It is So Freaking Cold!

I managed to get over 50 miles on my feet this week, not all running, actually very little of it was running- only 3 days. But I got out and moved. Each day got progressively colder and the night of Christmas we got more snow.

Today it is the kind of cold that seeps into your bones and makes you not want to leave the house. It will be a bike day for sure. I feel like I had a successful week though, I did all my resistance training and stretching and all the extras. I will get there with the running, I don't need to get injured or sick like I did this fall. It's been such a long time since I've run much, I do need to start back carefully.

Somehow I will have to convince myself to start going up to Horsetooth as of next week, just once a week, to get the hills in. I'm hoping we'll be back to double digit temperatures in the mornings by then.

Spring is less than a week away.

Spring in January, Told Ya So...

Sunny and 57 degrees, right now, going on 4 pm. It is spring, and the Great Antarctic Ice Sheet is retreating from our neighborhood streets. I no longer have to drive put of the neighborhood to start running, to avoid risking my life.

This afternoon I am kicking back after a nice long run. Long in time, not in distance. It was warm, almost 50 degrees when I woke up this morning, and windy. I needed to get at least two and a half hours in, preferably more. I decided to do a run on the Spring Creek and Poudre Trail bike paths, then followed it up with a half hour with the tire east of town.

I wore shorts! My legs are about as white as they ever get, they never get quite pale enough to blind anyone, but they haven't seen the sun in months. I got more than 15 miles including the tire pulling, in 3 hours. Slow overall pace but fighting the wind for half my run and then the tire, with the hill, so that was pretty good. Longest run since October for me.

Now I'm in the woman cave drinking a Stranger Pale Ale from Left Hand Brewing, in Longmont. They make good beer there, even if they're not in Fort Collins. The other day I made a huge pot of green chile and some refried beans, we've been living on that with tortillas all weekend.

The sun came back on Wednesday morning, Cat called me and we met up at Horsetooth for a late morning run. It was the best thing I could have done. Just seeing the sky and the scenery, instead of cold, gray ice in town, was enough to pick my mood up out of the winter depression that was setting in. I have been in a major hole this winter.

Interesting thing I found out this past week. Last year's U.S. performances in the 24 hour were posted for men and women. I managed to miss the top 25 list by just a hair. The 25th place performance was 112.9 miles. I am not sure if there's anyone else between me and her, but I ran 112.29 at Cornbelt. Damn. Not that it matters, but I guess I could feel pretty good about it given that there were not that many other women 50 or older on the list. There were a few, but most were much younger. Not bad for an old fart. I think I can still do better, but I'm not sure when or where I might do my next 24 hour. My buddy Hung Ng ended up just out of the top 25 too. We met when we suffered together at North Coast in 2013.

Here in Colorado we are spoiled, we are used to having sunshine most days, and when the sun doesn't shine for more than two days in a row, we get GRUMPY.

The girls got grumpy, too. It was cold and so icy that I didn't want to walk them, because I was afraid they would hurt themselves. Old dogs don't need soft tissue injuries. So they went without walks for a couple of days and by Wednesday Iris was bouncing off the walls, and Isabelle was ready to go first thing in the morning.

The Great Antarctic Ice Sheet has been worse this year than most, we got all that snow, it started to melt, and then we got the deep freeze. The water was higher than the sidewalks and spilling over the curbs. When it froze, the sidewalks were skating rinks. The usual ice dam at the end of our street is deep enough that if a car without much clearance tries to go over it, it scrapes the bottom and makes an awful noise. The city hasn't figured it out that every year they end up having to bring the big equipment in to chip the ice away from that same spot.

We've had some nice sunrises with all the clouds, but it's hard to not see the mountains for days on end. Grumpy. Finally today from the bike paths and the east side of town, I got some good views.

The geese were hanging out along the Poudre River, which is almost free of ice.

After the first 2 and a half hours I was starving. I stopped by the hosue and grabbed a snack, then quickly got into the car and drove over to Strauss Cabin, where I did a quick little jog to re-warm up, then I got the tire and did 35 minutes with it.

West of the cabin, off the paved roads of Horsetooth and Ziegler, there is a nice little hill where the road isn't paved, perfect for the tire.

Nice day for a tire. I hope the sunshine lasts a while...it is spring.

Butts Are Here To Stay

No ifs, ands, or butts. No excuses, this week, despite the cold weather I got my butt out the door, froze it off each time, but I must have plenty of butt because it seems like I can always go out the door the next day and freeze more of it off. I guess I shouldn't be concerned since butts are so "in" these days.

Wrapped up the week with a big 33.6 miles. Three miles of that with the tire. I haven't had much trouble getting motivated because there were a lot of running club group runs to get me out the door, despite one of the coldest weeks I can ever remember in the 25 years or so I've been around Fort Collins. It got down to seventeen below zero the other day, and this morning at 9 am it was one degree above zero when I left the house to join the group from the Fort Collins Running Club at Dan's house for our Sunday run.

We took off toward the bike path and ran west along the Spring Creek Trail. I ran most of the way with David from the club, we seemed to be running the same pace, so that worked out well. I didn't feel like killing myself to try to stay up with the fast group, either. I wanted to get a good two hours in plus drag the tire after the run. I ended up with 11.4 miles for my run today, ending with about 20 minutes with the tire. My legs were already toast when I started, so by the time I got home I was worthless. The temperature was up to 14 degrees with the sun shining.

Saturday morning the club was meeting at Fort Collins Brewery for the beginning of the Running U session 2, in which I am a mentor. They were doing a 5 mile run on the Poudre Trail from the Brewery. I ran the 5K distance from my house to the brewery and got sweaty enough that by the time I met everyone at the Brewery I was soaking wet and froze my ass off waiting around, I got going, and some of the bike path was snowpacked and made it quite challenging for my wimpy trail-naïve legs.

I made it back and we did our thing at the Brewery, it was a fun social event, I got to talk to a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while since I missed almost all the club events in December due to being sick. It was time to leave and I didn't realize the temperature had dropped and it started snowing. Fortunately Deb and her family gave me a ride home so I wouldn't freeze trying to run home.

It sure has been nice not having an agenda, I can go out and run on Sunday for a couple of hours with other people, instead of squeezing a ton of miles in all the time.

The Buffaloes aren't too excited about the cold weather this year. They like going out but sometimes it's too cold even for them. Isabelle used to love to sit outside in the cold, even in a blizzard. This year she's not so into it.

Yesterday I did yoga for an hour, and it felt good, even though I can tell how tight I am and how uncomfortable it is to have experienced the partial return of my mountain bike tire around my waist. At the same time I've had low motivation to work out, I also continued to eat like I was still working out, so three months of that caught up with me, about ten pounds worth. I am aware of it and starting to nudge myself gently toward reducing my calorie intake, but I haven't been very strict or disciplined about it.

I'll get there, but...

Tomorrow it's back to work, I have a few extra things on the agenda this month so I'll be busy. I just need to keep getting my butt out the door.

Readin, Rite-in, Runnin

It's been ridiculously cold the past few days and I'm looking forward to it warming up. I managed to keep my running and motivation streak alive through the cold snap. Just one day indoors on the bike, other than that it was an hour a day of running. 

I'm finally getting around to doing some reading I've been wanting to do, some books on health care policy that are really not bad, and another one sort of for fun that is more of a psychology book. No this is not recreational reading, it all has a purpose, feeding my thoughts on health care for the writing I'm doing. 

Just like with running, every so often I hit the wall mentally with writing, the past two days it's almost like my brain circuits froze up and everything that's coming out if garbage. But give it a few days to recharge and I'll be back at it.

I cooked lentil soup with kale the other day that was really good, and today I made a sweet potato black bean stew with shredded pork that is decadent but awesome. I've been into the comfort food cooking. It's too cold for salads right now. 

Iris doesn't seem to mind the cold, I trimmed the hair between the pads on her paws so she wouldn't get ice balls when we walk. Isabelle doesn't want to go out to walk, but she's happy to lie down in the snow in the backyard, even on the coldest days. 

The motivation is better, even though it's still a struggle every day to get out there. I figure I'll go through the motion until I find the autopilot button again. Probably buried underneath a few extra pounds of comfort food.

Greetings from the Woman Cave

I haven't been blogging much. Lately my life has consisted of studying for my Cancer Exercise Trainer exam, working on a presentation I'm giving to the Aspen Club next week, and of course, running, with 75 miles in last week and a 40 mile run planned for this coming weekend in another 70+ mile week.

I ran Redstone Canyon, 13 miles slow and easy with my friend Katy last Saturday, she is recovering from knee surgery. We had a good run and it was great to see her. Then I had a kickass workout last Sunday in the cemetery, I did 18 miles and was hitting splits I haven't run in several years.

And of course tasting the latest release of Tree Shaker Imperial Peach IPA at Odell Brewing Company, hanging out with the Buffs, meeting with people on business-related matters, and having nearly every second of my time accounted for.

Tonight I'm about to wrap it up but thought I'd post a quick one to let you know I'm still here.

It got cold again, snowed, blew, froze our asses off, and now we're in a short warming trend, which promises to turn cold and windy again in time for March and my 40 mile run. March will come in like a lion, that's for sure, I will be the lion. I'm taking it easy this week with my running but plan to get a good workout in with the long run.

I also had my annual physical exam and my eye exam and I am apparently getting younger. My eyes are young, still I can get away without reading glasses and my prescription didn't change. It could any day, but I have young eyes. I am doing much better than I was a few months ago, overall physically. No stress-related issues.

I have also recovered from my brief detachment from my happy place last week with the tax-induced flashbacks. What would I do without my Buffaloes?

I'll have more to report on soon, I have another busy week ahead but things will start to get more exciting once I get through a few projects I need to finish. I already feel a rant building up and I'll have some carbon to blow out this weekend! The following weekend I have my birthday run coming up. Should have some good stuff to report on soon...

Blame it on the Polar Vortex! And MICROspikes Trail Review

That was the temperature on Monday morning!

This is the second time it's been super cold this winter. I hope this is the end of it. Oops, meant to say spring. It's the first cold weather of spring, the season that is 7 days old.

This morning it was much warmer, 12 degrees above zero when I woke up. I met Emma for a trail run this morning in the foothills, which was a nice change from my usual road runs, and nice to have company along for the run.

It also gave me a chance to test the MICROspikes on the trails. Thanks to Emma, who took the pictures of me in the MICROspikes!

I liked the way they grip both uphill and downhill. They don't feel too heavy.

I think the MICROspikes outdo the Yak Trax in every way, with two little exceptions: the price, and the weight. If you're looking for something for short, casual walks in the neighborhood, or short term solutions around the house like snow shoveling, then Yak Trax make sense for the price.

For any active outdoor use, the MICROspikes are the way to go. No issues with them slipping off or rolling under your feet. I was able to accelerate, even downhill, without feeling like I might slip. The only thing I would like is something a little lighter weight. It sounds like Kahtoola will come up with such a device soon. Thanks to Josh from Kahtoola for the opportunity to try these and review them!

It was such a beautiful morning, even with the cloud cover, seeing the light over the foothills. Such a relief to get off the roads and back up on trails. No ankle problems, either. In the snow it seems like my ankles do better than on the dirt and rocky surfaces. Or maybe it's just because it's been so long since I ran trails that my ankles are better.

This week the world resumed it's post-holiday frenzy. Monday I stayed home all day, it was killer cold and I rode the bike a total of 2 hours indoors, did some weights, and mostly studied. I did a lot of cooking too, soup and roasted vegetables.

I've been able to stick to the plan and I haven't been hungry. I'm eating five or six times a day, tons of veggies, like a whole head of cauliflower or a whole bag of baby carrots every day, along with other things: kale, zucchini, and a lot of protein. No sugar or fruit and almost all my carbs from vegetables. No grains or anything like that right now.

My challenge will be this week when I do my long run fueled by a very limited number of foods. Fortunately this will be the only long run I have to do during this time while I'm restricting my food intake. Running 30 or so miles on carrots could be interesting. Stay out of my way!

It's too snowy for Buffaloes to go very far outside, they don't like those paw covers, we've tried them. Isabelle doesn't even want to go when it's this cold, and Iris goes about half a mile before she starts complaining of ice balls in her paws. It's supposed to warm up into the 40s by midweek. Then we can have the ice dams at both ends of the street and the great Antarctic ice sheet will be back to cover the neighborhood like a skating rink.

But this year, I will have MICROspikes. Polar vortex, MWAH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

photo credit: all photos of MICROspikes by Emma Bootle Peskind

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...

Escape From Siberia...In My Dreams!

It's the middle of the day and it's only 9 degrees! Torture! It's supposed to get into the high teens in preparation for tomorrow's above-freezing forecast. But the way things look I'm not sure if we'll hit that tomorrow.

My cold is getting better, I sound terrible but I feel pretty good. Not great, though. Thanks to the new humidifier Dennis brought home yesterday, this morning I could make noises that were distinguishable from one of the girls' dog toys. I'd go out and run, except it's still so cold outside, I think I'll wait another day or two. I'll get on the bike inside today and see how that feels.

I'm getting work done on the business end of things, which is good. I'm closer to launching my business website, and I'm reading and studying a lot.

It occurred to me again that I haven't been to any destination races or adventure runs in a while. I'll have to change that next year. My 50th birthday run will be one, but I haven't been able to come up with an acceptable plan yet. Ever since Ed and I ran the Mickelson the summer before last, I haven't done any more outdoor adventures that don't include airports or cities.

I need to get out and move. Time to put on some layers again, wrap a big heavy something around my neck and ears, stretch the Yak Trax over my shoes, and take the girls for a walk, even if it's only for short one.

We're all going stir crazy.

The Big Freeze

Winter has arrived.

Here was Warren Lake on Saturday, at 60 degrees, in a t-shirt and shorts.

and then Wednesday, ten degrees, with ice forming on the lake.

Yak Trax and all.

Today is bright and sunny but the temperature hasn't made it above 5 degrees yet.

I woke up with a sore throat and sniffles. That really sucks, I don't feel too bad but I didn't sleep well last night and my throat hurt then, too. I need some down time. I rarely get sick. I don't know where I picked this up except maybe in the pool the other day, there were a gazillion high school kids at their swim practice right before I got in the pool. One of the downsides of swimming in a public pool, I guess. I did swim 1800 meters on Tuesday though, which is my longest swim in about twenty-five years.

The fact that I've been sick twice in 3 weeks tells me that the work stress hangover is the gift that keeps on giving. I do feel better in general but I am sure my immune system was not happy for a while. I should be bouncing back soon.

Also I've been hitting it pretty hard with the workouts lately, after slacking off for 7 months, so that could be a shock to my body. The timing was good, for getting sick at least, this was going to be a short easy week of running anyway. Maybe I'll get more work done.

Santa is being very kind to us this year, and he is sending his elves early, too. The elves are bringing us a hot tub next week, to replace the old decrepit model that came with the house and recently died. The elves will install the new hot tub and cart the old one off.

This one is smaller than our old monster hot tub, and the model of the new hot tub happens to be called "Iris". Iris was happy about that, plus the fact that this new tub is lower to the ground, so she'll be able to keep a closer eye on us without having to climb the stairs and jump up on the edge. For now she's content to fall asleep in her dad's arms...

Isabelle loves sitting outside in the snow. It can be 5 below zero and she'll sit out there and enjoy the cold air.

I've been making tons of soup, batch number three is cooking right now. First it was turkey green chile, then I made turkey tortilla soup, the latest one is turkey kale-leek-mushroom soup, with leftover mashed potatoes thrown in. We had a ton of mashed potatoes left over from Thanksgiving. Turkey parts are inexpensive at Sprouts right now, they must have cut up all their extra holiday turkeys and are trying to get rid of them.

Not much else to report. I'm hoping I can shake this crud quickly by staying home, getting plenty of sleep and hydrating myself with soup. Somehow it's not so bad being sick when the temperatures are in the single digits outside. When the sun is shining like this, it doesn't feel bad outside at all, if you're covered. I wish I felt better because it's nice running weather out there.

But I have plenty to do to keep me busy at home. And if I feel like I need to get warm, I can always go in the fridge.