Earth Day: Thumbs Up for Gray Hair

It's so weird. I've noticed this thing lately. I don't know what it is, so I'll call it a "thing".

Lately as I've been running along the Power Trail, or different parts of town, I have noticed a lot of people giving me the thumbs up sign.

I have no idea why. I'm trying to figure it out. Either it's because I'm so slow and I look like I'm struggling to run, maybe my form has deteriorated so badly that it looks like I'm about to draw my last breath, or maybe it's the gray hair.

I get this from men of all ages, and never women. Where I used to get catcalls which really pissed me off and occasionally resulted in me saying a few choice words to the offender, now it seems like I get the thumbs up everywhere. I prefer it this way. Even if it's like giving a ribbon to the last place kid for self-esteem, no one catcalls their grandmother. I'm pushing the crone age group, I suppose.

I'm okay with it.

Maybe I'm just assuming things here. Maybe I have toilet paper trailing out of my running shorts behind me or something else embarrassing?

Just a thing I noticed.

It's spring, and allergy season. I've been sneezing and have a runny nose sometimes but it's not too bad this year.

I have another blogpost brewing, it also has to do with gray hair, but it's not as pleasant an observation.

I did 13.1 miles today according to my phone app. I ran an hour and 45 minutes of it, the rest was walking. That's my longest run in a while, since February, I think. Maybe I did a 2 hour run in March, I can't keep track anymore.

What I do know is that I'm not feeling the motivation to train for anything. I'm getting out and trying to run an hour most days but it isn't always consistent. I do get the walking in, since I can get a lot of my desk work done while moving, it keeps me out of the butt vortex.

I have a lot of writing and blogging to do, you might see me here more often these days. I'm going to be writing a piece on cancer for runners as a guest blogpost for another blogger soon, and it will be a long piece with a continuation to here and my new work blog.

Have a great weekend and see you soon. Thanks for sticking with me, readers. It's been a rough run, lately.

8HOP: Eight Hours of Power

I needed a long training run that would allow me to create conditions as close as possible to NorthCoast so I could practice my walk/run pattern and see how I felt doing that on tired legs.

My options were few: there are no good asphalt or concrete loop courses that are 0.9 miles with close parking. I could have gone to the track and set up a table, but I'm not running on the track for this race. I could have gone to the cemetery for the 0.98 mile loop, but that's gravel.

I chose a stretch of the Power Trail that is only about a mile from home. I found a double out & back course that measured out 2.7 miles. I measured a quarter mile from my car and used that as my walk break. I mapped everything out with GPS and double checked it on my phone, plus I am already very familiar with the course, as I run that section all the time. I used my car as my aid station, and parked next to some tennis courts in the shade.

My plan at NorthCoast is to walk a quarter mile every three laps. On the track it would be close to doing 10 laps of running to 1 lap of walking. At Cornbelt I ran/walked 6:1 and that was very doable. Not sure how the 10:1 plan might go, but I wanted to see how it felt, at least for 40 miles, on dead legs. The other things I considered are: it's at 5000 feet altitude, it's warm, there are some good rolling hills on the Power Trail that won't be there in Cleveland, I'm not rested or tapered, it's at the end of a 90 mile week, and the car is an inconvenience that would take extra time to mess with things than a table.

I planned to run 8 hours at my race pace, and cover 40 miles. It was a good compromise for a long run, less recovery needed than if I raced a 50 miler, but challenging. I would not shut off my watch, all of the elapsed time would include aid breaks, bathroom breaks, walk breaks, and anything else that might occur. I wanted to run steady for the first 6 hours and then pick it up the last 2 hours if I had anything left.

I wore my new Zensah compression shorts for the first time. I've been considering getting a pair since Cornbelt and decided to try them. I didn't use compression sleeves on my calves today, though. I will on race day.

I figured on starting around 6 and being done by 2 pm. As it turned out, thanks to those reliable night sweats, I woke up at 2:55 am. I figured what the hell and dragged myself out of bed. I made PBJs and filled the cooler with ice water and vitamin water zero. I ate a PBJ for breakfast because I didn't feel like making anything else. I drove over to the trailhead and parked, and started about 4:30 am.

It was 55 degrees, it felt perfect. I didn't need my headlamp, there was enough ambient light. I started out at a slow but steady pace and held it. I didn't vary the pace much at all the whole time, my fastest loops were 30 minutes, most were 31 or 32 minutes, and a few were closer to 35 when I took bathroom breaks. My walking pace was my typical 14 minute mile pace. I count on 15 minute miles but after many loops that buys me extra time, for things like bathroom breaks or occasionally being indecisive about food, drink, clothing or supplies.

I took pictures early in the morning but I didn't feel like messing with my phone later in the run. There is some interesting variety alongside the trail, like the elaborately painted utility boxes. The trail runs parallel to railroad tracks but doesn't follow the railroad grade. It has some challenging rolling hills.

By 8:30, about halfway through, I was right on schedule, and it was starting to get hot. I pulled out my ice bandana but I had no ice cubes, I soaked it with ice water from my jug. That was enough. I continued to be consistent on my splits. The southern end of the course has some nice shade for a quarter mile stretch, and doubling back it extends it to a half mile, across from the golf course on Horsetooth Road. That was my reward each time.

My stomach was not too happy with my food choice, that breakfast PBJ didn't sit well, and I only ate one more PBJ about halfway through. I only had 3 gels in addition to the sandwiches. I was peeing enough, but not a lot. I had S Caps in vitamin water and ice water in my bottles, switching off every other loop. I don't eat much bread anymore normally, and sometimes I think that wheat doesn't always agree with me. It was getting warm, too, so maybe it was just that.

At 6 hours I decided to crank up the pace, but I didn't have much to give. I ran a few loops close to 30 minutes but I felt better when I ran closer to my average pace. My legs were tired. The walk breaks were perfect, I think I'm okay with that, and on rested legs I'm sure I'll respond even better.

I thought about running the entire 8 hours, which would have given me just over 41 miles, but decided against it, and stopped at 40. I finished 40 in 7:47 and it was nearly 80 degrees. I could have kept going for a while like that, but I was starting to feel it along with the heat. No need to overdo it. I need recovery and fresh legs more than anything else now.

This run rebuilt some confidence. I've been feeling so crappy for the past month that I was starting to worry that I wouldn't be ready for NorthCoast. This turned things around for me, mentally. I needed this for my head more than anything. I have 7 weeks left until NorthCoast, and that will be my longest training run. In two weeks I run a marathon, and I'll probably do a fairly high mileage week two weeks after that, but I'm not doing any more long runs. Nothing much over 20 miles. I need to keep things focused on a faster pace from here on into the race, and recover from my workouts.

Time to go home, refuel and hydrate, and take a shower. When I took off all my sweaty stuff, I had Zensah legs. Time for some chili, lots of fluids, and later on, beer and a nap. I had a job to do, I got it done, and I'm happy.

Seven weeks!

Hail Mary! Twenty Miles of Chopped Salad

I haven't been blogging much this week, it's been crazy. I've been busy with work, which is awesome, and getting my miles in even though my legs don't feel as fresh as I'd like them to be, but we've had a few mini natural disasters around here lately.

It started innocently enough early this week, nice clear skies in the mornings followed by late afternoon thunderstorms, which is typical summer Colorado weather. I ran the bike paths early in the week, everything was green and growing and summery.

Tuesday was a great day, especially in the evening when I had my radio show on KRFC. The podcast isn't up on their website yet and the host of the show told me she is behind on getting those things up so it could be August before it's available. But the good news is it went very well and I will likely do another show in the future. As soon as the podcast is up I will post the link. It was fun, I really liked it and I felt comfortable with Lindsay, the show host.

I had a lot of client appointments this week which gave me a good indicator of how busy I will be able to get before I need to hire some help. I'm not there yet but I have some thinking to do over the next few weeks so I can start putting all of that in place and be ready in case...

Tuesday night we had a massive hailstorm, the girls were both on the bed with us, trembling. We could hear the hail crashing on the roof, I went in the back office and looked out the open window and could smell the parsley, being shredded in the dark. It sounded like the windows were going to break at times, and like someone was pounding the roof with baseball bats.

The next morning we surveyed the damage. No damage to the cars, windows, or obvious damage to the roof, everything looked intact. But the yard...

The garden was shredded into what looked like chopped salad.

We'll have to start over, the good thing is it's June and we still have another two months, we can at least plant lettuce and other things again. The baby tomato plants are gone. Lucky I had just harvested the broccoli and most of the cauliflower the day before the storm. The beets might survive but most of them are big enough to pull now anyway.

I had a 20 mile run planned and got out there and did it. I decided on a tour of south Fort Collins, which turned into a Hail Mary tour.

The piles of hail along Lemay Avenue were easily a foot deep, deeper in some spots.

As I ran up the Power Trail there were areas that were flooded, and other places that looked like a blizzard hit.

When I got to the place where the Power Trail was a lake, I decided on a detour through the golf course.

That was flooded, too. I ended up running through mid-calf-deep icy water!

Everywhere I turned there were more piles of deep hail.

It made for an interesting and adventurous run. I felt like I was in the mountains again, something I've been missing lately. In July I plan to get up to Rocky Mountain National park, regardless of the bad ankles, I'm going.

This morning it was speed day and usually I run with Wheaties Boy but he was out of town, so I decided to sleep in and do my miles in the daylight, and on pavement, which helps. Finally busted through the 7 minute mark again, despite my dead legs. The next two were close, but no cigar...7:08 and 7:02. Still not bad for tired legs.

Tomorrow I have a long run planned. While the rest of Fort Collins is downtown at the Brewers Festival, I am hoping to have the roads to myself and run a good portion of the day, maybe 6 hours or so. Next week is already the 4th of July, Isabelle's birthday on the 5th, and I am looking forward to three weeks from today.

That's when I take off to Lone Pine, California to be on Badwater Medical again. I cannot wait to get back out there and see everyone, I missed it so much last year when I was stuck here in that horrible torture session at my old job. I'm driving this time, 17 hours total each way, but will stop off and visit friends along the way in western Colorado the first night, and of course make my necessary Sushi Koma stop in Las Vegas.

But mostly I'm looking forward to the long hours on the road, with the windows down, no AC, hot wind blasting in my face, and clearing my mind. I need a reset button!

The Snowmageddon Super Bowl

Today I ran about 16 miles on the Power Trail and south of town in the snow. It stayed at 19 degrees and snowed the whole way. Most of the bike paths were plowed, but the roads were slushy and the sidewalks were marginal. Lots of icy spots underneath the snow.

The backyard is buried, our raised beds are almost submerged in the snow. It seems like there isn't much out there when you look at flat surfaces or the roof of the woman cave, but when you go out in the streets that haven't been plowed, like ours, it's almost knee deep in some places. And it's still coming down.

But it was another nice day for a run. Time alone, to think about things. Sunday is Superbowl, which is of course a bigger deal here because of the Broncos. I am very proud of my nephew Jim, he's a freshman at Cal State Long Beach and he is a bassist. The Walmart commercial during the Superbowl will feature his bass playing in the background music. Even if it is Walmart, hey, it's pretty cool.

Next week when I'm in Arizona I will also be going to see a play the night after running Pemberton and my niece Jenny has the leading role. I'm very excited about my niece and nephew and their success in their artistic pursuits. My youngest nephews, Matteo and Luca, are turning out to be amazing athletes, great at soccer, basketball, and whatever else they pick up.

I'm not much of a football fan but I can tolerate watching a game every once in a while. I will be watching the Superbowl. Especially the Walmart commercials. Ha!

Running today brought me an incredibly happy feeling. I was thinking about things I'm looking forward to, like the races I've signed up for, and being able to actually watch the Superbowl with Dennis- I always had to work on Superbowl weekend. And this morning I just spoke to a running buddy of mine, Beth, in Georgia. She might want to run in Ohio again next fall at North Coast and we would share a hotel room, which would be fun, and it would be great to hang out and run some with her, she's a lot faster than I am though. And it would also save money on my limited budget this year.

I've had a solid week of running, and next week I get to go to Arizona. I am not tapering for this race, I intend to go into it tired. I hope to run well even on tired legs. First race back you never know. But it will be fun, I always see so many of my old friends there in the Arizona races.

Just feeling so relieved, so much less of a burden to carry around now that I don't have to deal with the toxicity of my old workplace. It's a great feeling. I am working probably more hours now than I was at my nursing job but the hours I put in are doing things that are moving me forward. The opportunities are unlimited.

Finally I feel like what I'm doing is going to make a positive difference and really improve someone's health, rather than having to do it in a way that is limited and restricted, forcing me to check little boxes instead of being able to focus on the person I'm working with.

Tuesday February 4th is World Cancer Day and I am going to launch my business Facebook page that day. At that time my business website will be visible. I'm making progress and will be done with my Cancer Exercise Trainer course by the end of this month and ready to take the exam for that certification, and then I have some paperwork and legal details to take care of, and I should be ready to go by mid-spring, ready to pound the pavement and tell everyone about my new gig.

But first...Omaha! It's the year of the prairie.

Bronco Bella, aka Isabelle, aka The Prairie Princess, is wearing her Broncos shirt. Go Broncos!

Snowy Butts

It dumped snow for a while last night and this morning, but we only ended up with about 3 inches in our part of town.

Shoveling was the first order of business this morning. I woke up early, so I waited until it got light and went outside with the Buffaloes.

It looked like we would get hammered for a while, but it didn't amount to much except making a mess out of the streets and sidewalks. Not exactly good pogo sticking weather.

It was the kind of snow that gets stuck in little icy clumps between Buffalo toes and they needed a day off anyway, so we just played in the yard while I shoveled.

I procrastinated, it was supposed to ease up by mid-day so I took a chance on that. I did my weight workout and watched the snow. By 1 pm it wasn't letting up so I decided to go out and face it. I have some shoe spikes I need to test, but I needed to get some miles in. It's cold enough that this snow isn't going away soon, so I'll check out the MICROspikes on Sunday or Monday.

I started out in the neighborhood and it was slippery and deep, no one ever shovels their sidewalks on this one street I have to run down in order to get to anywhere. The road had icy spots that never melted from the last storm, underneath the new snow that was all torn up with tire tracks.

Usually the footing is best where the cars have gone, but not today, it was all junked up and nasty. So it took me a good half hour to run the 2.3 miles to the Power Trail, where the city has plowed the bike paths. At the beginning of the run, the Power Trail was pretty clear except for a few icy patches, but it was wet where the snow melted. It was 21 degrees when I started.

The wind was coming from the north and freezing my face off in that direction! The sun was sinking and the surface was starting to freeze, leaving patches of ice on the formerly wet surface that was plowed. Slicker than snot.

"Tough as nails" was the expression that ran through my head. I remembered the cold windy conditions at North Coast last spring. I could do it again. On one little spur off the Power Trail that I took, I noticed a sign on a fence that said this section of the trail had been adopted by the family of a former patient of mine, who passed away last spring. I thought of him, he would have loved to be out there in this snowy weather too.

The footing was getting progressively worse and I still had a mile and a quarter along the nasty unplowed side streets to get back home. I finished with 11.7 miles in two and a half hours when I got back to the warm house with waiting Buffaloes. Dennis was out watching a football game. The girls didn't seem too upset at me for not taking them.

Tomorrow is supposed to be in the single digits, I'm planning on doing the Tortoise and Hare 8K but I'm not forcing myself to wake up for it. It starts at 8 am, which is brutal, when it comes to running in the cold. If I wake up early enough I'll go, if I need the sleep, I'll stick to the warm bed. It's hard to get out of the mom sandwich between two Buffaloes when it's zero degrees outside and you really don't NEED to do the 8K.

We'll see what happens in the morning...

Power!

This is the view from the bottom of the Power Trail where it hits Trilby Road, looking at Longs Peak. I've been spending a lot of time on it lately, because of the ice on the streets. But we lucked out with a streak of warmer weather this week. I actually ran in a t-shirt today, for part of my afternoon run.

I don't know what happened to the weather forecast but we were supposed to have a warm day, nearly 70 degrees on Wednesday. It never got there, not even close. But maybe I missed it because I took a long nap in the afternoon.

Wednesday I started out by running 5+ miles with the girls and after that I could no longer function. Laundry and dishes were the limits of my cognitive abilities. And Wheaties Boy was unfortunately sidetracked last night for our tempo. So I went out after my nap and put in another 11 miles but didn't run hard. I ran easy, did a lot of thinking and obsessing about silly and not-so silly things.

It was probably good for me to take it easy. I've been busy with a lot of things. Work has been kind of snarly lately. Morale isn't all that good. One thing they sprung on us at our staff meeting on Wednesday morning, that really irritated me, along with everyone else, was that they are going to limit vacations in May, June, and July this year. It wasn't so bad at first when they told us that would be the case for the month of July this year. So then everyone made their plans to do things in May and June.

But because we are switching over to a new computer system, and they need to do the training in May and June, it will take extra hours off the unit. So then they need to be able to staff for that in the unit, and that will require us to work extra to fill in for the people who are training. So now people are PISSED.

I'm sorta pissed too, because back in November I put in for time off at the beginning of May to go run Cornbelt. I don't know when I'll find out if I can have it off. I'll wait to sign up until I hear. But a lot of people put in for real vacations too. May and June are full of family events, weddings, school graduations, etc. Like I said, people are pissed. Plus I already know that going out to Badwater might be a problem this summer, too, with the no vacation rule.

There have been so many changes, and they are asking us to do so much more with less, and people don't deal with change very well anyway, so it's really hard to be at work these days with so much griping. I try not to add to it at work, I just think of it as surfing, riding the waves, but sometimes you start to feel taken advantage of. Especially nurses.

So, I was pissed about that and processed it through my head as I was running last night, and then I was also thinking about this article I read in the paper, that Felix posted to my Facebook page. Yesterday I touched on the gun arguments in my blogpost and I never read the paper until late in the day but what a coincidence when I discovered this.

You know, it can be pretty scary to walk through Walmart with Spongebob lurking around every corner. If someone has a concealed weapon I won't know about it. But walking around with a visible rifle? That's dumb. I was thinking about that while running.

So my mood had not improved much last evening. I came home after the run, went to bed, and woke up too early today.

This morning I took the girls out for 2 1/2 miles around 9:00 and again I was worthless. I wanted to do hills, but I couldn't function. So at 10:00 I went back to bed and then woke up around 12:45 and went out for my run. I did 18 1/2 miles of short rolling hills, on the Power Trail and south of town on the way to Loveland.

I pushed hard on all the uphills, and after 13 miles I was hurting. I kept going, and pushing the hills, but those last 5 miles at the top of every hill I'd get a little past the crest and then I'd have to stop and catch my breath while my legs burned until I recovered some. I'd be doubled over, trying to breathe, and my legs were on fire.

It took me just a little over 3 hours to do that run. It gave me 21 miles for the day. I followed the run up with picking up freshly thawed dog poop in the yard. Gotta stay ahead of it when we have the thaw, otherwise we'll be buried in dog poop by spring.

That's my life this week. Sorta feels soft but cold, like freshly thawed dog poop. I hope it's just the hormones.