Broncomaniac Run, and an Ultra Goal!

Life has been batshit crazy since we got back from Arizona.

No other way to describe it. I desperately need to clear some time in my schedule to do some heavy editing of the modules for the service I'm launching, but I've been succumbing to many other distractions, most of which are important and unavoidable. What I need to do is put a message on my phone, email and door, barricade myself in the woman cave, set up an IV pump and infuse myself with coffee and cram like college student to get this editing done.

I want to hide and get my work done, but on the other hand, I can't ignore all these other things, like website edits and meeting with people and getting the word out. All important stuff. I need a clone.

The other thing that bugs me is that I want to be able to blog because I get ideas, but then I'm so busy, I forget about them and I don't have time to sit down and write. This afternoon, even though I am far behind on editing, I needed to indulge in some creative time.

One good thing is that I've been able to maintain the consistency in working out, both my runs and weight training, and doing my core and hip work. I'm still only up to running a total of 5 hours in the week, but I'm getting more miles on my feet by walking and I'm not finding excuses to get out of it like I was a few months ago.

Today I ran double Maniac Hill and double A hill, doing my hills. I am running much more of the uphills than I was when I started and feeling stronger. There was some guy up there riding a bike in a Broncos jersey. Broncomania has hit Colorado in full force. Two more days of this insanity...

Yesterday I needed to ask my friend and fellow runner Andy Lovy a question. I haven't seen him since the last time I ran North Coast, in my disastrous run at Nationals in 2014. The last time I talked to him, we were sloshing around at 2 am on the 24 hour course in a wicked downpour, laughing about how we were focused on the portapotties ahead so we could take shelter.

Andy is quite the ultrarunner. At 80 years old (give or take a year) he's still pounding out the miles in multiday ultras and 24 hours runs. He's also the US National Ultra team physician. I first met him years ago at Across the Years, where he was one of the race physicians.

Anyhow, I wrote Andy and he replied right away. He said he's doing well. He's planning on a few races this year, one of which is in Oklahoma at 24 the Hard Way. I ran the 12 hour there a few years back and loved it. Chisholm Dupree is the RD there, and he's such a great guy. I've known him and his dad, Harry, also an ultrarunner, for many years.

Anyway, Andy told me I ought to jump into some of those races he's doing, including a 55 hour in Houston over New Years. I am not going to be anywhere near ready to do a multiday by the end of this year, and I won't have time to train for it. But a 12 hour in Oklahoma in October, I can do that. Just to go hang out and do a few laps with Andy would be worth the trip.

It seemed like the perfect comeback ultra, as I thought about it. So I'm going to pencil it in and as the spring goes on, I will start arranging my life in a way that I can prepare to at least stay on my feet moving forward for 12 hours by the end of October. I think that's a reasonable goal.

I'll be baaaaack...

Mudshine

Mud season has arrived in all its glory. I finally got out for a 20 miler this morning, just in time to beat the brief hailstorm that passed overhead just as I was getting out of the car to go in the house after my run.

Our weather continues to be unusually wet and cool. Every day we've had at least a little rain, many days it's been dumping. The Poudre River is high and if we get any warm weather soon it might overflow its banks onto the bike path. Longs Peak is solid white with snow from all the moisture we've had.

I've been struggling with the consistency but it seems like every time I go out for something long, it doesn't tire me out. Today I ran for about two hours and forty minutes of my 20 miles, walking the rest of the distance. I got a good 2600 feet each of climb and descent on the Horsetooth hills. I did two Maniacs all the way to the bottom and three As. By the end of the run I still didn't feel like it was a legitimate workout, it felt too easy. Maybe just too short.

I was hoping for some heat, but I woke up at 3:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep, so I did some work for a while then got up to the reservoir by 7 am to start running. That turned out perfect because the rain didn't wait a minute past 11 am to start.

The trails in the foothills have been closed due to the mud, and as I sit here typing it is sunny but tiny hailstones are pounding on the roof of the woman cave. I hope it doesn't destroy my tomatoes, spinach, kale and lettuce that are all doing so well. Today the wet weather lasts about 30 seconds and then it gets sunny and dries up again. Saves on watering.

My running plans are still the same, planning on crewing Bob on his return trip at Badwater in early August, and no racing for me. I am not even tempted by anything right now. I would like to get out and do a long run of 50 miles or so in the month of June. Just to do it, and remind my legs again.

I was hoping to do a long run, maybe even the donut run, last weekend, but then we had this freak shooting in Windsor. They haven't caught the person who shot a guy on his bike twice and killed him! There's also someone shooting at cars on I-25 between here and Windsor. I don't know if they are related, but until they solve it, I am not running between here and Windsor, or anywhere around Windsor or I-25. Forget the donuts.

Maybe I will do a donut to brewery run instead. That should keep me safely inside Fort Collins. Call it the Drunken Dunkin Donut Dash or something? Gotta make it entertaining.

Not much news around here. The post office still has not fixed the mailbox and I've been told anywhere from a month to three months before the mailbox is replaced. Great. I just love being a regular at the post office.

And speaking of slinging mud, I wrote an opinion piece in the local paper, on Nurses' Week, and then some dude responded by slinging mud at me. Claiming to be a nurse, but he's an administrator with a nursing degree. A dinosaur. And he showed exactly why I wrote the opinion piece in the first place, and why I started the website Fighting Dinosaurs too. A perfect example of how nurses eat their young. So my friend Melissa in Florida wrote a response to HIM. I did write my own response to him here, but I doubt if he'll ever read it.

He really wasn't worth the time but I felt like mansplaining it back to him, more for the benefit of people who don't quite understand the BS that nurses deal with all the time. This was a textbook example of horizontal violence. Actually I prefer to call it vertical violence because it rains down on nurses' heads from above. (Sort of like the old, crude but accurate saying, "they're pissing on my head and telling me it's raining")

It stopped hailing and raining. Now it's sunny. Iris is watching the garden grow. It's time for a nap.

Easter Frogs on Maniac Hill

Not the Easter bunnies. Easter is one of those holidays that I don't really notice. The other day I saw one of my neighbors and she asked me what we were doing for Easter. I asked her, "When is Easter?"

She laughed. "It's this Sunday!"

Better get going, slacker...time is running out!

Not having been raised Christian I don't ever think about Easter and I'm barely aware of it. Sort of blends into spring. I don't even associate Peeps with Easter, only with spring. So when people wish me Happy Easter it always takes me by surprise. I just wish them a Happy Easter back, and move on.

So what are we doing for Easter? Dennis is in the garage taking the window air conditioning unit apart and cleaning it out before he installs it in the window again. We don't have central AC, good for heat training.

He took the girls to Starbucks while I was out on my run. I went for a short run with Iris this morning, and then went up to Horsetooth Reservoir to do a 15 mile hill run. I waited until 10:30 to get started, it was supposed to warm up to the 70s, which it did. I felt good and ran a good pace up and down those hills, feeling very strong on the climbs. It rained for about 10 minutes when I was coming down the big hill. Not very much, and it didn't really cool things down once it passed. I need whatever heat training I can get in these next 2 weeks.



I noticed this pond at the top of Maniac Hill, it usually is dried up, but now it's green and has water in it, and the sound of the frogs was deafening. You know it's loud when motorcycles and cars are going by and you can still hear the frogs! I guess frogs are sort of like Easter bunnies, they hop...

Yesterday I had a hard time getting my run in. I procrastinated until early afternoon, which is never a good thing for me. I am not an afternoon person. When I finally got out, I was unmotivated and ended up running into someone I know, and we talked for about an hour out there on the Power Trail, and by the time we were done I was even less motivated, so I finished 5 miles and went home and played darts in the garage with Dennis after he helped me pull all my stuff for Cornbelt out from behind all the junk that's accumulated over the past year.

It's a lazy day, Isabelle is in her usual spot in the grass in the front yard, and Iris is here at my feet. Pretty boring, and it's nice to have boring sometimes. Happy Easter.

A Dam Maniac!

That's the name of my workout today. I went up to run hills at Horsetooth. The scene at Horsetooth right now is somewhere between these two pictures.

The weather was a lot nicer, but it was still cold this morning. Not quite so bad though.

I wanted to get a decent hill workout and I would like to have run Rock Repeats, but with the snow and ice and now mud, it would be a mess and the footing would not be good for my ankles. I opted for the road.

I only needed about 12 miles to get my 60 mile goal for the week, but somehow that didn't seem like enough of a challenge. My arms were tired from carrying the pogo stick while running in the beer tour!

I ended up with a little over 17 miles today and somewhere around 2000 feet of ascent, and the same of descent. But I did the same workout a month ago and today I was a lot faster! Somewhere around 40 seconds per mile faster. I didn't have to push hard on the hills, just a steady pace that challenged me without really pushing hard. That tells me I recovered well from Pemberton.

I ran down the A hill, over Maniac and back, then back north on the A and down to the Lory State Park turnoff, up almost to the park entrance, then back down and up over Dam Hill, and then one more time down and then up A hill and back to Rotary Park. About two hours and 50 minutes. Ten minute mile average on those hills is a good pace.

I ended up with 65 miles for the week, without any long runs. I guess I consider 20 miles + a long run.

This next week, actually the next 2 1/2 weeks, are super busy for me. I'm going to shoot for getting a 70 mile week or two before the end of the month, and I should be able to do that despite my insane schedule. It's all good insanity, well, mostly. Except the taxes part. But hopefully that won't turn out too bad either. Finishing up my Cancer Exercise Trainer course this week, and lots and lots of meetings, all business-related. Exciting stuff.

I am giving a presentation to the Aspen Club on March 5th. This will be the first time back at the hospital since I quit. I'm looking forward to it though. It's a community group to promote health and well-being in people over 50. Hey, I could almost be a member. My talk will be 5 days too early, I guess.

The birthday run will be a low key one this year, for lack of brain power to put into making a creative theme. Just too much going on for me all at once right now.

I do plan to make it an interesting running tour of some of my favorite spots in Fort Collins, though, including some breweries. There will be Buffaloes. Spongebob might show up. I'm expecting Sasquatch, too. There might even be some pogo sticking. The distance will be more like 20 miles, though, not 50.

Don't worry, I'll make up for it later.

Four Maniacs

Finally we got some sunshine and things started melting! It's not warm, but 40 degrees above zero beats 13 below!

I'm feeling good. The training is going reasonably well now. Despite the recent lack of sugar and grains in my diet I've had plenty of energy and I don't feel bad at all doing 2-3 hours of workouts a day. I happen to be very inspired right now...by my upcoming new age group and by all the records that were set at Across the Years this year.

This morning I watched this interview of Joe Fejes right after the 6 Day race finish. I love his racing and training strategies. But the classic Joe Fejes statement comes right in the middle of the video.

"For some reason, I seem to be a decent multiday runner. So go figure..."

Decent.

It shows his humility, which is always refreshing in elite runners, and listening to him, you know this guy's head and heart are in the right place, and I wish him the best of luck this summer in Alaska. He's a true champion and a nice guy.

Today it was hill workout day, and I needed a little more of a challenge than I've been doing lately. I've stuck to short little hill repeats or a quick 10 mile out and back on Centennial Drive. I'm looking forward to getting up on the Rock Repeats soon, but I'm not quite ready and I don't want to trash my legs the first time I go. I opted for something in-between with a little more vertical today.

The view going up is of Horsetooth Rock and Longs Peak, but you could only see a little of Longs due to cloud cover.

Maniac Hill is known locally among cyclists and runners for it's hill training merits, it's close to town but has a good steady steep climb. I chose north Maniac today, starting from Maxwell Trail parking area behind Hughes Stadium.

I ran four repeats, from the starting line of the Horsetooth Half Marathon, to the top of Maniac Hill, and back. It gave me roughly 10.8 miles and it took 2 hours. Not sure of the vertical total but I think it's about 500 feet per hill from bottom to top, so roughly 2000 feet of climb and the same of descent. I didn't push hard, I just climbed and descended, very relaxed. Just getting the legs used to going up and down.

The whole way up, the shoulder was mostly covered with slush when I started, but by the time I finished things were in a good thaw and it was just wet. At the top of the hill it was clear and the shoulder was runnable. Fortunately all the motorists were nice today, no one tried to run me off the road or splash me with slush.

I hope the weather continues like this, looks like we could have a nice day for a 30 miler later this week.