Leisure Racing...

This was the full moon over our neighbor's house earlier this week.

Since then it's been dumping rain, then sprinkling, and now just overcast and damp for the past two days. We are supposed to get a giant blue hole in the sky tomorrow and have nice weather for race day. I hope that happens. Sunday is not supposed to be quite so great.

I'm doing my pre-race self-sequester, got a small amount of work done this morning and everything is ready to go. I managed to sneak the bag and all my supplies out the door while the Buffaloes were chasing squirrels in the yard today. Thanks, squirrels.

I'm trying to stuff as many calories in as possible, and drink plenty.

Dennis was up in Gunnison for a couple of days and took these pictures in Crested Butte of my old stomping grounds. Makes me want to be there. I loved this time of year up there, no tourists around, having all the trails to ourselves before the snow covered everything.

Dennis is coming to spectate for a short period of time at Boulder Reservoir sometime during the race though he'll surprise me when he shows up. It's rare for me to be running an ultra so close to home. I don't even have to get up at an outrageous hour, even though it's a 45 minute drive to the reservoir from here. So nice. It's like a leisure race.

I made my PBJs and got my yogurts ready, and spiked my vitamin water zero stash with S caps. Eddie will have a big canopy so if it rains we'll have our stuff covered. After all this rain it should have dumped a lot of snow on the high peaks so between the trees changing colors at the Rez and the snowcapped mountains we should have nice scenery if the clouds lift.

Really just looking forward to stuffing my earbuds in tight, putting it in autopilot, forgetting everything and having a nice leisurely cruise along the reservoir for 24 hours.

Healing

Last night I had some body work done by a friend who is a retired medical massage therapist. She has a different approach to massage than I've experienced before. She was amazing.

Before she started working on me I showed her my foot where it blistered during North coast and I haven't looked at it in a few days. By last night I almost couldn't tell a difference between the area of callus that had peeled off and the original skin around it. I need to make an effort to keep it that way and prevent the callus from building up again.

This morning I woke up acutely aware of the exact points of attachment of my IT band top and bottom. But it was a good feeling. I definitely had some tightness in there that I wasn't aware of. My shins were sore too, when she got in and started digging. But in general, the old body is doing pretty well. My worst areas are always my shoulders and neck because of the amount of time I spend at the computer.

When I left her house it was a gorgeous sunset over south Fort Collins.

I just want to have fun at Boulder and I hope there's good scenery and nice weather. I can give my friend Eddie a hard time in his first 24 hour race. I recently started doing some mentoring for new runners through the Fort Collins Running Club and that's something I enjoy more than anything, imparting my love of running to other people. It gives me something else to look forward to over the long winter.

The trees are changing colors, but I'm still in denial. I think it will take an actual snowstorm to get me out of summer mode. And in Colorado, that could happen at any moment. Hopefully not until after this weekend.

The Big Picture

There's a lot going on in the world right now and I was thinking yesterday about all of it, trying to put it all in perspective. I really need to get back to running posts, and I will.

I don't mean to sound negative here, because I spend my days now doing work that I feel is important and valuable to real people, and I live in a beautiful place and environment, and things are generally good in my life. I am fortunate to be where I am at the moment, and I enjoy it.

The things I see and read on a daily basis are so disturbing that I have to put it out of my mind in some way, and I think that's true for most people who pay attention to things, care about things, and live with this onslaught of information about insanity in the world. This whole Ebola thing really gets to me for some reason, and I think it's just the images of government and health officials flapping their arms and wringing their hands and looking so indecisive and lost as to how to handle it.

There is so much distrust of government and authority that the efforts to educate the public with health information are often wasted. People don't listen to sources they don't trust. The anti-vaccination movement is one example, but over the past week, look at Ebola and the information coming out of the CDC, all of the things we try to teach people about taking care of themselves and preventing cancer and chronic disease, so much of it is not being listened to.

I was writing a piece for the local paper yesterday on breast cancer and I mentioned prevention, like exercise, eating right, managing stress. These are things basic to decent health, for prevention of any disease. And so many people don't even have a grip on those basic things. We are a society hurtling toward self-destruction by our own self-neglect.

Do people have an underlying death wish? Do they really think it's a comfortable way to go, by self-inflicted obesity, septic and bloated to 500 pounds from a diabetic foot wound and hooked up to a ventilator with families surrounding them praying for a miracle? I've seen this more times than you could imagine. I can still remember the smells. Should we provide guns to these people instead? It certainly would be cheaper.

I think there is such an atmosphere of distrust here in the US because of our divided government and everyone's self-interest at the top, the focus on profit. Think about it, we are trying to prevent a disease epidemic, whether it's flu or measles or Ebola, and some for-profit hospitals are so cheap they don't even provide adequate protective materials for their staff like gloves and gowns.

The spokespeople at the tops of government or worldwide agencies are often viewed as shills for an already distrusted government, and those suspicions turn out to be right. So that just strengthens the case for distrust of agency information, and promotes more reliance on untested, unscientific sources such as the so-called health gurus who claim there is a natural cure for everything if you take the right supplements (a multi-billion dollar industry), you can cure cancer with a daily kale and wheatgrass smoothie, people who still believe childhood measles vaccines cause autism, and it goes on.

What if they came up with a vaccine for Ebola? Or a vaccine for breast cancer?

All over the world there is so much unrest, I think it has always been this way but there was less ability to follow it and draw attention to it due to the Internet and technology. Having those mouthpieces available like social media, makes it more attractive to rebels to get attention and be seen by the world, bringing attention to their cause. People are always going to have their attention grabbed by the extreme, so these groups resort to the extreme and show it on video over Instagram or Facebook.

There are the very rich countries and the very poor countries, and the US can definitely take the blame for it's role in creating a good bit of it. But a country that is seen as a world leader, or was once seen as one, has serious problems at home within it's own people. Poverty, wealth disparities, greed, corruption in all levels of government, capitalism taken to the extreme that it robs the people of resources that would make their lives so much better, all of the things that the US always claimed to be above, those are all spreading like an epidemic and there is no leadership to correct these things.

I have always been politically left-leaning and socially liberal, but these days I find myself understanding more about why the people on the right feel the way they do, and the anti-government sentiments they express are often valid, even if they don't follow the same logic to get to those that I would. I hear the right wing complain bitterly about Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and when you listen to them talk, the criticisms are warranted. I recently heard an interview with Nancy Pelosi that was absolutely nauseating, I wanted to kick her out on her ass. There are so few Democrats I view as being above the fray that I can't say I support the party at all.

Not to say that John Boehner and others are any better. The Republicans have their own full lineup of bozos just waiting to embarrass themselves and the rest of us in the upcoming 2016 primary election. Between now and then none of the politicians on either side will do a thing because it's an election year, or we're coming up on an election, so they do even less than they do regularly. The government does not at all represent the people, and here we are, the taxpayers, paying their salaries, benefits, healthcare, and all they do is act in the interest of the corporations and wealthy individuals who don't pay their fair share of taxes.

There must be a playbook somewhere that instructs the people who are groomed for so-called leadership positions: in government, finance, industry, professional sports, that teaches them how to be liars and slimebags, how to steal the public blind, and the language of corporatespeak or leaderspeak. Maybe it comes from Harvard business school or there's some kind of a secret club.

Not only are these things happening at top levels of government, but it goes all the way down to communities and local agencies. Corporate speak and lies, everywhere.

There are days when I think we would all be better off if a giant meteor hit the earth like a reset button. That would cure all of our problems! I am so glad I don't have kids because I would hate for them to be left in this world. I don't know how parents these days are preparing their kids for the kind of world they have inherited.

I look at my niece who is 17 and a senior in high school, and she's so smart and talented and I think the future of the world rests with her and kids like her. I hope they have the tools to confront it. I hope it doesn't hurt them too much to care.

Living Color

It's been a colorful week.

The raspberries are still going crazy in the garden, it's been probably 6 weeks of having a cup or two of raspberries to harvest every day, they are starting to slow down at ripening just now.

The Buffaloes are keeping us busy in and out of the house, between playing outside in the cooler weather, and shedding a ton of hair every day.

And it's October, so the pink is everywhere. Today I went shopping to buy supplies for my upcoming run at 24 hours of Boulder and it was in the grocery store. Even the local paper is pink on Sundays this month. A bit much...

But the highlight of my week was my trip to Estes Park earlier when I hiked around Lily Lake and took pictures. It was low key, I didn't even run 30 miles this week, but I had a nice walk around the lake and took pictures of everything, the ground cover, tree bark, the rocks, trees, mountains, water, everything I could see that was colorful.

Here is a link to the photo album, there are 90+pictures.

I'm looking forward to Boulder, even though the weather could be anything. I ran almost 11 miles today and felt strong. I have so much left, it would be nice if I had a good running day at Boulder. But I want to have fun and enjoy it too, so I'm not going to stress about performance. It's mostly on dirt and there are some short trail sections so I will be doing well to keep my ankles intact.

All I can think of when I look at these pictures is how lucky I am to live here.

I have a busy week ahead of me with a lot of work-related activities. I'm hoping to take a nice 24 hour mental vacation in Boulder next weekend. I promise I won't be so anal that I don't take pictures if the scenery is nice there around the reservoir.

I really, truly, am going to rest after Boulder. I want to recharge my batteries and have a great year next year. I don't have any plans yet and I haven't even thought about any goals or races I want to do. They will come to me over the next few months, I'm sure. After Halloween I'll be hitting the pool and bike and yoga mat pretty hard, along with the weights, through the end of the year.

I intend to have fun at Boulder and I hope I feel good. My friend Eddie is running his first 24 hour race and I hope to see him succeed at his goals. Maybe we'll convince Wheaties Boy to meet us down there and do a bit of cheering from the sidelines. I stocked up on PBJ supplies, yogurt, and vitamin water zero today. I'm ready. Bring it on!!!!

What Color is Your Crisis Part 2

I got my wish on my previous post. Here, an intelligent voice discusses the issues surrounding the public health crisis of Ebola.

Thanks to National Nurses United to have someone speak sensibly about some of the issues facing the health care system that contribute to problems like the current one.

I did want to say one thing more, to clarify, that nurse informaticists are becoming an important force in developing EHRs (electronic health records) but when nurses at the bedside are not directly included and listened to, we run into problems. And the administration who is responsible for spending money on EHRs needs to be listening to the input of nurses.

Again, representation on boards and better understanding on the part of executives regarding the day to day work of nurses would go a long way toward improvement. It's a rare event for a person in a suit to follow a nurse all day to see what actually happens. We desperately need this to happen. Stay tuned...

What Color is Your Crisis?

Pretty freaking amazing. Now the news media are going batshit over the Ebola story. What I find interesting is that none of the administrators of the hospital in Texas have come forward to talk about their own culpability in the "systems errors" that have been blamed for the discharge and re-admission of the patient with Ebola.

You'd think it was Ebola Awareness Month instead of Breast Cancer Exploitation Month. Instead of the Pink Scourge, now it's Purple and Yellow.

Yup, the so-called health care world is going to hell in a handbasket, and none of the people at the top can take any responsibility. No one seems to hold them accountable. They do make the big bucks.

Point the fingers: at the nurses, the doctors, the computers, the "systems". But who makes the systems? Someone has to. They don't create themselves. Someone has to make the decisions to follow certain protocols and set things up the way they are. Someone is benefitting from things being the way they are.

Well eventually the Ebola scare will pass, just like AIDS and HIV freaked everyone out at the beginning until they understood how to control it and contain it.

I watched this short little interview on MSNBC with the head of the Texas Nurses Association and I had to comment. It was just too much for me to keep my mouth shut. Watch the whole thing but especially the end part when they interview the Executive Director of the TNA.

I wrote this in the Joy Reid Facebook page. I haven't heard a response, but then I don't expect to. The media wants sensational stories, not reality.

"In your interview with the head of the Texas Nursing Association I could not help but notice that this woman hemmed and hawed but refused to address the real issues in health care that threaten public health. The rushed environment, chronic understaffing, and the second class citizen status of nurses all contribute to these “systems” errors, to which she kept referring.

Nurse informaticists’ concerns are not listened to when they are working on these EHRs but even worse, most nurse informaticists are not currently working at the bedside and are unable to see what is happening NOW.

Furthermore, nurses are silenced and their jobs are threatened for raising concerns about safety issues, they are treated like second class citizens in health care, they are not represented on boards, those who do the front line work of taking care of patients are not the ones whose ideas are tapped for making common sense developments of EHRs, the workflow is separate for nurses because doctors don’t want to be bothered reading nursing notes even though they contain lifesaving information.

What about the failure of administrators and executives to be held accountable for "systems" failures? Isn’t that why we pay them the big bucks? Shouldn’t they have a duty to protect the public from faulty “systems”?

The head of the TNA sounded like she had no clue about what really goes on in the hospital setting. I would like to see the press interview a nurse who could really tell it like it is. The ANA nationally has a tiny fraction of our country’s 3 million nurses as members because they simply don’t represent real working nurses’ interests."


Yup. We've got ourselves an epidemic on our hands, but it ain't pink, purple or yellow. It's black and navy suits. Hiding out behind their "systems".

They need a good disinfectant. Like, sunshine.

The real crisis is the failure to hold any of these suits accountable for their actions that harm public health.

Being Home

Now that I've been home less than a week, I feel domesticated again. I think the traveling took more out of me than the race itself.

I was supposed to go to a conference in Orlando next weekend and at this point I am just caught up on my sleep from Cleveland. The thought of flying across the country again this coming Thursday to sit on my butt for three days and then come back and recover from traveling again was more than I could handle. So I cancelled all my plans. Maybe next year. I'll stay here and get more work done and be less exhausted.

It's fall but the weather is still warm. I've been harvesting tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, green beans, raspberries, serrano and jalapeno peppers and carrots the past few days. I can barely keep up. The salads have been delicious. It's weird to be having all your summer veggies so late, but that was because we had to replant everything in July after the hailstorm. At least our growing season has been extended this far to let everything ripen.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be cooler and cloudy but I am going to watch the weather this week and get up to Estes Park to see the colors before they fade.

Dennis was gone for part of the time that I was gone, so the girls are watching both of us carefully.

Dennis came home from a conference and brought this little bug back with him. A norovirus particle. Cute. I can deal with the soft fuzzy ones but the real ones suck. Keep them away.

Speaking of viruses, the Iris virus has attacked us and is insisting on being spoiled ever since we got home.

I signed up for 24 Hours of Boulder today. I was going to wait and watch the weather but I figured what the hell. I want to do it, and if the weather sucks, I'll just see how bad it is. I'm looking forward to it. I've been running the past 3 days and it's almost scary how good I feel.

I don't feel at all like I ran 80 miles last Saturday. Yesterday I did 10.6 miles and felt great. I'm only getting about 20 miles of running this week, no more than about 40 next week, depending on how the legs respond, and then an easy week going into Boulder.

Yesterday I spent most of the day at a fundraiser for a local organization where I set up a table for my business. It was a golf tournament, and I sponsored a hole. It does support locals who have breast cancer, even though I prefer to keep everyone with cancer in mind, and that men get breast cancer too.

I did a radio show in late June and they just got the podcast up on their site. With the editing, it sounds like I'm talking a million miles an hour. There were actually breaks and 3 callers during the whole show which got edited out, so it sounds kind of jammed in there. But if anyone cares to listen, here is the link. It's about 30 minutes long. I will be speaking on the same show again on October 21st, the topic will be about the gaps in cancer care after treatment, and the pinkification of breast cancer.

I went for an easy run this morning along the Power Trail. The trees and foliage are starting to change colors down here. October is the most colorful month in town. My favorite.