Friday Clearance!

What a week!

I am finding myself in need of a breather today after a little unexpected bonus running adventure yesterday!

First, what's up with the sign? Mental clearance sale? That idea came from my new friend, fellow blogger and passionate patient advocate Terri, at Diep C Journey. For those of my readers who also have an interest in breast cancer-related matters, Terri is a powerful and influential advocate for women who need education and resources for reconstruction options following a mastectomy. Since this blog is not about breast cancer I have given you her URL so you can check out and follow her blog.

I need a mental clearance sale today myself, simply because my brain has been on overload all week and things finally caught up with me yesterday.

Last week I was a slug. I just could not find the motivation again. I got an amazing amount of work done, so that was fine. Finding the consistency to keep moving is the struggle these days.

Monday I started out with a busy week but committing to myself to get back into the habit of doing about 10 miles a day on my feet. Not that hard to do if I run for an hour, walk the girls once or twice, and add a little extra walking somewhere during the day.

I got a fair amount done early in the week and had some extra preparation to do, I had a few client appointments, plus I am having a promotional video made for my business and part of the footage includes the exercise class I teach, so I needed to get things in order for that. Also, I had a tweet chat last night and needed to prepare for it.

To top it off we are finding ourselves in need of an extra person on the return crew for Bob's double Badwater adventure. Trying to find someone who is free to drop everything and leave for Death Valley, is fit enough and heat-prepared enough, and can be flexible about dates as we don't know how long it will take, and, most important of all, will be drama-free and have their head screwed on straight even when severely sleep deprived, is a major challenge. If we can't find that person, we will somehow make it work. But it sure would be nice to have the extra body.

I managed to do okay with the mileage on my feet for the first half of the week. I only made 10 miles one day but came close on the others. That didn't matter so much as getting a good quality workout with some vertical at some point this week. I have to fit those in when the time allows, and the only opening I had was Thursday. I figured I could get up early, drive up to Estes and do a couple of summits of Twin Sisters to get a good 14 miles and close to 5000 feet of vertical in, then get back to town in time to maybe even take a nap before the client appointment and the tweetchat.

As it turned out, I didn't need to set my alarm or the coffeepot for 3:30 am, because my body woke me up at precisely 12:57 am after going to bed at 10:30. I stayed in bed until 2 am, not falling back asleep, so I finally said #$@% it and I'm getting up, I'll just bring my headlamp. I left the house at 3 am with some PBJs, lots of drinks, and warm clothes.

I felt like crap of course, on 2 1/2 hours of sleep, but I was alert, and I arrived at the trailhead around 4:15 am. I haven't hiked Twin Sisters since before the 2013 flood which cut a huge slide in the side of the mountain and wiped out parts of the trail, so I didn't know how different it would be. Actually not that different, there's just some straight up vertical climbing for short little sections where the switchbacks used to be.

I headed up the trail, tripping over a rock but catching myself within the first 100 feet. Hmm. I guess being that sleep deprived doesn't raise any red flags.

I kept going, and when I got to the slide at about 1.25 miles, I had to take my time trying to see where the trail had been diverted, in the dark, looking for cairns which had been placed. It was hard to see and it took a long time to figure out where I needed to go. I was hoping to summit by sunrise, but as it turned out I was about a mile below the summit when the sun came up, in the bristlecone & lodgepole transition forest, which made for some awesome photos.

It took me nearly 2 hours to get to the summit. I did fine once I was able to turn the headlamp off. In the old days I was able to get to the top and back down, do the whole thing, in about an hour and 40 minutes. I can remember one year I did a triple in 6 hours. That's how fit I used to be. Not anymore!

I got up to the summit, sat on top of the west peak for a few minutes in the wind, took some pictures, sent Dennis a text, and then headed back down. Once you start to cross the rocky section above treeline, just before you head back into the trees, I was walking down the trail, and...

I was face down, looking at rocks and some little alpine wildflowers, my wrists hurt like hell, my knees were throbbing, and my right calf muscles were cramped in an almost square shape. Knocked the breath right out of me. I was gasping more from the pain of the calf cramp than anything. No one was around. It was 6:30 am, I was at 11,000 feet, lying prone on the trail, and once the calf cramp let up, I slowly had the sense to assess myself to see if I could get up and move. My left wrist was the worst, but my right shin hurt like hell too.

Did I break anything? I moved my wrist and thumb around, which were inside my glove. Fortunately I was bundled up in the cold wind from the summit, so when I peeled my glove back, only the heel of my left hand had skin scraped off and was slightly bleeding. My wrist and thumb were working fine. My right hand was rashed under the glove but the skin was intact, and no problems there except pain from the impact. I moved my right leg carefully so as not to trigger another cramp. I was scraped and a big knot was coming up on my lower shin, and my left knee hurt, but no blood.

I slowly got into a sitting position, lightheaded and feeling nauseated, I sat there for a second, waiting for it to either pass, to puke, or for me to pass out again without having to fall too far. Fortunately none of those things happened. I was shaking all over though. After a few minutes I began to get up slowly, hoping walking was possible. I was upright and began walking very slowly down the trail.

I felt a little lightheaded, probably from the altitude. I drank some water. Everything seemed to be intact, but I knew I wasn't coming back up for another summit. I was headed back to the car, and I figured I might even have to take a nap in it before trying to drive home.

Once I got down the trail and down in altitude a little, I felt a lot better, and made much better time, but I had to be extra careful not to catch my toe on any rocks. I haven't been doing my hip exercises, which were the thing that got me back to trail running in the first place. I am sure my hip flexors are weak and I was dragging my feet, plus being so tired. And of course, my tendency to G Bird out when I'm up high. 11,000 feet is a new low altitude record for turning into Gooney Bird, though. I obviously need to get up to the mountains more!

By the time I got back to the car I was awake and decided just to go home. I did a mental check every few miles to make sure I was still awake. Wasn't a problem. I arrived home and made breakfast, let Dennis know I was home and headed off to bed for a long nap.

I had to get up and get dressed to see a client, then get back in time to eat and prepare for the Tweet chat. I still owed the sleep bank a good 3 hours. I needed to get through until 8 pm and then I could crash. And I did, after some dinner, ibuprofen and a beer. Even Dennis took pity on me and got me some chocolate. Because I fell down.

The Tweet chat went well despite some issues with Twitter loading slowly, so I am hoping I'll get to do more of those in the future.

Today I have a huge knot and small scrape on my lower right shin, a small knot on my outer left knee, a very sore left wrist and somewhat less so right wrist, my triceps and shoulders and forearms all feel like I did an Olympic powerlifting competition and won a gold medal.

I don't know what I was thinking, really, I guess I underestimate my ability to do dumb things while running. I might have lost some fitness, but not that special gift with which so many ultrarunners are endowed. I am not in the kind of shape that I have been in the past, this is my first time at altitude all year, and on 2 1/2 hours of sleep, hiking up a slightly unfamiliar trail in the dark by headlamp, by myself, was almost Darwin Award-esque.

The one thing I can say is that besides being very lucky, I think I just saved my insurance company some bucks on a DEXA scan. If I went down that hard and didn't break anything, I must have some pretty dense bones. That slammed my distal radius. I am really sore today, all the way up my arms, shoulders and back. That was some impact especially on my left wrist. I can see the bruise on my palm.

You're very welcome, Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield.

So, the plan is, chill out today, no intense brain, physical or other work. This weekend hopefully I can get a few miles in, but whatever. I have a week and a half until I leave for Death Valley. Hopefully we find an extra crew member.

And before I forget, beer plug of the month: Odell has outdone itself here. It's called Brombeere, it's a Blackberry Gose. Whatever that is. I am not generally a fan of sour beers, I have not been that impressed with many of the sour beers out there but this one I love. They balanced the flavors just right. A new favorite!

Ain't Skeered...

It's Friday the 13th and a full moon, and Wheaties Boy and I had plans to do speedwork in the cemetery. If there was anything creepy waiting for us, we would just have to run faster!

As far as I was concerned, Friday the 13th already happened yesterday. The water pump on my car sprung a leak, so I had to get that replaced, and then the dishwasher died. Not exactly the kinds of things that you enjoy dealing with, especially when you're living on a limited budget. But...what can you do?

The dishes.

It was freezing again in the morning, this time it was 48 degrees, and I kept my long sleeved shirt on during the warmup. My legs have been toast all week. Actually this morning when I went downstairs to make coffee, it was the first day all week that it didn't hurt my quads to go down the stairs.

I woke up at 1:14 am, and couldn't go back to sleep. At 2 am I gave up, got up, made some coffee, and started reading my e-mail. I got to the cemetery early, I needed to get a good warmup in before Wheaties Boy arrived and I picked up the pace. When he showed up, he said his legs were toast and he didn't think speed was going to happen. I felt the same way and we decided to bag the mile repeats and just run laps around the cemetery. That was perfect. I got 10 miles in at a decent pace, even though it was slow, it was faster than I would have run alone. And Wheaties Boy and I finally had a chance to catch up, we usually only can do that on our recovery laps, warmups and cooldown.

As we ran I was describing my running plans to him and I realized how silly I was, thinking I'd do 100 miles this week. First, I have increased my mileage consistently over the past 4 weeks, so it would be time for an easy week anyway. And then, I don't need a lot of long runs yet. It's only early June. I just raced 5 weeks ago. It made more sense to back off this week, and since my legs have already been worthless all week and I was unable to do tempo or speed as a result, might as well back off the rest of the week and then make next week a reasonable week, but nothing extreme.

I don't know what I was thinking. I need speed more than endurance now. I can run forever but I need to make my legs turn over, and beating the crap out of them with long miles is not going to help that. Lucky that I got a chance to verbalize all this with Wheaties Boy. Sometimes you just need to say it out loud before it makes sense.

So the plan is changed. No long runs this month. I don't need them. In July I can start a few longer runs.

When I got home it was light out and I could see the flower garden when I pulled up in the driveway. It's not as spectacular as it's been in past years, I might have to re-seed for next year, but it looks nice anyway. I went in the house, said good morning to Dennis and the girls as they were waking up, made some breakfast, and went back to bed for a couple of hours.

Now I'm out in the woman cave, turned on the AC because it was like a sauna in here, and Iris is looking out the door, where it's even hotter outside. I gave the girls a bath with the hose earlier. It's supposed to hit 90 degrees.

I've been making some progress this week with getting marketing projects done, and I actually spent 6 solid hours one day doing client-related work. Progress. I have a radio show coming up and then I need to prepare for a presentation I'm giving at the local running store.

I've had the itch to get back to my writing project, and I need to get some of these business projects done so that I can clear space in my mind for re-reading and making sense of all the stuff I have so far, getting back to the main idea I want to convey and what I want people to take away from reading it. That will make a lot more sense instead of what I have now, probably a couple hundred thousand words floating around in unorganized chapters, much of which is redundant. I need to pull it together in a more organized pile that is focused, and then it will be editable. Is that a word?

I need more sleep.

I'm With Stupid...

I deserve the Darwin award today. It's day 5 of this crazy attempt I made to drastically limit what I ate and I officially feel like crap.

I knew this would be difficult, and the hardest part is my energy levels. Not just for running but everything. I've been a walking disaster for the past 3 days. So today officially I'm ending it and going back to less restrictive eating.

I thought the hardest part would be missing certain foods but I had no cravings whatsoever. I didn't miss anything, except margaritas and beer, but I'm planning to continue to avoid both, because they aren't the culprit here.

So I tried the Joe Fejes approach and it didn't work. Maybe it's not a good time in my life either, given all the stress I've been experiencing with my work schedule and my increasing feeling of hopelessness about a viable future in my current so-called career. It doesn't help that I'm working nearly twice as much as I normally do, that saps my energy more than anything, and this was a really dumb time to attempt this.

The Fourth of July was a disaster. I planned to run the 5K and then help out with the kids' race afterwards, and then do more miles later in the day. I slept 13 1/2 hours on Wednesday, so I thought I'd be recovered. But I went to bed at 10 pm on the 3rd and planned to wake up at 6:30 and go to the 5K.

I woke up at 1:30 am feeling like crap. I was having a bizzarro dream too, about a doctor throttling me and yelling at me because I left part of a patient's orders undone. I dreamed that all my coworkers and all the other doctors I work with were all there while he was doing this. The doctor yelled at me, "You see how this feels? This is how the patient feels when you don't follow my orders!"

I said, "Take your hand off my throat now." So he did, and moved it to the side of my neck and continued trying to strangle me. I yelled, "I'm reporting you to the Board..." and everyone gasped out loud, and they all left the room. Then I went into a big auditorium where all of my colleagues were watching a video and when I walked in the room everyone ignored me.

After that vivid dream I felt sick to my stomach, and hung out in the bathroom for a while thinking I would puke but nothing happened. I felt nauseated until about 3:30 am, and I finally decided there was no way I was going to the race, I would need sleep more than anything.

Eventually my stomach settled down and I went back to bed. I slept until 10 am, and it was hot outside and I felt completely drained and unmotivated to run. I ended up doing not much of anything all day and even needed a nap. I slept for a while in the afternoon in the basement, I crashed on the floor after giving Iris a haircut. The butt cut.

When I woke up I felt a little better and talked Dennis into going to the store with me so we could get the ingredients to bake pupcakes for Isabelle's birthday, which is today. We decided to celebrate her birthday last night, before the fireworks got loud and she got scared. The pupcakes were a success, and the girls were happy. Our neighbor Stan came over and wished Isabelle a happy birthday and brought us a Thai basil plant that he had started from seed. I'm going to plant it in the herb garden.

I slept well last night and woke up at my normal time this morning. It rained overnight. Then I took iris out for a quick run but she didn't want to go very far. I brought her home and went out to run, and I was dragging ass. About 13 minutes into my run when I had stopped twice to pee and hadn't even covered a mile, I started walking. I thought through what I was doing and it made sense that this was a really dumb idea to try to do this combined with running and working this crazy schedule.

So, give me the Darwin Award, and don't worry, I didn't contribute to the gene pool, my girls were adopted. They are much smarter than me anyway. They eat pupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

I will try eating a little more food today and see if my energy is better tomorrow. I hate to write another whole week of shitty training, but it looks like this month will be no better than June, given that I have another work week from hell coming up the middle of July, which will take me days to recover from. So frustrating. It's my own fault though.

I did attempt a half-assed weight workout- my triceps, biceps, and lats are sore now. And I did my abdominal workout, and I feel it! That's something, I guess. And my legs, they're still sore from the Rock Repeats on Sunday! I am a disaster!

What I really need is a week vacation in Death Valley. DAMMIT!

Sunday Slaughter

It was a solid week of training for me, which I wrapped up this morning with a Double Bacon.

No, that's not a cheeseburger. It means a double loop of the Bacon Strip, which is a 10 mile loop on hilly, 95% dirt county roads northeast of Fort Collins, about 3 miles east of the Budweiser plant. Yes, even Fort Collins, the Napa Valley of beer, has diverse offerings of brewed beverages...

The Bacon Strip, being east of town, has a great view of the northern Front Range, and all the way north to Wyoming. It is also a butt kicker of a training run. According to local marathoners, being able to run a double Bacon means you are more than prepared for a marathon. I'm not sure, but I wonder if it might be possible to predict your marathon finish time from the time it takes to cover this 20 mile course.

My friend Tom Schipper contacted me earlier this week and asked if I had any plans for a long run this weekend, and I did. I suggested a double Bacon, which is about the toughest 20 mile run around here on dirt that's within 15 minutes driving distance of downtown.

I've known Tom through the running club since 1996 and we happen to be well-matched in terms of running pace. In most of the local races we finish within 30 seconds of each other. I gauge my starting position in local road races by Tom's location, he's easy to see because he's so tall.

We drove out to the Bacon Strip, and got started just before 7:00 this morning. It was a warm, windy morning. Tom suggested we run counterclockwise for the first loop, which was a good call because we had a headwind the first 5 miles, then a nice tailwind coming back to the vehicles.

I've been feeling good lately and I thought I could run 9 minute miles on the Bacon Strip. WRONG! In the first two miles my legs felt so tired I wondered if I was going to be able to complete a second 10 mile loop. We were running into a strong headwind, and we still had some cloud cover blocking the sun, but the best we could do were 10 minute miles into the wind. Eventually we warmed up a bit and it was easier to push the pace a little, but it's so hilly and some areas have loose gravel and sand that slows you down.

I started with one tall bottle of water, having downed a liter on the drive out there. I was aware that I was a little pre-dehydrated, having not taken in enough fluids on Saturday, and then drinking a STRONG margarita just before bedtime.

I regretted drinking the margarita all night. As a result I was hot flashing like crazy and kept waking up, and I only got about 4 hours of sleep before my alarm woke me at 5:30.

We got to the cars at 10 miles at under 10 minute average pace, and the cloud cover had long since gone away. We were at the mercy of no shade, no clouds, another dry headwind outbound on the second loop which we were running in reverse. We took a good break at the cars and I drank another full liter of fluid with S caps, then took two full tall bottles in my pack for the second loop.

We were still doing well as we made the turn away from the headwind at 15 miles, but it was getting hot. The tailwind wasn't enough to cool us down anymore, and by 17 miles we were both pretty much out of water and starting to feel warm. We both took brief walking breaks. I recognized that I might be in trouble with only 3 miles left to go, I had a little bit of a headache and my stomach suddenly felt a little funny. My head felt hot under my hat.

I wondered if Tom felt the same, I knew he was low on water too. Around 16 miles we had discussed my going ahead because he thought he would be slower at the end, I told him that if I didn't see him behind me by the time I got to the cars, that I would come out and bring him water.

He seemed to be doing fine so I took off but didn't get more than a half mile ahead by the final turn at 19 miles. I alternated running and walking those last 3 miles because I kept feeling like I was getting too hot.

When I arrived at the cars, three and a half hours after we started, I could see Tom at the top of the last hill coming down to the cars, less than half a mile away, so I decided to just wait for him. By the time he got to the cars he looked pale and said he wasn't feeling good. He opened his car and sat down, I told him he should get out of the sun and he got out and opened the hatchback of his car and sat there. I had him put a frozen water bottle on his neck.

Then he started puking, I dug more small frozen water bottles out of his cooler and put them on his neck and grabbed a towel out of my car. Fortunately he didn't puke for very long but he looked white.

At the same time this triathlete couple showed up, finishing their Bacon Strip loop and they had some cold water in their car. They offered it to us and I dumped the cold water over the towel and Tom sat there and recovered, until he felt well enough to start sipping some cold coke. He bounced back pretty fast after the coke, so I'm sure he needed some sugar, too.

I was really thankful that those people were there because all I had left was warm water in my car. Usually when I do a long run I am well-stocked with ice and cold drinks in the cooler, and some oral rehydration salts, and other stuff, but I made the mistake of not taking a 20 mile run very seriously.

As it turned out, it was 82 degrees when we finished. I guess I needed a reminder to come down from my ultrarunner hubris and remember that anything can happen, even on a short run, and to always be prepared. Didn't I just blog about that a few weeks ago? My long-term memory must be going along with the hot flashes. I felt like a dumbass. I was lucky I wasn't sick, too.

As the wind dried me I could see how much salt I had on my arms. That isn't normal for me when I do my sauna training, but I haven't been doing that, either.

After Tom sat there a while he said he felt good enough to drive home, so I followed him into town, and he gave me the thumbs up when it was time for me to turn off to my house. I called him later and he's doing fine. But we both realized we hadn't planned very well.

Hopefully a lesson learned. The lessons will be repeated until they are learned...

So now I'm drinking a lot of fluids and eating some soup for the fluids and salt, and I hope I can take a nap and recover from today's Double Bacon Hog Slaughter so I can make it to my next run this coming Work Hangover Wednesday...

Two Owls and a Goat

I've outdone myself. On the bright side, I could call it a PR.

I rarely do things this stupid in training, but this time I proved, once again, that the lessons will be repeated until they are learned.

All you runners out there who get that smug little attitude toward walking, who think walking doesn't count, and who look down their noses at walkers, listen up!

This old goat ultrarunner had the bright idea that she would do a 50 mile walk in training. After all, it's just walking, right? Not like doing a 50 mile run, should be easier to recover, doesn't count so much, after all, moving at 4 miles an hour is not that fast compared to running.

I started out at 5 am, ate a huge breakfast, and began walking to Loveland. I kept a sub-15 minute per mile pace the whole time, including the time I took for my breaks, so it worked out to something more like 14 minute miles. Not a blazing fast walk pace, but requiring some focus and concentration to keep going that fast. Not a casual stroll.

My plan was to walk down Lemay to County Road 13, turn at County Road 30 and then take the bike path through Boyd Lake State Park, until it comes out near the intersection of Denver and Eisenhower. At that point I would continue southwest along the Loveland bike path until I hit the 15 mile mark from home, then turn around and go back home, where I would take a break and then head out for my final 20.

Simple minds make simple plans.

On my way down Lemay in the dark, I passed two owls, who were loudly "WHOOOOO, WHOOOO"ing at me. The sunrise was spectacular, far beyond what is shown in this picture.

My hands were too frozen, and by the time I was able to dig the cell phone camera out of my pack and navigate the buttons on my Blackberry, the sunrise had faded. But it was spectacular blazing red on the horizon, with black silhouetted trees and deep purple and red-streaked clouds against the lavender mid-sky.

I blasted down the bike path near the lake, and as the sun came up it got a little warmer, but I was dressed for sub-20 degrees. I still had water so I waited until on my way back toward Fort Collins to make my stop at the little coffee shop at Denver & Eisenhower. I scarfed half the sandwich in my pack and I was still hungry.

On my way through downtown Loveland on the bike path along the canal, there were a few houses with goats in the yards. I actually saw more than half a dozen goats. But I was the biggest goat of all. There weren't too many people on the path this morning, a few older people walking near the senior center, but that was it.

I stopped off at Dazbog Coffee at the intersection before heading back through the park, and bought some water and a blueberry scone. I was looking for something with a few more calories but nothing sounded good at the moment. I refilled my water bottles and left, inhaling the scone before I turned the corner to go north, and damn, the thing had cinnamon in it.

I hate cinnamon. UGH! But it was some calories, and I only had another half a ham & cheese sandwich and a package of margarita shot blocks left to get me through the next 12 1/2 miles to home. Normally that would be plenty of food, but my tapeworm came out of hibernation this week. I washed the scone down with as much water as my stomach could tolerate, and started blasting up the bike path again.

By the time I passed Carpenter I was less than 5 miles from home and it had warmed up some. I was way overdressed. I usually don't mind but today I was uncomfortable in all those clothes and I couldn't wait to get home to peel off some layers. My legs were a little sore, but I didn't think much of it.

When I arrived at the house I was well under 15 minute miles average including all my pee breaks and coffee shop stop, and I felt good. I took a long break at home, changing into all clean clothes.I had some soup and drank some water and gatorade, and hugged the girls. Dennis was working in the yard and he heard the girls howl when I came in, and he asked how I was doing.

"Sore!"

A few minutes later when I tried to get up out of the chair to leave the house again, I realized just how sore. My quads hurt to the touch. I could barely stand up from the chair without using my arms to prop myself up. I waddled out the door, practically limping down the street for the first mile. My plan was to do a 10 mile loop, then come home one more time, and go out for my final 10.

I wasn't too much slower, maybe 17 minute miles on the way out this time, but I was hurting! My quads were in agony! I have never been this sore during a run before. Then I realized, I usually don't walk 30+ miles at a fast pace without breaking it up with a substantial amount of running.

This past week I ran 15 miles on Thanksgiving Day easy with a lot of walking, the next day I ran 25 with some walking but mostly running. But today I walked. The only time I ran was to get across the intersection at Harmony & Lemay because the light doesn't last long enough.

Thinking 50 miles of walking would be easy was the ultimate hubris. The ultimate arrogant runner attitude, it was smacking me in the butt and quads with every step. I went home on the shortcut and finished with 37 miles. I was done.

I could barely take my clothes and shoes off. I screamed trying to pull my socks off because any movement of my quads was agonizing. Just a light touch sent me through the roof. It took me forever to get undressed and into the shower, and I screamed with pulling each leg over the ledge of the bathtub.

I will be lucky if I can get out of bed tomorrow. I took some ibuprofen after the shower and it seems to be helping. I still can't lift my feet more than 6 inches off the floor without my quads screaming in agony, but that's better than when I got done with the run.

Dennis made catfish tacos for dinner and brought the computer to me so I could work without having to deal with the stairs. He also brought home some chocolate chip cookies from Starbucks to feed the tapeworm.

I got 80 miles for the week and I guess that's good, but I was hoping to do a 50 miler before Across the Years. I did learn a lesson though, it is a lot easier to do distance when I mix up the running and walking, than to stick to walking.

Walking is NOT easier. It will kick your lazy arrogant runner butt off it's primadonna pedestal.

I learned my lesson...