Rant: Running for the Long Haul

I feel a rant coming on.

Maybe it's lack of sleep but at this point I only owe the sleep bank three hours, so that's probably not it. It's not PMS either. I feel this need to say something, because I am concerned about some of the runners in my life (at least three at this moment) whom I care about and I want to see them continue being able to run. But this applies to almost any woman runner, and a lot of men too.

So consider this a rant coming from a place of kindness, and caring, and concern. Here it goes:

Ultras are a gift to the body, not a punishment. I totally disagree with the "that's crazy, let's do it" mentality. I don't do ultras because I'm daring myself. I don't do them to beat the crap out of my body. I do them for the enjoyment and what I get from them, which are unique experiences shared with other unique human beings that I hope I'll be able to continue to have for a long time.

I've been running for nearly 27 years, ultras for 20 years. As long as I'm physically able, I intend to continue this.

I could care less about where I place in the pack. I have no interest in being competitive anymore. Interestingly, I still place pretty high at times, when I have a good race, without trying. I certainly don't plan on it, but I seem to hit those good races more often than a noncompetitive runner would expect to.

People say to me all the time,"I don't know how you find the time to train for ultras."

"I could never put in that kind of mileage."

"Marathon training is so painful, I could never imagine training for ultras."

"How does your body hold up?"

Hmmmmm. How does that work? Let's think about this together.

I averaged 48 miles a week prior to the Keys 100 for 4 months. I finished in 26 hours and change.
I averaged 47 miles a week prior to the Lean Horse 100 for 3 1/2 months. I finished in 28 hours and change.
Wanna see my weekly mileage trend from the Keys to Lean Horse?

Here it is, in chronological order, starting with the week after the Keys 100 race.
week 1: 6 miles of running, 14 miles of walking
week 2: ran 33 miles
week 3: ran 36 miles
week 4: ran 38 miles
week 5: ran 50 miles
week 6: ran 75 miles (including a 30 mile training run)
week 7: ran 70 miles (including a slow Leadville Marathon in 7 1/2 hours)
week 8: ran 19 miles (worked, then on vacation in Phoenix, traveled to Death Valley)
week 9: ran 10 miles (in Death Valley for Badwater, caught up on sleep afterwards)
week 10: ran 85 miles (including a 50 mile training run)
week 11: ran 70 miles (including 5 x Rock Repeats for 22 miles)
week 12: ran 70 miles (including a 33 mile training run)
week 13: ran 41 miles (including 3x rock repeats for 13 miles)
week 14: ran 21 miles (week before Lean Horse)
week 15: Lean Horse week. Ran 106 miles total including the 100 mile race.

Only five of those 15 weeks were somewhat high mileage, and only because I did long runs those weeks. In the middle I took two weeks easy, since I was traveling and busy doing other things. Hardly obsessive.

There is so much more to life than training all the time. People think what I do is obsessive but really, I am about the least obsessive runner I know out of all my friends. I know how to get down to business when it's time to focus on a goal I've set, but I also know how to let go of the need to constantly pound out the miles.

This fall I plan to take September mostly off, with cycling as my cross training. If the weather doesn't cooperate, well too bad. I'll ride in the rain or I'll just take the day off.

Sure I plan to run Across the Years in late December and I'll get serious sometime in October, but I'm not going to worry about it. I'll do a couple of long training runs around Halloween and Thanksgiving, but other than that, regular mileage applies.

This week, after my race, I'll concentrate on letting my feet heal and not worry about fitness. I won't lose much in a week. Nothing noticeable anyway.

I can only run a lot of ultras for a couple of years before my mind and body tell me I need a break. Fortunately it's usually my mind first. I tend to get burned out on training all the time, I miss my other interests, I miss doing things with my family, and I feel like I need to back off so many hours of training and preparing to train and run races.

On the physical end of things, I have never had a stress fracture. Never missed a menstrual cycle due to low weight. Since starting ultras, any injury I've had is due to a mishap, like a sprained ankle, not due to overtraining.

And I eat. I carry a little extra weight, not so much because I eat, but because I do have thyroid issues, and to look at the body type of my ancestors, they were not fat, but short and solid, more of a muscular build as they got older.

Because I would rather have a few pounds extra for my bones as I get older, I don't worry obsessively about weight. Sure I'd love to feel light on my feet again and fit in my smaller running clothes, but that is less important to me than staying healthy. I am thankful that despite my increasing middle age vanity about things like hair color, I have never been one of those skinny at any cost people. Whenever I've been skinny, it's been because my thyroid is out of whack.

Sure I do think about weight and in the back of my mind I view my body image in the same way as nearly any woman brought up in this culture. I go back and forth in my own mind, thinking I'm too fat at times. Somehow I've managed to have some of my best running performances when I was at my heaviest weights. I've tried to re-train myself on those matters. And I've managed to avoid a lot of the pitfalls of being too skinny, not eating enough, and falling apart.

That's where the concern for my friends comes in. I see them making the common mistake of too many miles, not giving your body a break, thinking you feel good after a long race without allowing the healing that has to happen at a microscopic level in the soft tissues and bones to take place, the probable but unknown effects on your immune system, the risk for mental burnout, the cost to families and individual lives.

When you feel good now, it might be a function of your great fitness. But it can be tricky. Often runners say they felt great right before they got sick or injured. Feeling good now does not mean that all is good inside. The body has it's own wisdom and we can try to avoid it but eventually it will get us.

If runners are not able to cut back on miles or take necessary care of their bodies, they are running for something beyond the enjoyment of running, and it is most likely an addiction, and no, it's not a "good" addiction. It's just a different drug. And it's rooted in a fear, which is related to body image, fear of losing something youthful about appearance, fear of running a little slower, fear of having a little fat on the body or weighing a certain number of pounds, in the brainwashing so many women have endured.

Those fears lead to overtraining, fear of taking a break because they might gain weight. Fear of losing a little fitness, as if once it's gone, it will be gone forever.

Guess what, fitness is a renewable resource. It's like money. You can always find more of it, you just have to be motivated to get it.

I think about my health years from now, and I want to give myself the best chance possible to be one of those 80 year old ultrarunners. There are enough pitfalls of getting older, some of which we can't control. But I want to make damn sure my bones hold up in order to do it, and that is something I can control.

Less is more.

End of rant.

Global Warming?

NEWS FLASH:

Scientists have determined that the global warming phenomenon is caused by all the baby boomers who have finally reached menopause.

11 miles Thursday, then 20 miles with Catharine Friday on the bike path, 3 1/2 hours and change. Stopped once for a dry bra and shirt/jacket change, plus drinks and a few shot blocks. Ran the whole way. It was 18 degrees on our way out but the sun went behind the clouds and it felt cooler by the end of the run. Or maybe we were just tired and depleted.

I have been feeling a lot better the past week, each week is an improvement over the last. I started lifting weights again last week and as much as I don't like doing it, I know it will help me rebuild the upper body strength I need to get me through the long ultras again.

I'm working on rebuilding my health in all areas of my life, since August I've been in a hole and I have now crawled out of it, trying to find my way up here on the surface. I lost my way for a while there. Now I'm out of the vortex that was taking me down and I'm taking care of my needs in the present, which is allowing me to focus ahead so I can make the necessary changes to restore my well-being.

I needed to get back to running because it is my guide and my compass. There are a couple of major changes in the works in the near future. I have to fix the parts that are broken so I can fully pursue what I want. I've had some disappointment and frustration recently that have caused quite a bit of stress and I am ready to move forward and beyond.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and getting the same results. When you have to constantly deal with insanity as the status quo, it can drive you insane.

All of this plus the stress of a sick family member, the difficulty sleeping, fatigue as a result of all this stress that throws my concentration off, along with the hormonal changes I'm going through. It's been a difficult time, but in a way it has been a gift to rearange priorities and get myself to realize I need to address things that are detrimental to my health and focus clearly on what's important.

We got a foot of snow and I took the Buffaloes out snowshoeing last Sunday. They loved it. Dennis and I are planning a trip to the Keys in May, we will relax on the beach after the race. It was 15 below earlier this week but in the coming week the temperature should hit the 50s. In Colorado it's always a surprise, from week to week.

The Fort Collins Running Club Tortoise & Hare 8K got changed to a 4K on the 6th, the morning of the Avogadro's breakfast. It was absolutely horrendous running conditions, blowing snow, a fierce wind chill, and frozen temperatures. I could feel my face freezing the whole time running in the east direction. About 20 poeple braved the cold, though, which was a nice turnout.





We've been cooking indoors more now that the weather is cold, and the girls have been enjoying the opportunity to participate, using their expertise in mashed potato tasting.


































Crank up the heat and stay warm!

The Bright Side of Insomnia

This morning we woke up to this...

which expedited my Keys 100 entry into the mailbox!

The past week or two things have started to improve around here. Between working part-time now, a fun Thanksgiving day with running friends, and finally getting my butt out the door for a 24.5 mile run on Sunday after Thanksgiving, I am starting to feel like there is hope again.

The one thing that has not changed, and has gotten worse, is my insomnia. I love sleep, I love to sleep, I worship sleep. A little help for my low mood, brain fog, and irritability in the form of an SSRI over the past 2 weeks has been a huge help but it has made my sleep even worse. I figure if I am going to be sleep deprived, at least I am not feeling hopeless on top of it.

I spoke with one of the pulmonologists I work with who specializes in sleep disorders. He told me that he sees lots of women around my age in his office, and really hormones are the most effective thing. I am not a sleeping pill enthusiast and that would only be a quick fix. Since hormones will not be an option for me, I will have to work around it some other way.

He gave me some ideas for improving my sleep, like not going to bed so early, not lying in bed awake if I can't go back to sleep right away, and so on. I am considering getting a set of running clothes ready and going out with the Buffaloes for a middle of the night run if all else fails.

After my 24 1/2 mile run I felt like I am going to be okay to train for a 100 in the spring. I felt great, ran steady the whole way, very little walking at all. I ran up on the hills at Horsetooth and up and down in the foothills trails, and to and from home on the bike path.

I feel like I passed through the portal and I am on the other side of something, I can see daylight again. If I can improve on my sleep that would make things look so much brighter. But I will do what I have to do, I'll work with the body I have, and I'll make it work. Maybe I can finally get the motivation to work out with weights again, in the middle of the night. Maybe I'll write a few books, train for night ultras, clean out my closet, organize my life. The possibilities are endless...

New & Improved, 33% More

Last week I hit bottom. It was a bad week all around, and we got a sudden cold snap with ice and snow that made all the leaves dry up and fall off the trees within a few days. Then the wind came and blew the remaining leaves around and now we have fall, without the beautiful lasting colors.

I didn't sleep through the night for about 2 weeks straight. Finally last night I slept 12 hours, straight through. I worried for a minute when I woke up, it was 8:30 and I thought I overslept or forgot an appointment. But I didn't.

Today I got out for a mid-day run with Cat, and we did run about an hour at lunchtime for stress relief. We are very excited about getting our entries in for the Old Pueblo 50 early next spring near Tucson. I haven't run that one since 2003 and it used to be one of my favorites.

My mileage hit bottom last week too, with just one 6 mile run for the entire week. My energy has been so poor lately, yesterday I got out with the intent to do 6 miles and after 2 I started walking back to my car. I couldn't do it, my insides felt so heavy. Taking The Buffaloes for walks has been a challenge, I feel like I'm carrying this big weight and no matter how much the girls pull me, it's not enough to go forward.

In another 3 weeks I will officially be working part-time and I hope that after a few months of that I will feel like I am recovering and my life has more balance. I can be a mom to The Buffaloes again. I'll be the New and Improved Mom of Buffaloes, 33% more Mom time. That will be awesome.

Rebuilding my running mileage, starting to lift weights again, and restoring my enthusiasm are just a few more things I look forward to.

Tomorrow is the run around Boulder Reservoir and I am tempted to do it, but not planning on it. Lately what I've been wanting to do is get out all day one day, and listen to my music, and move forward until late into the night. Maybe I can do that before the holidays.

When the wheels come off...

This blogpost is not exactly about running, but it is so much about running without actually running.

"You must unlearn what you have learned"
- Yoda

"Hell is other people"- Jean-Paul Sartre


When the wheels come off, follow your own compass.


And start driving a tank.

That's about the only way to describe my past week. It's been overloaded, and by Wednesday my wheels were coming off in a big way.

I have always followed my own inner compass, my own light, the thing that guides me. Some people call it God, whatever it is, I follow it. I try to keep my head screwed on straight and I try not to let other people's "stuff" influence me.

Somehow lately I've lost my way, I've been distracted by a bunch of things, I feel vulnerable, and I seem to have gotten way off course. I need to find my compass again!

No human is perfect and no one knows the answers. Anyone who thinks they know the answers is way more screwed up than any of us admittedly screwed up people.

I adore my friend Chris. He is an ultrarunner, a nurse, an absolutely amazing fantastic, compassionate, understanding, nonjudgmental, generous human being, and he has the guts to admit his own weaknesses while following his own compass. He got me through this week and helped me find the compass I dropped in the deep wet grass and leaves and new snow we've been having the past two days.

Actually, if I had been running all this time and was still putting energy into doing ultras, I would probably be much more centered and able to clearly focus on the direction my inner compass is pointing.

I can't really go into the specifics, and it has nothing to do with running. Someone I care for is hurting and I can't do anything about it, and I got lost in it, and I need to back off and do my own thing.

After losing your way, losing the feel for boundaries, getting wrapped up in things beyond a point where it's healthy, you need your most trusted friends to bounce things off of, and get their feedback, to help you get back on track. Everyone else can weigh in but pretty soon you get lost in the blah, blah, blah and everyone's opinions and prejudices.

And people can be downright harsh and judgmental especially when they feel the least bit threatened by something they don't understand at all. It's really amazing how people you would expect to have empathy can have so very little. I wanted to drown out their noise, stick my fingers in my ears like the crazies on the political talk shows do and go "lalalalalalalalalalala".

Instead I spoke with three people I trust to be nonjudgmental since yesterday, including Chris, and that was so helpful. And that's all. I'm on my way back with my compass, but I'm driving a tank. I'll need it for protection when I go back and have to be in the middle of all the blah, blah, blah...

In the midst of all this, I haven't run. I worked four out of five days, busy, stressful days, and between that and the emotional burden of all this "stuff", I have been unable to sleep well and haven't been able to face my running shoes.

So yesterday, when I needed a good think and a good cry and some time alone, I went over to the environmental learning center and walked on the trails, in my clogs, risking my ankles, but I needed it. No one else was around.

There were big, low, gray puffy clouds that were off and on dumping sleet down on me, and the reds and golds of the trees in the dry meadows of tall grass were all so brilliant against the sky, I couldn't breathe, taking it all in, the intensity of the colors and how I felt, and the cold breeze with the wet snow coming down, it was like a psychedelic trip with all my senses and feelings!

And somehow as I walked that little place in the back of my brain started to click and things started to unravel and become clear and my compass appeared again. And some of the kinks began to straighten out.

And without even trying, the knots continued to unravel today. Still no energy to run, but I'm doing better. Maybe I will sleep tonight. Maybe I will run tomorrow.

I will run tomorrow.

G.B. Strikes Again

Back in the days when I used to run the Leadville Trail 100 in the summers, my training partners Snakebite, Alan and Wally had a name for me: G.B.

That's short for Gooney Bird. I got the name because I am terrible at altitude, and whenever we used to train by climbing 14ers or running trails way up high like Mosquito Pass above 13,000 feet, I would get silly. I could not think, I would giggle at everything and I certainly couldn't be relied on to find my way back down. I was stupid until I got down to maybe 11,000 feet.

I finished Leadville four times and never felt good, the altitude always got me and I'd always be competing for DFL. Now I've wised up and realized I do better at lower elevations.

Like, below sea level!!!

Training for Leadville, one of my weekly runs was to drive to the Longs Peak trailhead, run up to the Boulderfield and back down, and sometimes I'd do it twice. It usually took me less than 3 hours to do it once, maybe an hour and a half to reach the turnaround by the old "privy" sign. I could do two repeats in 6 hours.

On Monday I had a half-assed plan to go climb Longs Peak. First I tried to get Katy and Felix to go with me, but being a Monday, Katy has a real job and she was tempted but couldn't ditch work. I saw Felix at the running club picnic on Sunday and he told me he climbed Mt. Bierstadt on Saturday and had his own work to catch up on.

So I decided to go alone, and when I woke up, not by forcing myself to get up early, and if the conditions were right, I'd do it. I woke up a little late, managed to get out of the house by 6:15 and drive to Estes Park. I got to the trailhead at 7:30. The sky was clear and it was warm and windy. I kept thinking I'd get cold, I had a pack full of clothes and food and water, but I didn't feel cold except for my hands once I got up above treeline.














I felt lightheaded from the start, but not too bad. I walked at a fast pace but not pushing it hard. Once I got up to the turnoff to Chasm Lake I could feel how spaced out I was. Very strange. I haven't been up at altitude much at all this year, only once, really, climbing up to about 11,000 feet once is all, and that was back in June.













I made it to the Boulderfield in 2 hours and I was really lightheaded. I think that's at about 12,000 feet. I kept going, but it took me nearly an hour to get from the end of the switchbacks at the lower end of the Boulderfield to the point where you pass the rock tent shelters and start climbing up toward the Keyhole. I was having a hard time with my brain, I was unable to pick my way through the rocks. For some reason I would lose the trail, stop and stare blankly at the rocks, trying to pick a route, but my brain couldn't focus on it.


I sat down for a while and ate and drank, put some warm clothes on even though I wasn't cold, and took a little break. When I stood up I nearly fell over. There I was in my little running shoes among huge boulders with Alene-size cracks between the rocks. I sat down again and thought about it. I was just barely at 13,000 feet. It had taken me an hour to go what used to take me ten minutes. And just looking uphill toward the Keyhole, only a few hundred feet above me, I felt my head floating.

It was all boulders, I felt like it was more than I could handle mentally. I didn't feel tired, I just felt spaced out! I knew that it was only another mile and a half and 1200 feet of climbing, but my brain wasn't working. So I called it good and slowly picked my way back toward the low end of the Boulderfield and hiked back down and called it a day. I think if it had been earlier in the day I might have attempted it, but I was moving so slowly, I had no idea what I'd be like after a few more hours of hypoxia.

On the way down it did cloud up and rained on me for a while. No big thunderstorms or hail. I ended up with roughly 13 mile hike with about 3500 feet of climbing and descending. But it took me 6 hours to do what used to take me 3! I did enjoy the scenery on the way down.





And I did find out that my alter ego, Gooney Bird, is still with me.

This week I was also more tired than usual. For some reason I have been feeling unusually fatigued. I didn't sleep well in the middle of the week, when I was working, and it was busy at work.

So today I went to the lab vampires and got some tubes of blood siphoned from my veins. It was time to check the thyroid again anyway. I also got a lipid panel and other stuff for my annual physical which is coming up. Now that they took half my blood away, I won't even have to go up to high altitude to be G.B.

Gifts

My 45th birthday is coming up next week. Like the speed limit sign says, this is fast enough, I don't need the years to go by any faster. It's hard to believe 45 is midlife when you feel like you're 23.

Today I felt like I got a birthday present, in an odd way. Lately I've been feeling sort of flat. Not depressed, but not really excited about running, or anything, and I've been dragging my feet about planning my next adventure. I'm not the only one, I've talked to a few other people lately who are also experiencing low energy and lack of enthusiasm.

I tend to get introverted and every so often I have to remind myself that there's a world out there, otherwise much of the time I'd be content to focus on whatever task I'm doing at the moment, or lose myself in my long solo runs.

The connection to others is a gift.

When I meet people who are depressed, they often have isolated themselves unintentionally, and they feel like they have lost their connections to others. Helping them reconnect is important, because the connections are still there, they just haven't been maintained. It usually takes a small effort. For depressed people that effort can seem like a huge mountain to climb, but that's another tangent.

This morning I was out on my run, planning to go about an hour, to get some miles in, and I wasn't feeling particularly enthusiastic but didn't feel bad. I was approaching Shields Street, headed west on the bike path when I ran into three runners coming toward me. I recognized Cat, and she was out with two other people running before their yoga class. She was about to stop and to talk to me but I turned around in their direction and started running with them. We ran about a mile and a half together before they turned off for yoga and I had to go home.

Just talking with Cat about her upcoming plans to run her first 50 miler, and her enthusiasm about having talked with another ultrarunner in her first 50K last year, who helped her see another way of looking at finishing an ultra, was uplifting for me. One of the runners she was with talked about how she hopes to do a marathon someday. Feeling that energy and knowing they are exploring something new reminded me that there are so many nice people out there in the running community, lots of people I have never run with, opening the possibilities to expand my social circle and running partners.

And when I got home I had two emails from running friends who will be joining me in my run on Sunday, Felix and Jeff. I felt so much better. Later I had energy to go back outside and enjoy the afternoon on the trails, after a massage from Cindy.

Sometimes you don't see the gifts that are hidden because you see only the screen that you've put up to filter things out. If you filter the world out too much you won't recognize a gift right in front of you, you're too busy screening things out.

Someone can brighten your day unexpectedly. It's a matter of opening your eyes and allowing yourself to receive the gift.

This afternoon I ran around Dixon Reservoir. It was a warm day, in the 70s, and the wind was gusting on the east side of the water. All the college students were out, restless, working on their tans, getting ready for spring break. Nothing is green yet, we need some rain. This is Colorado, and we should be getting several feet of snow by next month. We change the clocks back to Daylight Savings Time on Sunday.

Spring is here!

Precious Sleep

It's time to hibernate. I want to curl up on the futon with Iris and take naps.

We got about 8 inches of snow the other day. I was off work and the girls helped me shovel the sidewalks and driveway, and then we went for a run in the snow. I wouldn't be able to take the girls out all winter on the icy streets without Yak Trax. They are like tire chains for your running shoes.



I went to see my doctor two weeks ago. She is a PA, and she's awesome. Very knowledgeable about womens' health and supportive of me taking an active role in guiding my health care. I've known her for a long time as I used to see her when I lived in Ft. Collins before. I told her what's been going on with me. Then she told me the bad news: menopause symptoms can last 10 years!

I've been having a terrible time sleeping. One night I'll be up in the middle of the night, then I'll sleep the first half of the night and be awake the second half, and the next night I won't be able to fall asleep until late. Sunday night I called in sick to work the next day because I wanted to spare myself the torture of toughing it out through a 12 hour shift when I'm a zombie. Except I didn't realize that the next night was going to be worse!

No one ever tells you enough about this in advance. I guess there's no sense in forewarning anyone that their life might be hell for the next 10 years or so. Suddenly one night you wake up drenched in sweat and it goes downhill from there.

I wish I could be one of those women who skate through menopause without noticing. I feel like I'm working the night shift again, sweating and hot flashing my way through. Everyone has a different idea of what to do: black cohosh, something called estroven, hormones, anti-depressants, valerian root, melatonin, benadryl, tylenol p.m., wine, beer, and shots.


I don't like to drink alcohol because then I don't sleep well. I've tried benadryl and it doesn't work. Hormones, antidepressants, and beta blockers are some of the things I could try. I am not too excited about any of them. Beta blockers wouldn't be good because they would reduce my tolerance to exercise, being an athlete I need to be able to raise my heart rate. They would help relieve some of the anxiety about not sleeping, though.

Hormones are out because of my family history of breast cancer. And anti-depressants, well I went ahead and tried 10 mg of Prozac a day and I lasted 2 weeks on it. I was forgetting everything, and it made me even more foggy than I was before and I can't be doing that when I'm at work. I didn't like the way it made me feel so I bagged it, reluctantly, because I was so hopeful that it would take the edge off. Actually I feel clearer headed now that I'm off it. It didn't help me sleep or make me any less emotional.

I've been using the hot tub a lot and it seems to help put me to sleep, but there's still the problem of waking up in the middle of the night. I guess I could always go back outside to the hot tub at 1 am.

Last night Dennis & I were both up. Maybe men go through this too. I think I slept until midnight, but Dennis said it was 10:30. Whatever time it was, once I woke up, I never fell back to sleep at all, all night. I didn't feel good about calling off work again, fortunately we were staffed well enough at work that I was able to go home early. I feel like I've been working nights. Five hours of sleep in two days doesn't cut it.

The running club T&H 10K was last Sunday followed by breakfast at Avo's and the Tortoise & Hare awards and an informal club social/meeting. I woke up at 7:30 and couldn't drag myself out of bed fast enough to make it to Martinez Park by 8 am to start the race, so I showed up at Avo's for the breakfast. I went running later. I did manage a 2 hour run Saturday which went well. I was sore afterwards from the uneven surfaces and Yak Trax. I got a massage from Cindy afterwards and then I was able to relax enough to take a nap.

I have work to do before I go to Arizona. Oil change, new tires, and replace the windshield, which has a crack in it. Planning and packing, a list of things to take, buy, pack, and I've been working on my list of meditations for the run.

Next week is the Holiday Lights run for the running club followed by the potluck at Art & Allison's house. They are so generous to invite everyone over for this event again. I am going to be giving a slide show and talk about my run at Badwater this past summer.

I guess I should think about what to bring to the potluck. Last week I made veggie quesadillas, something we used to eat all the time, that I haven't made in a long time.

Whitecaps

Winter is coming soon, the reliable front range wind is back in Fort Collins.


The trees are bare, the grass is dry, and the geese are taking up residence in the marshes, flats and cornfields with their deafening honking noise.
The low sunlight makes all things look slightly yellow this time of year.










Over the past week I've been making an effort to get outside even though I have little energy to move.











I went to Riverbend Ponds, Horsetooth Reservoir, and Dixon Reservoir this week. I only ran a total of about 20 miles for the week.












Exhaustion continues. Thyroid labs were perfect, I've never had labs that came out as good as this. So it has to be something else. I made an appointment with my primary care PA this week, to see if there is something else I can do to get better. I also have another appointment with Cindy, the massage therapist.










Work is a factor, there's no denying that my job takes something out of me that goes deeper than being on my feet for 12 plus hours without a break. Usually it's not this busy, but the past two weeks have been crazy. Last week I had an unusually perceptive student with me who asked, "How do you keep your head straight when you do this work? How do you stay mentally healthy?"










She recognized right away the stresses of our job, the responsibility for people's lives when they are really sick, and the demands of their families, and all the things we have to do at work, long days where we have to multitask our multitasking, and being expected to perform all these simultaneous layers of multitasked tasks without making a mistake, for more than 12 hours at a stretch, often without adequate food, water, breaks, or just a chance to catch our breath and think.


Lately by 5 pm my brain is so fried that I have a hard time sorting through things that require problem solving, and that's not good if you have two plus hours to go and things happen.


Running an ultra is much easier than a busy 12 hour shift at work. People don't believe me when I tell them that, but it's true.











To combat my exhaustion, I'm trying to round out my life again where my focus has been so narrowly centered on running this past year. Doing ordinary things, like this week, when I started cooking again.

I'm going into ATY feeling like whatever happens, happens. I don't know how I'll feel but it will be like a two day camping trip with a lot of fun people.

Over the next few months this blog is going to shift focus, maybe it will be less focused, like my random babbling. There will be assorted subjects like food, thoughts on life in general, and maybe, if I can shift some of my energy that direction, going back to some painting. And I'll be photographing things wherever I go.

For now, there will be whitecaps and cold wind until I restore balance to my life, but there's always something colorful to catch my eye. Life is never boring.

Climbing Higher...

I finally feel like I'm climbing out of a hole, after the past few weeks. I don't know how it happened so suddenly but I had one miserable week at work, it seemed like I couldn't please anyone and all these negative thoughts and self-talk appeared in my head. It felt like the floor caved in under me and I fell into a deep, dark hole. My brain must have temporarily run out of serotonin. Quoting Jean-Paul Sartre, "Hell is other people." That's how I felt.

It dawned on me one day at work when I was trying to change out some tubing and I stood there and looked at these two pieces of plastic tubing that simply needed to be untangled and it was entirely too much for my brain to handle. I stood there for the longest time staring at this plastic knot, unable to figure out what to do with it and where to start.

I'm sure it's all sleep deprivation. Along with being slightly hyperthyroid, I wasn't sleeping through the night at all. I think I did that once in an entire month, and usually I'd be up for two or three hours during the night. It's one thing to be able to sleep in and recover some of that sleep, but on my work days, there's no way.


I haven't been running a lot or riding a lot these past few weeks, maybe one good workout a week and then a few sanity saver runs, 30 to 60 minutes when I can fit it in. Last weekend we took The Buffaloes on a Rock Repeat, just one, and then Sunday I went with Dennis to Estes Park without the girls and we did an easy hike to Storm Pass.

The snow was down to 11,000 feet. The trees weren't changing color much but I bet they are this week. It was gorgeous in Estes Park but I bought this basket of flowers to cheer myself up because I was feeling so bad.


I knew I was in a bad place when we were driving up the canyon and I felt so sad, I started crying and continued to cry off and on throughout the whole day, on the hike and everything. But the next day I had the energy to go for a bike ride and did the Boyd Lake/Carter Lake Rd./Masonville loop from Ft. Collins, about 43 miles with hills that weren't too bad.
Just when I was feeling as bad as I've ever felt, I slept through the night and actually had three good days at work the past week. My spirits lifted and I started to feel human again.


I called my friend Keith in Grand Junction and talked to her for a long time, that helped a ton, and e-mailed with another ultra friend from Arizona, Laura, whom I haven't seen since this time last year. I felt so much better after connecting with them.

So now, just a week later, I'm starting to feel consistently better. I ran 2 hours today, solid running, and I had no problem with that. I'm going ahead with my running plans for the rest of the year.

I looked at my training log from last year leading up to Across the Years, and I've figured out that I don't have to train very hard for the 48 hour race. I do need to get some serious running in, but not a lot of long stuff. I'm going to work on actually running, and doing that at a decent pace. My legs still feel heavy and slow.

It's funny that the thought of a 3 hour workout now seems so easy, after spending 8 or more hours a day between running and sauna training for Badwater for all those months. I plan to do as much cycling as I can before the weather gets cold and icy.

And the big news...we FINALLY got a digital camera. It took forever, but now it will be so much easier to do my blog pictures. I am sooooo NOT a techno-geek. I always say my computer has an 8 track drive in it and I have to shovel coal into it to fire it up.


I'm sure that for the next few months, when I'm not running, or even when I am running, I'll be playing with my new toy. I'll be subjecting all the readers of this blog to my nonexistent photography skills. Enjoy!