A Breath of Fresh Air!

This weekend was a celebration of many things. July 5th is Isabelle's birthday, it was Fourth of July and our first Fourth of July in Como since we got the cabin 6 years ago. We didn't know it before, but now we do, that we can watch the fireworks display close-up from our futon in the cabin, through the screen door. How cool is that?

But equally it was a celebration of my new job! I am leaving ICU within the next month to work in the oncology department, in outpatient infusion. It's something I've been wanting to do for quite some time and it couldn't have happened at a better time. I found out just before leaving the house to drive up to Como for the weekend.

Sometimes waiting for change is almost as stressful as the thing you're wanting to change.

While we were in Florida a job was posted in the oncology outpatient infusion clinic for relief hours only. Those are minimal hours and I would keep my ICU job until I could get the same number of hours as I have in ICU. With the relief job, I applied, got an interview, and then heard I got it, except that there might be some real jobs like what I wanted(not relief, but guaranteed hours), soon, and if I was interested I should apply.

And it was supposed to happen soon. How soon, I didn't know. So I went into the checking the job postings 6 times a day mode, checking my email, checking for voice messages, and generally being on hyper-alert and realizing just how ready I am for this change.

After 3 weeks of touch and go, knowing I have a job in the department I want but not the job I want, but the job I want will be available, maybe soon, and then waiting for the job to materialize on the job postings, so I can apply for it, then applying, and waiting to find out if I got it, and waiting...and waiting...and waiting...

All of which went really fast in retrospect but while I was waiting it seemed like

F-O-R-E-V-E-R.

Dennis told me there is a reason I'm having to wait, that it will be a good thing.

When I didn't hear by Friday of this week, I decided I needed to just leave town for the weekend according to my original plan, to run the Leadville marathon, hang out at the cabin, and not stress about it. I packed up the car, got the Buffaloes in the back seat, and was on my last trip back into the house before locking up and leaving, when I saw the message light on the phone. I thought it might be Dennis since we just got off the phone making plans for when he followed us up to the cabin later after work.

I checked the message and it was the manager of the oncology department asking me to call her.

I did.

It was the job offer!!!

I asked if there was anything I needed to do right away, but since we were going into a holiday weekend, we decided we would work on it next week and enjoy the holiday.

So I stuck to my plans, but there was an extra reason to celebrate!

Dennis arrived at the cabin in the middle of the night. I woke up at 4:45 am and had to drive to Leadville, over an hour away.

I arrived at the Sixth Street Gym by 7 am and picked up my race packet, ate my sandwich, drank a lot of water and gatorade, and packed my pack full of warm clothes. I talked with some people I hadn't seen in ages, since I rarely come up to Leadville anymore.

Finally it was time for the start. I was blown away when I saw that they were using timing chips for the event. I can't believe this little race that started in 1992 when there were a few dozen of us, now has hundreds of runners and chip timing!

I was in tourist mode. I had my butt pack that was bigger than my butt loaded with warm clothes, food, camera, batteries, and drinks. I might as well have brought my AAA card, a credit card and a toothbrush.

I took my time, I planned to get a lot of walking in and didn't care to push it. I got plenty of miles in the past two weeks and all I needed was the vertical. I was in pedestrian mode and I had told Dennis it might be 5:00 before I got back to the cabin, because the marathon might take me 7 hours or longer.

And it did. I socialized at the aid stations, talked to old friends, more people from Leadville I haven't seen in years, people from ultras I haven't seen in months. I ran most of the first half with Dale Perry, he will be at Badwater next week crewing for Paul Grimm. Dale got to the top just ahead of me and then he pushed a little faster than I did going back, so we didn't see each other again until the finish.



On the way back I caught up to the crazy dude with Ultimate Butt, the term we use for those old Ultimate Direction packs that ride up with your shorts, exposing your cheeks to everyone running behind you. I tried to avoid him, he was chattering about who knows what. I didn't want to get stuck with Mr. U.B. because he never would have shut up and he probably could keep up with me if I tried to run ahead. So I kept him in sight, but not close enough to see the details, and with enough cushion so he couldn't recognize me if he turned around.

And there was this woman who was behind me on the way up the pass and just ahead of me on the way down. I was trying to avoid her because of her annoying voice. One of those nails on chalkboard voices. She had to be all perky and cheer for every single person on their way down the pass as we were climbing up. Squeak, squeak, squeak. Driving me crazy.

About a mile from the top I wanted to turn around and yell back at her, if you would use your breath to climb the @#$%&*! pass, you'd be done in half the time! But I didn't. I got ahead of her enough so I couldn't hear her anymore, and I talked with Pat at the aid station on top of the pass for a long time even though I was freezing, and took pictures and gave Miss Perky Squeaky Voice plenty of time to get far ahead of me. Unfortunately I caught up to her soon after the aid station at the bottom.

I think I just needed to be alone and look at the scenery. I think I was emotionally fried. My work week was pretty miserable last week, and I was so excited and hopeful about the new job that it was stressful waiting. There's always the fear that you didn't get the job. What if.

As I found things getting on my nerves I stuck close to the back of the pack and strategically passed people only if I knew I could go past them fast enough to avoid getting in a conversation.

I could feel my toes jamming into the front of my shoes on the way down. The Leadville marathon is almost all straight up or straight down, there are only a few miles where the road is fairly level, in the middle section by the mines. I was wondering how many toenails I might lose after this one, now that I have ten again, they won't last long.

I always forget just how hard this marathon is. It takes way longer than it needs to, to do 26 miles. I could get the same vertical in my back yard on Horsetooth Rock, in a lot less time, just not the altitude. I'm to the point with Leadville where I think I'm over it. I spent so much time up there in the past. I still think it's beautiful up there but I feel like I could find new places to explore.

It's really a suffer fest at this point, since I don't train for cold and I don't train for high altitude anymore. Actually though since I was going so slow I felt surprisingly good even on top of Mosquito Pass. I had no problems with my stomach or my appetite. Usually I'm queasy above 12,000 feet. This time I was just lightheaded, probably would have sounded like a Gooney Bird except I wasn't being very sociable.

I did tell one older runner I was close to the whole race, that as you get older you forget how painful it was the year before. That's why we come back. This time it took me 3 years to forget. If I go back to run it again in less time than that, I'm in trouble.

I got back to the Sixth Street Gym seven hours and thirty three minutes, long, torturous, lost in thought, but scenic hours and minutes after the start. I thanked Ken and Merilee, said goodbye to Dale and Ron, and took off for Como before Dennis started worrying.

I stopped at the KOA in Buena Vista and got a shower for $8.00 from a pipe sticking out of the wall, but at least it was warm water. I forgot how everyone up there in those campgrounds, both the visitors and the workers, all sound like they're from Texas or Arkansas. It's been a long time since my days of doing forestry work in the summers, living in the back of my truck, and coming into town once a week for a shower.





On Sunday we took the girls for a hike on the ditch trail and then went back to the cabin. The town of Como swelled to several hundred people, there was a parade with a float, and live music, booths, nasty greasy-looking food wagons, and lots of large people walking around aimlessly, holding nasty greasy-looking things, dressed in red, white, and blue.

For a town of 20 permanent residents and maybe 100 in the summer, it was a big crowd. We waited all day for the fireworks, as the sun went down it got cold and windy. For while we thought it would either rain us out or it would be too windy to have fireworks, but there was a steady stream of headlights driving into town, hundreds of cars were arriving.



The fireworks started and Isabelle got scared. Poor thing, she was trembling. We had to talk to her and comfort her the whole time. Iris didn't seem to be bothered at all. We poured some beer in Isabelle's bowl hoping she might drink it and it would calm her down, but she was too scared. Iris drank it instead and then feel asleep, snoring on the futon.

Finally it was over. We watched the stream of red tailights proceeding out of town and along Highway 285. Monday morning when we woke up, town was dead quiet again. You would never know that a thousand people and their cars were there just a few hours ago.

It was cold and windy in the morning too. We left to drive back to Fort Collins late in the morning. As soon as I got home I wrote my letter of resignation, and I'm on my way to a big, welcome, healthy, much-needed change within the next few weeks.

A BIG breath of fresh air!

Transition

This week we've gone from this to now close to 50 degrees with a biting breeze. The sun is out and the new snow is melting what looked like the return of the Ice Age earlier this week. This time the Antarctic ice shelf in the street in front of our house only lasted 2 days.



It's spring for sure. We might have 3 more months of cold and snow, but it's spring.








Today I ran hills on Centennial Drive, did 4 repeats of the big hill west of the A. I didn't dare go up to do Rock Repeats this week because it would have been a sloppy mess, plus it's windy out there. Not fun. Took the girls for a few miles afterward to get 16 miles for the day.

I woke up with a horrible work hangover this morning. I was worthless most of the morning, all I could do was stare at the kitchen walls and drink coffee. It took 3 hours before I could actually get up and start thinking about getting dressed to run. It's been insanely busy the past few weeks at work and 13 hours of nonstop running around taking care of patients is more exhausting than any ultra. I think it takes me longer to recover from that than just plain running outside on the roads for the same amount of time.

There was a thread on Woofie's ultralist with some haiku this morning. I love haiku. So with Woofie's blessing, I started the first ever ultrarunning haiku slam contest on the list. It runs through midnight Monday. I can't wait to read the entries. Who says runners are just introverted jocks or complete nerds? Some of us do have a few creative brain cells left.


As of Monday, it's March 1st. Time to get serious. I'll be hitting the sauna and steam room, occasionally at first, and then religiously as of April. And I am already increasing my weekly mileage. Next week is the Old Pueblo 50 mile in southern Arizona.












The Buffaloes are smiling, it's spring! Get the squirrels!

TGIF

February!

The days are getting longer, only another 5 weeks to daylight savings time, the sun is higher in the sky, the squirrels and birds are getting more active, and the frozen tundra of dog poop in the back yard is slowly melting, but not enough yet for the big spring cleanup.

This winter has been consistently colder and we are not seeing 50 degrees temperatures like we normally would. Everything is still icy and frozen, and the sidewalks are still treacherous in shady areas under trees. Today I noticed in the paper that last year on this day the high temperature was 62 degrees, today's expected high was 42.

I started getting grumpy a few weeks ago with the frozen ice shelf in the front yard, down the street in front of my house. It looks like Antarctica out there.

Last Friday, the 29th, Cat and I did a 50 mile training run. It was a gorgeous day, we started out in fog and ice, our hair and faces looked like frosted little old ladies with our ice beards and frozen spaghetti hair. I felt like a grumpy old lady at first because the sidewalks in Fort Collins and bike path in Loveland were so icy.

We broke the run up into 3 legs of 25, 15 and 10 miles. In between each we stopped at my house for a quick change of clothes and some food and drinks.

We started at my house 7 am in the fog and ran down to Loveland. We forgot our cameras! First we ran to Loveland, to Eisenhower & Denver, stopping into a coffee shop where we entertained all the patrons with our ice princess look. We tried to take a picture with Cat's cell phone but it wouldn't work. We froze our butts off on the way down. The low points of the hills along Lemay and then the bike path along Boyd Lake were several degrees colder than the tops of the hills, and the sun wouldn't break through the fog. We kept begging it to come out but it wouldn't.

We both felt good on the first 25 mile stretch and we made great time.

We got back to my house in the cold sunshine. It was a bit warmer on the way back from Loveland, but we still wished we had brought more clothes. Cat had a sandwich at my house and I had some soup. We packed extra warm clothes on the way out for the next leg, west along the Spring Creek Trail to Hughes Stadium, because we anticipated wind.

Slowly we started to warm up on the way out. As we approached the west end of the Spring Creek Trail, we both started having a bad patch. I felt like I should have eaten more before I left the house. We kept telling each other it's downhill all the way home. We both suffered a bit on this stretch. We got back to my house with 40 miles behind us, knowing we had only 10 to go. We both ate again and packed more warm clothes and lights for when it got dark.

The last 10 mile out and back we decided to repeat the Spring Creek Trail because it was close to rush hour and we wanted to avoid traffic. This time we didn't have to go as far. The sun set around the time we hit our far point at about 45 miles on the Spring Creek Trail. The sunset was a spectacular clear pink-peach-purple and when we turned around to run the last 5 miles back to my house we were both surprised by the big full moon.

I didn't realize it but it was a full moon again for my long run this month. We both felt recharged by this point and picked up the pace on the way back. We got back to my house by 6:30 pm, giving Cat a PR for the 50 mile distance! Not bad to do that in a laid back training run, with plenty of stops and breaks.

I was tired over the weekend but I maanaged to get out and run with The Buffaloes. Only 2 weeks to the Pemberton Trail 50K in Arizona. I hope I'll feel decent. It's hard coming back after a year of doing no ultras. I did feel better today.

This morning we woke up to TGIF day, February 1st, and we're celebrating. The Buffaloes did a longer run, then I sat in the hot tub while Isabelle sunbathed in the yard. She's waiting for the big thaw too.

The three second rule

Iris and Isabelle have a new year's resolution. They are going to run more this year. They are going to support their mom in her goal of being more obsessed.

Obsession comes naturally to Australian shepherds. They are the ultimate OCD dogs.

If you want to share my goal of being more obsessed with your running this year, here is some Australian shepherd wisdom to take with you on the run:

Run off the leash. Beg until you get your way.

Bark louder than all the other dogs. Fence fight until the other dog gets tired.

Soak up rays. Cool off in the snow banks. Drink when you're thirsty.

If it looks good, drool. If you want attention, look cute.

People are clueless, they need direction. Herd them where you want to go.

If you're out running and you get hungry, pick things up off the ground and eat them. It's easier than carrying a pack.

Don't eat cigarette butts. Spit them out. They're not good for you.

If it's not yours, leave it alone. Leave it alone if it's not yours.

And the most important rule is Mom's rule: If you have to sniff it more than 3 seconds, it's bad for you.

Bristlecones and Buffaloes

Last weekend we went up to the cabin and took the girls hiking in the old bristlecone pine forest on Mt. Silverheels. The weather was perfect, almost too warm for being up that high, but there was water in the creek and the spring was flowing so the girls had plenty to drink and opportunities to swim.

I've been on a short vacation. I took 9 days off to get some projects done, wrap up a few loose ends with my paintings, and get out of town for some fresh air and scenery.

On the way up, we saw a cow moose in the forest, down in the thick trees about a mile away from here when we were still on the trail. Cool, but scary. Fortunately the girls didn't notice the moose. They were too busy looking up trees for the black squirrels.

This is the view from the saddle where the bristlecone pines start. You can see all the way across South Park to the tops of the Collegiate Peaks near Buena Vista.

The girls were so happy. They chased little ground squirrels and sniffed everything.



There were still a lot of wildflowers out up high even though the aspen leaves are already turning gold along Tarryall Creek.



After a perfectly clear day, the sky clouded up at sunset and we got some rain.

Where have I been?

If anyone wants to know why I have not answered my emails, it's because I've been here.





With these.








Watching this.






More details later...

Rainy Day Thoughts

This morning the birds woke me up when it was still dark. There wasn't even light in the sky, and we had most of the windows closed because it was supposed to get down into the 40s with rain overnight. It was 4:00 am and it was pouring rain, and the birds were screaming like it was the first day of spring.

I couldn't motivate myself this morning to run in the cold rain and I can't force myself now, 7 hours later. I did go to the sauna this morning, but that's all. I've been tweaking some of my art stuff, I'm in the process of building a website for my new paintings.

I heard from Nick, who is tapering for Bighorn. He was worried that he's going to gain enough weight during his taper to affect his performance, and there's always the fear of things falling apart. I've had my own taper mishaps so I can empathize with him.

But I told Nick, the best thing he can do in the next few weeks is to avoid thinking. Those thoughts and second guesses about race preparation will weigh a runner down more than any food they can eat in the two or three weeks leading up to a race.

All this advice comes from Iris, who is full of good ideas today.

It is true that thoughts can weigh us down more than any physical weight. I try to cast all that heavy stuff off. When I find myself overthinking something, it's a waste of energy and time. So many better things you could do instead of obsessing about something, which is usually something you can't do anything about.

Running can get you thinking about things but instead of drawing the bad, obsessive thoughts out, it helps me put things in perspective. Then I'm able to let go of whatever was dragging me down and occupying all that space in my brain.

I know I could get myself out the door today, but I might not and I'm not going to worry about it. It's not going to make any difference in how I run in 12 days at the Estes Park Marathon. The only people who might care are the Buffaloes, but even Iris is a fair weather dog. When it rains, she wants to be inside. Good idea.

109 in Death Valley

In Fort Collins, it's 36 degrees and dumping this stuff. All my flowers and early herbs I planted are watered now. I didn't have to drag the hose out. I will have to motivate myself to get out in the slop today. I can do anything for two hours.

It's beautiful but when will it ever be spring? I'm off to the sauna again this week, once a week until June.

I ran with Katy and Kira on Saturday and we did Rock Repeats, in the fog and snow. It looked like this at the trailhead when we started, and there was white stuff coming down from the sky at the top.



Buffaloes coming back from another squirrel chase. If the Buffaloes can motivate themselves, I have no excuses...

Spring Training 2009

The snot rocket disease finally subsided enough to allow me to breathe, so I couldn't go one more day without running. It's been almost 2 weeks!

After taking both the dogs for a run this morning, I decided to take Iris up to the park and do one rock repeat, just to make it official training. Iris is the distance runner, Isabelle likes to sprint but she isn't good at long distances. I left her home to keep Dennis company, he is now sick with the infectious, purulent, snot-producing virulent contagion. It was a warm day and on the way down I was worrying about snakes, but didn't see any.

At the top I was trying to get Iris to sit still so I could take a picture of her, and some hikers came along and witnessed Iris's protest. She has major separation anxiety when Isabelle isn't with her and was having a temper tantrum. Walking 5 feet away from her is a problem if her sister isn't there. One of the hikers offered to take a picture of us together.

It's been so dry that everything is dust. There is snow on Longs Peak but some of the slopes are looking bare, up high. If we don't get some rain or snow soon it will be a bad fire season.

When I got home I felt like planting flowers, so I went to the nursery and got a flat of annuals and started filling the pots on the patio as the girls supervised me.

I'm doing everything I possibly can to make it snow!

For Sale

I worked four of the last five days and I am exhausted today. It's been busy, and I ran my butt off at work all weekend. I know I would feel so much better if I could just sleep through the night!

I am so tired of waking up sweating and throwing off the covers and then freezing and not being able to go back to sleep for hours. It really sucks on the days when you have to get up for work and can't sleep in. I feel like putting an ad in the paper:



On the bright side, I have 3 days off and the weather is supposed to be awesome, in the 70s tomorrow. I hope to have energy for a good long run, maybe 4 hours on trails. Iris is smiling, she likes the warm weather.

Isabelle isn't smiling right now, she's in trouble for fence fighting with the neighbor's dogs. What else is there to do on a nice day?

Today I ran trails for an hour at the ELC, Prospect Ponds and Riverbend Ponds. The geese were out on the water. I wore shorts again. After my run, I went to get labs drawn for my thyroid, and I was dehydrated! They made a pincushion out of me and almost didn't get enough blood in the little tube!


Now I look like a drug addict, I have so many holes in my arms. I need to remember to drink a lot before I go to get poked next time! I think this happened last time too! That's what 4 busy days of work do to me, I don't have time to drink enough. Or pee. Or eat. I like my job, but when nurses are busy, our job does not allow us to be human.

Sort of puts you in the mood to fence fight...

Did someone say Starbucks?

Today, the 5th, is Isabelle's birthday. She's seven. Yes we celebrate our dogs' birthdays. She went to Starbucks this morning, her favorite place to go. She gets very excited when we say "Starbucks". And she got a new hedgehog for a birthday present. Later I think I will get them some doggie ice cream.

Speaking of Starbucks, I just remembered I need to get some good coffee for the road, the coffee in the rooms at Furnace Creek won't cut it and I'll need my morning fix every day. There's no real coffee I know of once we leave Las Vegas.

I'm leaving in 5 days. Every day there are plenty of little tasks. Today I organized and labeled all my running clothes and gear for days and nights in bags, made sure all my shoes were laced properly and ready to go, packed my Mt. Whitney gear, and tried to make the pile of stuff as easy as possible for the crew to manage.

Over the past week I rode my bike a lot. Today I rode to Loveland and on the way out I almost bit it at the intersection of Harmony & Lemay, but caught myself. Didn't come out of my cleats fast enough. It's been warm, everyone complaining about heat and humidity but it hasn't bothered me. The sauna was extra hot this morning. I'm still hitting the sauna twice a day and limiting my runs to about 3 miles, and I've been walking fast for another 4 miles or so in addition to running.

This is the most extreme taper I've ever done, and I'm curious to see if it will make a difference. I'm of the mindset that it's better to be undertrained than overtrained going into a race. I'm scared that I will lose some of the preparation I've done on downhills and pavement by taking it so easy for 4 weeks. The worst thing that could happen is my quads get sore during the race. They're going to be sore from the downhill at Panamint but I don't plan on running it as hard as I did on the training run. This is my Badwater "rookie" race and that means it's all a learning experience.

When I do run, it feels so good to push myself, and it's been in the 90s here and it doesn't feel hot at all. I've been running maybe 8:45 to 9 minute pace on my short little runs and it feels easy and relaxed, and I won't need to hold that pace at all during Badwater.

Other than that, just resting and staying hydrated. The taper worm hasn't been too hungry. I'm still trying to figure out where the extra 5 pounds over last year came from. Probably a combination of age and the lack of intensity (speed) in my training.

Looks like there won't be any room left in my RAV 4 once we get Ken's cooler and his stuff in there. I tried putting the big items in and it looks like we'll have just enough room to stuff all our clothes and the food and anything that won't fit inside the coolers.

I bought a water purification filter with my dividend at REI. We'll be set for Whitney. I am so tired of buying things.

Felix is kicking butt on his Tour Divide ride, he's in New Mexico now. He is very tough. He had a lot of technical problems with his bike and gear on this ride and he has perservered. Good job Felix! I sent him an email telling him to come find us in Death Valley if he's up to it after he's done! He was in Chama on the 4th of July, I think it's only another 500 or 600 miles to the Mexican border.

So, here we are, the crew is set and ready to go, we're all tapping our feet and bouncing off the walls. It's time to talk about the plan and my goals. It's really simple and comes down to this...

My goals are:
1. To have fun and share with the crew the most memorable experience yet of my entire running career.
2. To finish.
3. To finish in under 48 hours.

After that, I could write a list of progressively more detailed and challenging time goals but it really doesn't matter about the time. I'm not in this race to be competitive with the clock or the other runners, the challenge is with myself, to finish in whatever conditions and circumstances I face during the two and a half days of the race. If I'm feeling good after Panamint, of course I'll want to motivate myself to get done faster and see how many runners I can pass but at that point it will just be a mental game, and an additional challenge. Getting to the finish line is enough, even if it's in 59 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds.

Dale Nagel sent me the Death Valley weather forecast over the next week and it looks like one of the days was supposed to hit 126 degrees! I'll have to keep checking. Lately it's been in the low 120s.

Sunny Skies says, No sweat, it was 133 in '03!

Dances with Buffaloes

Again, not much to report this week, I can't do much for Badwater preparation until at least February 15th, the earliest date when entrants will be announced. I'd be biting my nails if I didn't have to worry about what might be growing under them.

I am running more. Managed to get 45 miles in this week with two good 15 mile runs, one on Horsetooth and one on the bike path. We had some 50 degree days and the snow is melting. I'm taking Iris and Isabelle, our dogs, aka "the Buffaloes" with me on my shorter runs and walks. They love it.

They pull me along on my waist pack double leash contraption. Helps with the leg turnover for fast walking. Now that the squirrels are more active, I get plenty of sprints in my walks. Good cross-training and speedwork since there were no races this week. I feel like I'm doing the squirrel dance out there, sidestepping over the curbs as they pull me toward every place they've ever seen a squirrel before.

I had a good run on Saturday when I did Horsetooth, I ran with Doug, Chris and Michael from the running club. When we started out it was cold and clear but no wind. At about the 4 mile mark, when we came around the bend at the south end of Soldier Canyon dam, suddenly we got hit hard with a northwest gust coming down over the foothills. Almost blew us off the road over the dam! The rest of the way we had wind but not as fierce.

Chris and Michael turned around at the top of Dam Hill and Doug and I continued on to get our miles in. We had a conversation about politics on the way back. We come from different backgrounds philosophically and politically, but we have a lot in common in our views going into this year's presidential election. It's been a long time since I had a running partner to talk politics with! It was refreshing.

By the way, Steph asked me a question the other day: does anyone know who the patron saint of the desert is? If you do, let us know. Otherwise we might have to make one up.