wasn't in the marathon. When I saw the results, I noticed that 1:57:29 puts me at an 8:59 average pace. Awesome! Sub-9!

I also saw that I placed third in my age group, and the two women ahead of me were only ahead by 2 and 4 minutes. I decided not to stick around for awards, I wanted to get home and eat and sleep!

I drove back down the canyon and I realized it was the first time I've been on highway 34 since the flood last fall. I could not believe the devastation, of the river banks, boulders, trees, houses, and bridges, especially in the area around Drake. There was this one area that was completely leveled, and in the river there were still large pieces of debris in a few spots: washed out bridges, pieces of houses, furniture, pieces of cars, and other large objects that have still not been recovered. Lots of buildings with half the foundation gone, sticking out over the edge of the riverbanks, with signs all over the front entrances, driveways and windows.

It's a cool day here in the Fort and I needed some food so I made some pancakes and now I'm about ready for a nap. Tomorrow starts another week. That was so much fun this morning, I'm considering running a 10K next weekend if I can find one. Don't know where this wild hair came from!

October in Motion

How did it get to be the middle of October? It's been a blur.

I'm not sure where the time went, but it's gone.

This week I did a couple of one hour pool run/1000m swim/3.5 mile land run workouts, and one day where I ran for an hour and did a little over 6 miles. That's all. That's all I had time for.

I got my business logo finished this week, and had a photo shoot with a professional photographer, in preparation for the website. I've been studying, and working on all sorts of parts and pieces of things having to do with starting things up.

I am just dealing with the fact that running is taking a back seat to some other priorities in my life right now. That's okay, too. I'm happy to be making some progress with the hamstring and I love the swimming. I suppose I'll get back to a steady running routine eventually, hopefully by the end of the year. I want to do some ultras next year.

But right now I don't know where the energy will come from. The work hangover fatigue was back on Thursday with a vengeance. Again. I don't have the reserves for this...not in energy, or patience, or anything.

But it did help me figure out something. I am thoroughly burned out from work, I went in there to work an 8 hour shift on Wednesday which ended up being nearly 10 hours, and I'm working both days this weekend, and next week is about the same, and just two hours into my first shift back I felt like pulling my hair out. I'll just have to figure out how to deal with it and move forward in my new endeavor so I can put this energy-sucking force behind me.

I still think it's sad, because I'm not the only one feeling that way and I know other people aren't in the position I'm in, where they can make an exit strategy as I've been able to. I'm done, I've been done for a while, with pretending things are okay. They're not. I don't pretend well. I can't just put on a fake smile and swing my ponytail and act like everything is good while everyone around me is getting reamed. I mostly feel sad that a job that I used to enjoy so much has become such misery. I wish I could just not care but that's not how I am.

So the way I'm setting up my future business will allow me to keep the enjoyable parts of my job, working with people and actually doing something that will help them to help themselves, but I won't have to spend the majority of my time facing a computer screen and gripping a mouse, clicking my way to insanity. I will be able to work with humans again.

This is my favorite month. I'm trying to get out and see the colors every day. It's not possible to go up to Estes Park the old way since highway 34 is destroyed. And the park is closed anyway due to the government shutdown. But I'm content to see all the colorful trees we have here in Fort Collins.

I am thankful I have the support of Dennis and my family and friends and that I'm able to miraculously generate enough energy to move forward and be quite productive. Even though I've felt horribly depressed at certain times, I'm not functioning like a depressed person. And I got my thyroid labs done the other day and that looks good. Two things I've avoided are the scale and the blood pressure cuff. There are some numbers I'd just rather not know at this point!

Mostly I wish I had more energy, and I wish my brain worked better sometimes, but brain fog and fatigue are two things that are a reality of my life and I've been able to manage both and function at quite a high level for a long time. So this speed bump is just another thing I'll get through.

Relentless forward motion.

Feeding It at the Woman Cave

Two hour run today, Sunday, wrapping up a total of 35 miles for the week. It's a start. I ran the Power Trail, I haven't been brave enough to venture down along Spring Creek Trail or the Poudre River to see the flood damage. I stuck to an easy ultra pace but picked it up for one mile just to move a little faster and see what the hamstring would tolerate. 8:54 pace was the limit. I sort of hoped I'd be able to handle a little faster than that. But the good news is, it didn't have a lasting effect, it was just being aware of it at that pace.

The one thing that did happen, which I have to laugh about, is that I chafed in places I usually never chafe. That's because there is even more of me than there was a few months ago. I've packed on the weight over the summer. My bicycle road tire feels like it's ready to graduate to motorcycle status. Maybe that's a little bit of exaggeration, maybe it's just a mountain bike tire, but I am carrying around a few extra pounds on top of the extra pounds I gained after last spring's racing season. Oh well, what can you do? It's stress and I feel confident that working out and feeling better will take the flesh away from my midsection quickly.

It will be a slow comeback but I'm not worried about it now. I'm still too distracted to get going with a solid strengthening program but I'm waiting until after this week when my life becomes mine again.

Last night Bard and Rikki stopped by with this t-shirt for me, I love his Feed Your Crazy concept and I wanted a t-shirt. I have always been antipathetic toward the use of "crazy" and "ultra" in the same sentence, because I feel that people running ultras are the sane ones and everyone on the couch is crazy, but when Bard first described this idea to me, I could completely relate to it.

This week we started out with the rain that would not go away, followed by a rainbow, followed by Buffaloes getting depressed about the weather and the fact that their dad was in Indianapolis for a conference, of all places. Now it's perfect fall weather and crisp in the mornings, and soon the bugs will be gone and my favorite riparian areas will be runnable again without aspirating six-legged flying critters.

The Equinox Half Marathon, which was supposed to be run down the Poudre Canyon today, was postponed. I originally signed up to run it, then I signed up to help with packet pickup, and then it was all cancelled. The cleanup from the floods is a huge operation, we still see helicopters flying overhead today. I don't know how long it will be before the hundreds of washed out roads and bridges are repaired or even passable.

I plan to run with Wheaties Boy this coming Wednesday, our first run together since last month when I was not ready to run. Now I'm ready, even if it is at a slower pace and shorter distance.

Then it got cold, and then the leaves started changing colors. Yes, I think 45 degrees is cold. Actually, it feels great, with socks and the heater on. It will take a lot of acclimatizing before I'm ready for freezing temperatures, but then, this is Colorado. We could have a blizzard next week.

One more week of my 12 hour shifts at work, and about a gazillion appointments jammed in between this week and next week, all good stuff. I know I'm doing better, because I must have worked at least 8 hours a day for the past 3 days on business-related stuff and I feel happy and I'm enjoying it, and I look forward to the next step with everything I've been working on. It's that Cziksentmihalyi "flow" phenomenon.

I'm ready for this week, and moving forward, feeding my crazy every day.

Sunshine!!

It's back. It started out raining this morning and looked like we were in for another day of gloom and steady rain. But by late morning, it stopped coming down and gradually the sky lightened until blue holes started breaking out everywhere.

The damage and destruction are not even comprehensible. You can look up anything on the Internet and find pictures under Colorado flood. I looked at some of the pictures, it's hard to look at them. So many people and animals displaced and destruction everywhere. The roads and bridges that are washed out, disconnecting and isolating small towns in the foothills, people still stranded and in need of rescue.

Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters have been flying overhead, it sounds like a war zone outside, all day long, flying over our houses in Fort Collins, which seems to have been least damaged of all the Front Range cities. It will be a few weeks before we know what all has been lost and how long a timetable we're looking at for restoring some of the roads. Right now it's too soon to tell.

This morning I got an early start, got over to EPIC and jumped in the diving pool and ran with my friend Connie for a little over an hour, then I swam 450 meters, then this afternoon I went for a run, for 45 minutes, in the warm, humid, sunshine.

I have this awesome free feeling. yesterday was my last scheduled back to back 12 hour shift, and I got to go home early, too. I am ready to take my life back. I have 3 more scheduled 12 hour shifts, and then I'm done. After that, I only work when I'm available, if they need me. And no more 12 hour shifts unless I choose to stay that long.

I'm at the beginning of a new chapter of my life. It feels like sunshine!

Seeing Stars

It's refreshingly quiet this morning, the air is cool and heavy with moisture but the stars are visible, with more clear sky than clouds overhead, as far as I can see in the darkness. No rain falling. For the sake of everyone stranded, evacuated or flooded, I hope it's done.

I go into work this morning to start the last of my scheduled back to back 12 hour shifts. Weekends are always easier. It's just as busy, especially on Saturdays, and we're not usually staffed any better, but it's just me and my coworkers and the patients, none of the extra people in suits milling around who do things that tend to get in the way of patient care. If I didn't have a life outside of work, I'd probably just work weekends.

But I can breathe a little easier, knowing that after this weekend, the exhaustion can abate and I can move forward making plans for what I need to do. I need to sleep again, get those afternoon naps that I've been missing out on, and restore clarity to my thoughts. Getting back to working out will be a big piece of that, too, once my energy returns.

Lately I've felt like there's an endless well of sewage, outrage and frustration that I needed to purge...getting re-focused will allow this to resolve. I've dumped much of it here, and I thank my blog readers for bearing with me.

Writing about it helps, and there's a lot more writing going on than just here on the blog. It's been pouring out of me like the flood we just had. Being honest about your feelings is important, if there isn't an outlet it will drive you crazy and eat holes in your insides.

I'll take a few deep breaths and stretch my body a little before work. The pool reopens on Monday and I'm already planning to meet Connie there, we'll resume our pool running and I'll swim a few laps too, recover from my last work hangover day, and get back to living my life.

From Relief to Ruin: The Gazillion Year Flood

The rain has not stopped, and continues on, supposed to continue through the weekend. People are stranded, or evacuated, many are on high ground but are surrounded by water. I woke up this morning to three alert messages on my cell phone.

We are fortunately on high ground and surrounded by enough high ground here that so far we're doing okay. just waterlogged. I haven't been out and about to see anything that's flooded, but the videos and news from local sources are all showing washed out roads and bridges, buildings and cars washed away, flooded streets and bike paths, and devastation.

I can only imagine that this rain is doing some major damage to the areas hit by last year's High Park fire, and places downstream.

Fort Collins itself has been lucky, we haven't received nearly as much rain as surrounding areas like Denver, Boulder, and the foothills. But when the Interstate closes, something big is up. All the major roads that lead from the foothills down to the Front Range cities are closed.

Looking out the window, it's a steady rain, all the smaller trees and shrubs are flopped over with the weight of the water. Headed out this morning to walk between earthworms and puddles, counting myself lucky, and hoping there's relief for those flooded soon.