Winter run

I mentioned yesterday that I'd be running today regardless of how high the snow came over my tootsies. Well, there was plenty of snow - and plenty of ice water. It snowed during the night, then was raining when I awoke at 5 a.m., and was snow mixed with rain when I started my run at 6 a.m., then quickly turned to heavy snow while I was running. I still managed 2 hrs 19 minutes (thanks in large part to running buddy AndyE who gallantly joined me for an hour of this wintry fun). I doubt I'll be running in weather like this during my summer run to Michigan - but it was great training for hanging tough despite what the weather gods throw at you.

Next up (like in the next few minutes): I'm off to the train station to start my weekend adventure with my sons at Knox College. Shall be checking in again next week.

Takin' it easy, watching the weather

Being a cut-back week, I set out on an easy run this morning. My legs were squawking so much, I turned it into an even easier run than originally planned. A fair amount of walking transpired throughout the rest of the day, but running miles stayed in the very low single digits. In the meantime, weather prognosticators are making noise about double digit snow tonight. We shall see. My long run for the week will take place early tomorrow morning no matter how high the snow goes over my tootsies as I am hopping the train for Galesburg, Illinois and a visit with my Knox College boys tomorrow evening; running the remainder of the week will take a back seat to hanging out with Misters Devon and Paul. Yayyy!

Cross-training

This is supposed to be a cut-back week (50-60 miles vs. the 81, 81, 83 of the last 3 weeks). Cut-back weeks are sort of like pre-marathon tapers: cut down on miles, rest, sleep, eat. I've never been good at tapers. I must admit my legs are delighted at the lower miles; they're whupped. And with fewer miles, I have more time for stretching - a good thing. I also have more time for other, shall we say "cross-training" activities. Yesterday and today that cross-training consisted of finishing the conversion of my eldest son's bedroom into our study (aka PJ's Run workroom):
The two-day wrap up meant I: finished cleaning out my younger son's room moving his furniture around to make room for older son's bed; hauled all the 'temporary' piles of my old office stuff out of older son's room so I could get to his stuff; moved older son's bed to younger son's room, boxed up all of older son's books and detritus; hauled boxes; rearranged remaining furniture in older son's room; brought my stuff back in; dusted and vaccuumed out the wazoo throughout the process ...and...

• set the bookshelf up with maps, atlas, trail info, GPS unit etc. on the top shelf; sponsor and nutrition stuff on the second shelf.
• put a map of the US up on the wall.
• picked the spot for my satellite photo of the Great Lakes.
• have the designated wall of Mackinac Island calendars (I have several years' worth...love those pics; love Mackinac Island).
  
• picked the spot for the painting my good friend Deb gave me of a runner with the Shakespeare quote "Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible." (This will go directly over the US map.)
• hung the ceramic plaque boss/co-worker/friend Linda gave me that says "play in the warmth of the sun; dance in the light of the moon; dream of the glow of the stars."
  ...and that's just what I'm doing!
  

Psyched and ready to roll in Boulder, Colorado!

New high mileage benchmark

My third consecutive 80+ mile week is in the books. Today's run brought this week's total to 83.5 miles. I did find my energy and excitement lacking by the end of the week and I had to give myself a big shove to get out the door this morning. But once out: ahhhh..... First, I decided to cobble together several loops into a new loop to add a bit of variety to my running life. And second, it was one gorgeous day out there - so gorgeous, I just kept going and going so that the 90 minutes I was trying so hard to talk myself into doing turned into just over 2 hours.

A sampling of today's run: smiling faces, sweating brows, runners in shorts, runners in rustly pants, runners in t-shirts, runners in sweatshirts, walkers, toddlers, old folks resting on benches, old folks saying yum yum yum as they gave their dog a treat, big dogs, little dogs, prairie dogs, coyotes, cows, horses, harrier hawks, red-tail hawks, bird houses made out of everything from teapots to hiking boots, golden leaves, amber grasses, cactus, snow-capped peaks, mud, a flying tomato. All this and I was never more than 4 miles from home. Running in Boulder is mighty fine.

Second snow

Today's run.
Lovely, simply lovely.

This week's experiment

This is the week I decided to try back-to-back long runs as well as keeping the full weekly mileage high (to make my 3rd consecutive week of 81 miles). So far so pretty good.

• Monday (after Sunday's marathon), I ran 14 miles in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. The morning run was dragging a bit until meeting up with Amie D. which really helped the time fly.
  
• Tuesday's run with the Boulder Road Runners really showed how tired my legs were. I didn't even try the tempo work 'cuz it was so hard staying up with everyone just during the warm up - but - log another 9 in the books.
• Wednesday was an easy day; just 6 miles total running to/from BCOR where we did some lower body work.
• Today was back to the tough stuff. Jester dog really really wanted to come with. I had planned on a hill workout so decided to do repeats on Boomerang Hill behind NIST (a boomerang-shaped dirt road running from the back side of NIST up to some trails leading to the Mesa Trail). I figured the overall distance would be too long for Jester but he could just hang out on the hill as I went up and back ...six times. A couple of incorrect assumptions: 1) I had remembered the hill being 5-6 minutes long but it was taking right about 7 minutes today. And I had wanted 3 miles of hill work - thus the six repeats (6x~.5 miles up). But I had forgotten about the 6 downhills associated with the repeats when calculating my time. So, what I had thought would be about 30 minutes of hill work turned into ~78 minutes (6x7 minutes up and 6x6 minutes down). Oops. So much for being on time to help catalog books in my husband's library. ...and... 2) No way Jester was going to 'hang out' while I went running out of sight. Fortunately it was a cool day (there was even some snow for him to frolic in) and he did have sense to slow down a bit as the repeats continued on - but he sure did get in an exceptionally long run for a sprinter dog. The good news is, both the human and the dog appear to have come off the repeats feeling good.
• Tonight - run to/from BCOR.
• Tomorrow - 3 hour run planned (last 2 hours with running buddy AndyE)
• Saturday & Sunday - not sure yet - maybe 60-90 minutes each. Whatever it takes to get to 81 miles for the week.
  

In the meantime....stretch....ice....stick....stretch....walk....ice....stretch....

Marathon #28 in the books

I ran the inaugural edition of the newest rendition of the Denver Marathon this morning. It was quite a fun run, touring many of the major landmarks, sporting arenas, and parks that Denver has to offer. A lot of turns, some hills, several stretches with runners going past eachother, and our names on our bibs allowing the many specatators along the way to cheer us along personally. Being an urban street marathon, my legs are a little more beat up than they were after the Boulder Backroads marathon three weeks ago. And, I suppose, this being my second consecutive week of 81 miles is also contributing to a bit of leg soreness - and the dire need for a nap this afternoon ;-).

My pacing during the marathon was interesting. I was none too peppy towards the end of this week and did not have high expectations for running pace today, but at the start of the marathon I felt like I was practically walking yet it turned out I was running steady 10 mpm (my goal pace was to run at a ~10:30-11:00 training pace). I stayed right around 10s until miles 15-20 when I crept into the upper 10s - which seems to be an unfortunately common pattern for me...to slow down in the middle third of any distance race. However, another common pattern within marathons for me is to perk right up as the miles remaining drop into single digits - and that's just what happened today. Except for a portapotty wait/stop at mile 8, Mile 17 was my slowest mile of the day (10:58) then the pace gradually quickened, the smile broadened, and I cruised it on in with miles 24, 25, and 26 all at 9:48 and 9:49.

My legs are a bit achey, even after hosing them down with cold water, and my feet feel like, well, they've been pounding pavement for a few hours today. Other than that, all seems to be well. The true test of current fitness will be tomorrow when I go out for my 15 mile run. Thankfully, I'll be back on Boulder's delightful dirt trails.

Marathon Non-Frenzy

I'm running the Denver Marathon on Sunday. I haven't checked the weather forecast; I don't know the course; I haven't stewed about my pre-race meals. Am I really running a marathon on Sunday?

What I have done is:
- monitor my mileage pretty closely this week so I don't go much over 80 miles by the time I cross the finish line on Sunday.
- planned out tomorrow's run so I'll be meeting up with my Saturday running buddies (the 'satboys') for an easy run on the flat and soft South Boulder Creek trail followed by breakfast.
- picked up my bib at the expo today. Now that was a surprise. I have bib number 101. Is that cool or what?! With a number like that I'm going to have to keep reminding myself that this is just a training run. yep yep

Feeling the load

I do believe my legs are a bit weary after last week's 81.5 miles and 46 miles so far this week. For the last three days there has been a decided lack of pep in the legs. I'm thinking it's not just the miles, though. Until this morning, breakfast had come no earlier than 10:30 a.m. so total food intake for the day has consisted of a late breakfast, maybe an afternoon snack, then a late dinner. Sleep hasn't been any great shakes either, getting to bed around 11 and waking up around 6. These are two areas that are definitely deserving of some new habits!

In the meantime, today was my last longish run before Sunday's Denver Marathon. I'm planning on running up to 9 miles total over the next two days then the marathon on Sunday - for another week of ~81 miles. I did have a big bowl of oatmeal for breakfast today after an early morning run, am about to fix lunch, and am done running for the day so dinner (and bedtime) should be at a reasonable hour. 'Tis a good start on this change of nutrition and sleep habits campaign, I'd say!

Most remarkable thing about the day so far: I'm actually wearing slacks and a button down shirt - for the first time since retirement I do believe. After lunch I'm headed over to my husband's school to help at their book fair. La de dah!

Getting out the door

The miles just may be catching up to me. I did some major dilly dallying this morning whilst fully dressed for my run. (Picture me, in full running regalia, cleaning the bathroom...something's very wrong with that picture, me being the non-housekeeper that I am...) But out the door I did finally go and into quite a lovely morning. I was none too lively on the run, and had to keep telling myself to "stick with the plan" (a 10 mile hill loop that has been in my repertoire for 20-some years) as I passed by trailheads and cutoffs. I also had to call myself back to reality on a number of occasions as I was mesmerized by the view of thick clouds hovering just above frosted pines, with occasional glimpses of the gray tops of the flatirons poking through. Now the run is done, the miles are logged, the day is warming, and I've finished baking the second batch of goodies for my husband's school library book fair and story hour with the CU Buffs. It was a slow start, but we're rolling now!

Wardrobe Change

Chilly chilly morning out there, with drizzle that was trying hard to be snow. So, for the first time this season, I got out the tights...and was not overly warm. Bring in the tomatoes! Fold up the lawn chairs! Find the polypro! Winter doth approacheth!

Topping 80

I reached a milestone this week - 81.5 miles logged Monday through Sunday. How does one do that, one might ask... Let me tell you, it's really handy to be retired since, at my speed, it takes a loooong time to cover that amount of mileage.
Here's how the miles unfolded:
* Monday: up behind the Bureau of Standards and along the base of NCAR - i.e., some hills, along the extremely pleasant western boundary of Boulder (53 minutes)
* Tuesday morning: 35 minutes warming up from my house (the long way) to where the Boulder Road Runners gather for their Tues/Thurs a.m. workouts, followed by60 minutes with the BRRs including some tempo running, then 27 minutes back home.
* Tuesday afternoon: to the post office, to campus to pick up some paperwork, and to Kinkos to pick up the calendar I had made for our anniversary (i.e., running errands...literally) (40 minutes).
* Wednesday: 3.25 hours running west along Boulder Creek (to a park that has a restroom that had opera playing in it!), then south to the Mesa Trail for a spectacular autumn run along scarlet and gold-laden trails. This is the run during which I thought to myself "there is nothing I'd rather be doing." A good thing, I suppose, since that's just about all I'll be doing next summer!
* Thursday morning: an easy 1 hour 53 minute run along the South Boulder Creek trail (the soft and flattish eastern portion of the trail), picking up various bike paths to wind my way back home.
* Thursday afternoon: to & from BCOR with 30 minutes of running the Mesa Trail during BCOR.
* Friday: 1.75 hours with AndyE, on the western portion of the South Boulder Creek trail and over to the Bluestem trail. An honest workout that takes you up up up then down down down with great footing on the downhill allowing you to take in the view from mountains to plains.
* Saturday: 2.5 hours - a little less than the 3 hours I had originally planned since my weekly total was beginning to look a bit huge. Again on the eastern portion of South Boulder Creek and various additional trails, this time with Kendall accompanying me on his bike. This run, I was feeling rather tired.
* Sunday: capped off the week with the Denver Race For The Cure. ~64,000 participants. What a phenomenal event - and a grand finale for the week's running.

Exquisite Autumn

Amber grasses, shoulder-high, glowing at sunrise.
Warm air above; hawks soaring. Frost-bitten stream beds below.
Snow-covered peaks, blushing pink with the new sun's rays.
Scarlet sumac, brilliant among the muted gold ground cover; speckles of blue flowers.
Creeks, water-free, brimming with golden leaves.
Rustling overhead, rustling under foot.
Clouds nestled down low; craggy flatirons poking through.
Full moon easing the darkness of the day's end.

Consistency

Today is our wedding anniversary! 31 years!
It appears that I tend to do things for long periods of time: 31 years married, 26 years in the same job, and, as of Sunday, 2007 miles run so far this year bringing my lifetime (logged) total to 46,813 miles.

Running 2000 miles in a year has long been a standard for me - a proof of consistency which, I believe, is key to running well. I've been logging my miles since 1981 and, in that time, have run at least 2000 miles 14 different years. Most years where I fell short have fairly obvious reasons: pregnancy (1984-85, 1987-88), broken arm (1993, 2005), stress fracture (2000), car accident (1996). And some years I just didn't put in the miles...but missed by no more than 135 miles. This year is exceptional as I have never before crossed the 2000 threshold so early in the year. Now, I just need to stay smart, stay consistent!

Consistency, on the surface, may appear to be a rather dull approach to life but apply it well and it can lead to very exciting rewards.