Running Hot and Radon Lady Sighting

Tonight, tempo run with Shannon, AKA Wheaties Boy, since he's now sponsored by Wheaties. It was 96 degrees when we started and 88 when we finished. We did a loop down through Fossil Creek park, total of 11.8 miles.

I ran an average 8:42 pace, which isn't too bad considering the conditions. I did throw a sub-8 minute mile in there but quickly made up for it on Hail Mary hill, where my legs refused to push anymore. Eventually the sub-8s will come, with the cooler temperatures.

We talked about Shannon's taper, his upcoming Wasatch strategy, my 5K, and my upcoming 12 hour race in OKC. But we also talked about how nice it will be to run when it's 45 degrees. Maybe even 5 degrees. Even I'm looking forward to it. This summer has been way too long and way too hot.

I just ate a big bowl of cantaloupe because that's all that looked appealing when I got home from my run, and I go back to work the next couple of days. This weekend I can get my life back in order. I was worthless today until after my long nap.

I almost forgot, I had a Radon Lady sighting when I was in California. I haven't seen the original Radon Lady in years, but this one was a dead ringer. She kept riding her bike up and down the bike path and I knew eventually I would catch her on the camera.

What I do when I'm not running

I took two weeks off after the Estes Park Marathon. I didn't run at all except for a couple of miles with the girls. I've been riding my bike, and I logged 138 miles on the bike in the past week. Finally got out and ran 13 miles up Redstone Canyon with Cat and a few others on Sunday, and my legs felt the same. I wouldn't have gone out to run if I didn't have other people to run with.

I'm not having any trouble motivating myself to get out and ride 2 hours every day. It's the running I can't seem to force myself to do, so I don't force it. I think I need more time off than two weeks. I'm enjoying the bike, and I do want to build up to doing a century ride one of these days. I have a few rides I want to do this summer, like riding to Wyoming, doing the Rist Canyon/Flowers Road/Pennock Pass loop, and riding up to Estes Park. The hardest part about riding is my butt. It gets so sore. I probably should invest in a better seat on my bike.

The other night I went over to Riverbend Ponds dressed like the Radon Lady to protect myself from the bugs, and took pictures of what I knew would turn out to be an awesome sunset. I was not disappointed.
Longs Peak looks gigantic in the background here. It's about 50 miles away and 9000 feet above Riverbend Ponds, where I took the picture.

I've been going to the sauna to get ready for Death Valley. Only 12 days until I leave! I can't wait to get out there!

And the other thing I've been up to, now that my workouts are down to no more than 2 1/2 hours a day, is painting. I've been consistently painting again and it's like starting from scratch some days, but I'm enjoying it and I have actually painted a few things that look good! It will take a while to get back to painting in details, but I will get there. I started a website and once I have some paintings done, I will start selling things again.

It will be interesting to see how I feel after going to Badwater this summer, if it gets me charged up to train again. I'm thinking it will be 2011 at the rate I'm going, before I go back to run it again. And I've decided on my age 50 goal. More about that in a future post.

Dressed like the Radon Lady

It's COLD.

We got about 2 new inches of snow overnight and maybe another inch so far today. I met Felix at City Park this morning and we ran for about an hour, through the cemetery and around the lake at City Park. It was 6 degrees when we started. I wore four layers, including my wind pants on top of two pairs of tights, my Drymax cold weather running socks, and my big floppy size 8 shoes so I'd have room for my toes to stay warm with the thick socks.

It was Felix's first time running in a cemetery, so I gave him the tour and told him all the old cemetery running stories. I believe I still hold the record for most laps completed in one run in the cemetery. That was 31 laps. I did a 50 Km training run there once.

I used to run in Grandview Cemetery a lot when we lived on Mountain Avenue when I was in graduate school. The cemetery has an nearly perfect one mile loop around it if you take the outermost road. Great for mile repeats. The surface is packed dirt, and it's flat with a slight grade in each direction, but not enough to notice.

The one story I forgot to tell Felix was this one about the Radon Lady. Back in the early 90s when I ran in the cemetery there was this one older woman in town who did a lot of running. She used to come into the running store and buy her shoes. I remember she had big feet. I think she wore size 10s, and they were either extra wide or they were men's shoes.

But the thing that was most unusual about her was the way she dressed. She would wear this outfit that looked like part Hazmat/Badwater suit, part Halloween costume. She wore zinc oxide on her face, it was always completely white. She was covered from head to toe in this sun protective gear and these big old shoes, all year, regardless of the weather. She had a distinctive running style too, kicking her feet out a certain way as she plodded along, and she ran laps in the cemetery.

We called her the Radon Lady. By the time we left Fort Collins in 1998 I didn't see her much anymore. I didn't know if she stopped running, or left town. I forgot about the radon lady.

A few years after we moved to Arizona, I went up to Eugene, Oregon to visit a friend who had moved up there from Fort Collins around the time we left for Arizona. I was out on the running paths Eugene is famous for, and I was coming down this long stretch through a forested area, and I saw this runner coming toward me, slowly, overdressed, with big feet and a clunky, awkward style. As I got closer, it reminded me of the radon lady.

By the time I passed her, I was sure it was her. I ran past her, in the opposite direction and made a U-turn. WAS she the Radon Lady? I had to know.

It was. She had moved up there to Eugene when she retired.

The running world is small.

I rarely run in the cemetery these days, we don't live as close and it's flat. Usually I need the hills so I run up at Horsetooth. The Thursday night running group used to do a route through the cemetery but I usually work Thursdays and I end up missing those runs. It was nice to rediscover an old favorite route.

I just got an idea. My 45th birthday is coming up and I was thinking of doing a long run for it. Maybe I should run 45 miles in the cemetery and call it the "One Foot in the Grave Run". No entry fee, no t-shirts, no aid, no awards, no whining. And then maybe go to the Rio afterwards for margaritas. Not a bad idea. Any takers?