PJ's Run

Saturday, May 12, 2018

New Mexico! Arizona! Utah! The Southwest Trail Extravaganza!

Canyons, red rock, lava, ancient ruins, petrified wood - it was quite a trip with lots of running, walking, vista viewing, gazing upon ancient cultures - and three more states completed on the quest to run a trail in every state!

New Mexico - State #33!
We decided to stay north in New Mexico and meandered over to the Farmington area where I had read about a trail with wildflowers and stunning views. We must have been too early in the season (or it had been too dry a winter) for the wildflowers, but the views were most definitely stunning. The trail was Kinsey's Ridge and it was a fabulous ridge taking the runner from easterly to northerly to westerly views. A great way to start the trip!

The trailhead:

There are two trail names on the sign, one for Kinsey's Ridge and the other for Rigor Mortis. Along the ridge part of the trail about the time I figured it should be swinging back toward the trailhead, there was a confluence of trails with no markers mentioning Kinsey's Ridge so I followed Rigor Mortis in the direction that I thought would take me back to the trailheads. It is an aptly named trail with lots of dipsy doodle ups and downs. The views throughout the run made every dipsy doodle worth it!

After the run and before leaving New Mexico, we visited the Aztec Ruins National Monument east of Farmington, near the little town of Aztec. The National Monument offers a phenomenal Pueblo site, occupied between 1100 and 1300 AD and exceptionally well-preserved. Well worth a visit!

Arizona - State #34!
The trails chosen for Arizona were short, very different from each other, and remarkable.
First: Canyon de Chelly National Monument and the trail to the White House ruins - 1 hour 22 minutes down from the canyon's edge to the bottom (including time for photos, talking to a fellow who offered to take my picture, found out I was from Boulder, said he was a friend of the Folsom family - the CU stadium is Folsom Stadium - and gave me a brief history of the family, as well as time for viewing the ruins) then 22 minutes to dash back up to the top - I do love to run an uphill!

Canyon de Chelly from near the top

The photo the Folsom family friend took - near the bottom of the canyon

The White House Ruins - a Puebloan village built into a 500 foot sandstone cliff and occupied between 1060 and 1275 AD

My return trip (the spot of pink) as captured by Kendall up at the top

From Canyon de Chelly we moved on to the Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert. We did a lot of walking on trails through the Petrified Forest (the slower the better to view the petrification) - but Taz was finally able to accompany me on a run - on the Painted Desert's Tawa Trail. (It had been a too hot/too long run in New Mexico and dogs weren't allowed on the trail at Canyon de Chelly.)

But wait! There's more to Arizona! First some sightseeing:

Then it was on to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument and some lava running on the Crater and Lava Flow Trails!

There's a Kendall up there (walking a trail inside the loop trail I ran)

The cinder cone of Sunset Volcano. It last erupted around 1085, shooting lava 850 feet high!

Utah - State #35!
Utah was interesting. I had not done much research of Utah trails since I didn't quite know where we would end up in the state (we were very footloose and fancy-free on this trip). And it turns out there is not a lot of connectivity in Monument Valley where we ended up camping our first night in the state so finding a trail was a bit of a challenge. One trail I had heard about was in Gooseneck State Park near Monument Valley but, upon arriving at the park and getting directions to the trailhead from the ranger, it turned out that the final dirt road we were supposed to turn onto just was not a good road for Hedwig. So back to the highway we went, heading north to the first town that had a Visitor's Center figuring we could get maps and trail information there. Nope. It was a Sunday and the Center was closed. But! They had WiFi which doesn't care what day of the week it is! We reviewed the trail information for Canyonlands National Park and decided to go there where I would run a 7.5 mile Big Spring to Squaw Canyon trail loop. I checked at the Park's Visitor's Center and asked if they thought a solo run on that loop would be o.k. and they said yes except for getting "over the saddle" where I'd have to slow down. So off we went to the trailhead. Silly me - I told Kendall to figure I'd be back in about two hours. Ha! Said "Saddle" was a huge chunk of the trail and runnability was a miniscule part of the trail. Canyonlands offers amazing country to explore - but plan on a whole lot of rock scrambling, rock climbing, and much time allotted to careful cairn searching to please-oh-please not get lost! 4+ hours later I returned to the trailhead and a much worried-then-relieved Kendall and Taz.

Naive me at the trailhead

Can you spot the trail-marking cairns?

Following what would be a river bed if there were water

From near the top of the saddle from the Big Spring side

And on to the other side, Squaw Canyon...

I definitely earned my trail stripes with Utah!

All was well after many Kendall hugs and Taz rubs, a bottle of Vernors, followed by a bottle of water, followed by a bottle of iced tea, and a shower. And all was absolutely fantabulous after a breakfast the next morning with friends Dan and Randall who were in Moab celebrating their anniversary!

Next up: BolderBoulder and perhaps a Kansas trail to or fro a trip to Petoskey!

Sunday, April 29, 2018

Trail Quest Heads Southwest

We've got Hedwig packed, three more states lined up, and a trail selected for the first of the three!
Tomorrow we head toward New Mexico, perhaps spending a night in southern Colorado before pointing ourselves toward Aztec Ruins National Monument and a bit of trail running near there on a trail known for its wildflowers. After New Mexico, we go west to Arizona, probably staying in northern Arizona, then on to Utah. So many trails along the way, it's hard to decide on which to run!

In the meantime, there's been lots of running going on here. Earlier in the month I ran a half-marathon just as a training run but was hitting the splits so much more quickly than I ever expected I actually ended up with a pretty darned good race, smiling all the way. Personally, I believe it was the change of scenery (near Fort Collins), country roads and spectacularly beautiful day that put wings on my feet! Oh yeah, and the shirt! It was the Spring Equinox Half-Marathon with a shirt that said the same - so I now have a shirt commemorating my birthday day (most years)!

Also being spring, Bolder Boulder training is in full swing. And cattle grazing - with lots of moms and calves. It just so happened that yesterday, the two activities crossed paths. I was doing a speed workout along trails in Boulder right when one of the ranchers was doing a major roundup of his cattle. It made for quite the picture!

Now! Off to run through all the lists: Hedwig list, trail list, Taz list, food list, list of lists....

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Running through the seasons

Boulder has been transforming itself from a wintry town to a burg of burgeoning springiness. This has been a real treat for those of us who like variety through our days and miles.

During one late February run, we found quite the interesting character along the trail.

Ten days later, it was warm enough for Connie to don shorts -

and for all of us to be all smiles at the top of our hill repeat run.

Last weekend, Connie and I had a stellar long run under Colorado blue skies at the Rez.

'Twas the kind of day and run where you believe anything and everything is possible.

So, of course, believing anything and everything is possible, I went and signed up for a half marathon - to be run one week from today. I, not at all race-ready, have a few reasons for signing up:

1) I need a long run anyways so why not get in 13.1 supported miles.

2) It's in Fort Collins and I'm in the mood for a change of scenery.

3) It's the "Spring Equinox" half marathon and the race shirt boldly proclaims it to be the "Spring Equinox" - which happens to be my birthday (most years). Yup, it's all about the shirt ;-)

In the meantime, snowbanks are shrinking and bulbs are poking up all 'round town.

Another sure sign of spring? Our ten-week Bolder Boulder training plan starts up this week. Woof!

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Working Through It

The grunge is hanging on a bit, but improving. Winter is still here and, well, being wintry. But gosh darn it, I gotta run! For all the same reasons that have always been there: to see the sights, to get out from behind the desk and breath fresh air, to sweat, and for my sanity.

So yesterday, Taz and I ran one of Taz's favorite places - CU South. It's a former gravel pit now owned by CU, and mostly undeveloped save for CU's cross-country course, a hodgepodge of additional trails and CU's tennis courts. Best of all, dogs can run free. Yesterday happened to be a frosty foggy day....thus the very happy foggy doggy the minute the leash came off!

Coming into today, running buddy, Connie, and I knew that a change in the weather was moving in on us. Our only concession to the forecast of dropping temperatures and light snow was that we planned to start at a extraordinarily late 8:30. It turns out that the temperature really dropped - reading a mere 11 degrees when I headed out the door, and the light dusting of snow became several inches of snow. But as I told Connie when she texted at 7:30 to be sure the run was still on: "I'm layering up right now. It should be pretty." And indeed it was - quiet, frosty, and lovely.

...and so we run on...

Sunday, February 04, 2018

The best-laid plans...

I came into the new year committed to upping my training level. Perhaps I was a bit over optimistic given that it's mid-winter and weather is always the X factor when it comes to running on the roads and trails around Boulder. Sure enough, we've had weekly doses of ice and snow which has resulted in multiple days of less than desired mileage and certainly less than desired quality.

This past week, however, winter grunge struck. A ticklish throat had been toying with me for a few days then landed hard as I started in on what was supposed to be a 2-hour run Saturday - hard enough that I turned back toward home 20 minutes into the run. I hoped that giving myself an easy day Saturday (yesterday) would allow me to bounce back quickly from the grunge but, nope, today is even worse...sort of a cold, sort of nauseous, brillo-pad-feeling in my head, and excessive fatigue. Blech. Two miles of running this morning - on more snow - did me in. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just being a wimp when I call a run short because I'm not feeling tip-top. Today, I'm pretty sure the grunge is the real deal. When I returned home at two miles, I discovered Paul was at our house with cinnamon rolls. Three hours later and my cinnamon roll is still sitting there. Perhaps I should check for my pulse!

Friday, January 26, 2018

AIEEEE Flashback!

Today.

It's January.

A few days before my first-born's birthday.

Packed snow and ice on the roads.

The wind is blowing.

And it's trash day.

FLASHBACK!

January 21, 1993, one week before my eldest's 8th birthday.
Roads are completely covered with packed snow and ice (much worse than today).
The wind is gusting up to 90 mph (much worse than today).
I am walking to work in the wee hours of the morning when a gust catches me and blows me right over. I am pretty sure some damage has been done. I get up, look down at my arm and see that my hand is drooping at a right (or so very wrong?) angle to the rest of my arm. I am a little over a mile away from home and a little less than a mile from work. There are no lights on yet at any of the nearby homes so I continue to walk, unsteadily, toward the office. Hark! I hear the sound of a vehicle and stand out in the street to flag it down. It's a trash truck, and the fellows take one look at me and get me into their truck as I ask if there's any way they can contact my husband. Thus the now infamous phone call was made. Upon answering the phone, the first thing Kendall hears is "This is Western Disposal. We have your wife." Broken arm #3 is in the books.
Note: Broken arm #1 was while playing wall-tag baseball in 4th grade; I was so surprised I'd hit the ball, I tagged the wall a bit over-enthusiastically. Broken arm #2 was while cross-country skiing and I came downhill out of the woods onto a bare patch - inspiring Kendall's older brother's inscription on my cast of "Next time let Kendall go first." And broken arm #4 was just stupidity on my part when I got engrossed in watching a very well played pickup basketball game while I was cycling home from work and rode right off the bike path. I have yet to break an arm running and would very much like to keep it that way. To say I ran cautiously today, is an understatement!

Back to January, 1993. I had a tradition of making and decorating my kids' birthday cakes and I was not to be deterred by a measly broken right arm. My eldest had requested the Starship Enterprise and I was determined to create the Starship Enterprise - 'cuz that's what moms do!

Sunday, January 21, 2018

2018 is well upon us!

Happy 2018!

On this snowy day in Boulder, Colorado, let me start this post by introducing you to our new granddog, Barley, a little fella who has brought many smiles to our new year.

Unbelievable, it is three weeks into the new year and this is my first post of 2018. Well, let this end that drought! 2017 was an interesting year running-wise for me. (Actually, it was an interesting year all the way around, but let's talk about running, shall we?) It was one of my lowest mileage years, yet I covered an extraordinary amount of territory with highlights all along the way.

Since 1990, I have only had 5 years of less than 2,000 annual miles - and one of those years was last year, 2017, with just 1,844 miles. But during the year of 2017, I also checked off 19 states in my quest to run a trail in every state of the Union. This quest has proven to be a glorious journey. During 2017 the trail quest took us from the southeastern states to Hawaii to Alaska and hopping around the midwest. We learned that packing 13 states into one trip was a bit much, that running one or two trails every day in one state (Hawaii) is a great way to visit a state; that it's o.k. to skip a few days of running if you're sailing on a small ship through the Inside Passage of Alaska and have the great fortune to run trails every now and then when stopping at tiny towns and national parks.

Traveling as much as we did dropped my running mileage a bit. A quad problem I had been trying to run through for 18 months decided it was tired of being ignored, also making it difficult to run and exacerbating the situation by affecting my hips. My mileage really dropped off at that point and I needed to turn my focus toward rehab, hip strengthening exercises, and mobility work.

And now we have a new year. Quads are happier - not perfect, but happier. And Kendall and I are putting together our travel plans for the year. We're thinking mid-Atlantic states in the spring, some of the southwestern states we've yet to do in May-ish, northeastern states in late August, and, of course, a few trips to Petoskey thrown in here and there. I'm saving Colorado for the grand finale'. In the meantime, I'm slowly (hopefully adequately cautiously) building my mileage back up. As part of this build-up, I also hope to keep a better record of my running progress with much more frequent blog posts than I've been managing over the past year or so.

We had a snow day here in Boulder today. Taz heading into and tackling today's run pretty much summed up my heading into 2018 and tackling my running goals for the year.

Taz, the statue.

I put the booties on him and he did not move an inch

until I tugged on the leash and coaxed him out the door

And Taz, once out the door and in the wild & wooly winter weather

booties gone (he lost them in less than a block)

and running free

Sunday, November 12, 2017

A milestone reached!

This weekend, my lifetime mileage reached the grand total of 74,716 miles - or just over three times around the earth's circumference! I haven't actually traveled around the earth's circumference, but my running has taken me on a marvelous journey.

From my early days of running (skinny, pre-momhood)