STELLA!!!

I have some better pictures of Stella Rand on my cell phone but I have no way of getting them onto my computer (that I am aware of). Here is my little niece though with her rose :)

And here is dad (my brother Dave) and the grandparents (my parents)!!! I will post pictures of mom and baby when I have some good ones -- which I intend to take when I go visit over Labor Day weekend!!!

I am not a fast runner

I've been having a great taper -- I've been sleeping and resting but workout out just enough to keep from getting sluggish. What was missing was good leg-turnover to shake out the antsy-ness that invariably creeps in when you're tapering from a long training cycle. So, this morning I laced up and hit the track. Since I haven't done speedwork in over a year, I didn't want to overdo it. I decided to run "the mile."

After a mile warmup, I took off. Chariots of Fire could be heard faintly in the background. Since I'm all rested, my legs felt great. The first lap of a speedworkout always feels great because it takes awhile for my body to even know what hit it. I felt like I was on fire. First lap: 1:50. Ummmmmm. . . ok I'm warm! Definitely warm.

The second lap was still great feeling, though I cruised in at 3:35. In the third lap, I became aware that I could scarcely breathe. My legs still felt awesome but my lungs were in total complete shock. They hadn't even run quickly through an airport in years. That firey bad feeling creeped in and I began to get that tingly feeling in my gums that I get when my breathing is labored. The last time I felt this was during an induced asthma attack when I participated in a medical research study at the UW Hospital.

Finally, the final lap arrived. My legs were still fresh and felt great -- I had to push on despite my inability to breathe. I gave it all I had! I felt like I might pass out due to the lack of oxygen but I was running as fast as I could! AND I FINISH! In 7:13. . .

It's kind of comical I think. I'll spare you the self-loathing and comparisons to back when I actually did speedwork regularaly --- but suffice it to say that miles and miles and miles of nothing but slow running begets slowness.

But it was a fun workout. I miss speedwork. If I finish and recover from Headlands I think I do want to return to the track. My lungs will thank me!

I finally made my own kombucha tea

Cheryl sent me a "mother" -- which is in my mutha's case a huge floppy disk with which you produce batches of kombucha tea. Here, below, is the final tea that has been. . . er. . . fermenting for 10 days.

Isn't it pretty? I've been buying this stuff at the store (GT's) and I like the "Gingerade" so I juiced my own ginger to add to the tea. Below is the ginger juice. First time I've used the juicer in quite some time. By the way, ginger juice also goes very well with rum and orange juice -- who knew?
Below are the final bottles of gingery kombucha. I ended up with 9 pints I believe. I left a little to start the next batch. I'm pretty excited. Thanks Cheryl for the mutha. Devon, whose link I added to the right, also makes her own kombucha. This batch is named "Devonbucha" since she won the Vermont 100.
The inside of my fridge. Everything I need. Kombucha, beer, grapeseed mayo, pickles and olives. And other stuff.

The 5k that wasn't

I had been planning to run a 5k this morning, which is something I haven't done in more than a year, but instead I slept until 11:30. I honestly can't remember the last time I slept that late. I mean, I first woke up early and made the decision to stay in bed, but still. Unfortunately, Sonja decided to liberate herself from the yard by pulling a slat from the wooden fence and jumping through her new "door." Evidently, she spent the morning visiting all the neighborhood dogs and hanging out in their respective yards. Ted slept late too and neither of us heard the various door bell rings, knocks on the door and other efforts to summon the irresponsible owners of the crazy red pup terrorizing the neighborhood. It was really embarassing, especially when I met a neighbor who lives across the alley and had to admit that I live in the house with the terrible weed problem along the alley. It's bad enough to be the irresponsible dog owner. . . add to that the neglectful homeowner. So, Ted and I are devoting the day to weeding and weedkilling in hopes that we will redeem ourselves in the eyes of our many neighbors.

These pictures are from several weeks ago when we went to see the Glacier Symphony perform "pops" music at Rebecca Farm. Ty and Leanne invited us. I thought these were nice pictures. I'm posting them to spice up my otherwise mundane blog post.

ENFIN!

Make sure you shout "enfin!" in your head in your cheeziest french accent, and maybe raise a pointed finger for emphasis. That's the feeling I'm going for here. And the reason for this is that the weekend concluded my 100 mile training -- I now get to taper. Again. And knock-on-wood, this will be IT for real.

Friday night Iris and I did a full-moon run in Glacier National Park. Due to unannounced road closure before Logan Pass, we were forced to do our run in a less interesting bit of the park, though it was still pretty amazing compared to say, a midnight run through Newark, NJ. We ran 14 miles at a pretty decent clip, which was pretty tough for me in the middle of the night. The road was banked which resulted in much soreness and difficulty. It was a great idea in theory that just didn't execute as planned. Oh well.

Sunday Leanne and I ran in Herron Park and again endeavored on our relentless quest for the trail to Blacktail Mountain. Since the last effort (not counting last weekend's debacle) I obtained a rough map and a HINT from our friend Jandy. The hint took us on a completely new route that, much to our delight, took us to a single-track trail that took us 7 miles up and very near Blacktail Mountain. Leanne had to turn around to get home to do good deeds for elderly neighbors or something, so we did not explore further. After she left, I went back up on logging road, not in the mood to navigate dense forest alone (read: creepy!) and more in the mood for iPod tunage and sure footing.

Much of the run was just magic. The sky was an intense blueberry color and all seemed right with the world. Running felt easy and the solitude of the surrounding mountains provided an indescribable euphoria frequently felt in beautiful places. I thought to myself: this is good.

Somehow my spidy sense led me up to the same place Leanne and I found by single-track and I mentally mapped a huge area that was previously mysterious and unknown to me. I was really torn between continuing further than Leanne and I had travelled -- to see if it went to Blacktail - and saving this adventure for a time when we could all (including Iris, who too has tirelessly searched for THE ROUTE) adventure together. I started to feel hot (it got up to nearly 90) and thirsty and worried about my water supply. This was my excuse for returning back. The euphoria turned to tiredness and thirst and thoughts of dinner. All told, I ran 34 miles yesterday. It took me a really long time (maybe that's why it felt easy?) so the "time on my feet factor" was there.

I didn't bring my camera because I didn't expect the day to be remarkable or new.

I would like to reflect on my training heretofore. I feel like I've trained pretty hard, but last night as I reviewed by log I realized I've only run a few weeks over 80 mpw and a total of 7 weeks above 70 miles mpw. My longest run was 40 miles and I ran about 8 or so 30-40 mile runs. I have done some back-to-backs, though not since before the last taper. When reduced to paper, I'm not as thrilled with my training as I would like to be. But there's nothing I can do now but taper properly and get my mental game on.

I'M AN AUNTIE!!!!

Stella Katherine Rand, my niece!!! I don't yet have pictures that I can directly post, but here is a link to the hospital pictures. Tina says Stella looks like me.

LINK

So Stella Katherine was born a week after Stella Kate. Stella Katherine is my brother David's daughter while Stella Kate is my BFF David's daughter.

Stella Stella

oh Stella

Stella I love you Stella I love you Stella I love you

(Interpol song lyrics)

Gosh I almost started crying when I saw the pictures of little Stella Rand. I can't wait to meet her! How am I going to wait until Labor Day weekend?

Perhaps I shouldn't find this so funny. . . but I do. So funny, in fact, that I'm posting it here.


Plight Of Missing Hikers Will Make Great Movie

Perhaps it was bound to happen eventually. . .

After running 22 miles on the XC ski trails with Leanne, Iris and Callie, Leanne dropped me off at the "trailhead" for the trail that leads from Blacktail back to Herron Park. My thought was that I might finally find the "direct" route back -- the one that Jandy showed us last summer but we haven't been able to find since. If not, I would get some extra miles in which was in fact a good thing. Down I headed, not really bothering to make noise. I figured mountain lions would just be drawn to me and want to eat me to shut me up. The trail down is much steeper than I realized. Going up is hard but it's almost tougher going down. Spiders seem intent on building webs across the trail, which left me with a webby face. The route is beautiful though with views of Flathead Lake and the grander range across the valley.

Going up the previous time, we observed that the trail was marked with orange flags. I figured I would follow the flags and see where they took me. Perhaps this would be my ticket to the direct route down. Or at least a dependable route that we could use in the future. At one point there must have been a fork in the trail and the flags took me to the right. I began to realize that the trail was wholly unfamiliar and there were aspects that would have certainly remembered. Yet it didn't occur to me that I should back and take the other route. I continued on. Afterall, maybe this was the direct route back.

I continued on following flags until I left the USFS boundary. There was no question at that point that I was on a different route than I had ever been on before and that even the direct route did not go this way. This realization though only came much later. At the moment, I just shrugged it off and kept moving forward, following the flags of course.

The trail ejected me onto a road. Just then a truck came down the road, filled with bearded toothless men and their junkyard dog on the back. The truck stopped and one man asked if I was ok. I said yes thanks and he continued on. At that point I realized that the road probably went somewhere if there was a vehicle on it (as opposed to a logging road, which was what I was accustomed to). I found where the trail continued on the other side of the road and continued my descent.

Eventually the trail ended and I was in logging road-land. The land where gazillions of logging roads cover the landscape like a net -- except that unlike a net they don't always connect and they don't always continue on. They frequently dead-end. Usually at a pile of logging mess. I kept following the flags though, because obviously the route was flagged to somewhere. Somewhere that would certainly get me to where I wanted to go. The flags took me to a deadend. However, the flags seemed to go straight up the side of a very steep and rather tall hill/mountain. Straight.up.the.side. I stood for a long time staring and contemplating, before finally deciding in my logical little mind that the route couldn't possible go that way -- of course a horse person or hiker marked this trail and no way would they go that route.

I turned around and tried a bunch of logging roads, only to end up at dead ends. I quickly realized I was more or less lost. I called Ted and told him I was lost and didn't know when I would be back. I'm sure he just loved that. After getting nowhere slowly (amid my frustration I spent more time walking) for awhile, I decided the smartest thing would be to retrace my steps back up to Blacktail where I could call Ted to pick me up. Except I couldn't even properly retrace my steps and somehow ended up on a different and new logging road. This period felt like being stuck in a maze -- it was so incredibly frustrating I was on the verge of tears. I did not feel like I was in danger, but felt like I was in danger of being out there for a long time and of running out of food and water. I even imagined having to spend the night in the horrible maze. I couldn't even retrace my stupid steps. I was so lost. So I followed along (just going, nowhere in particular) and came upon some cool bear tracks.







Eventually I came to a locked gate, which I knew I had not come through. I was so happy because the gate could only mean one thing. A real road that actual humans use to drive from place to place. On the other side was indeed a road. A real road that appeared to see vehicle traffic, at least on occassion. I decided to take it up towards Blacktail, figuring it might be like one of the random roads we ended on this morning. Perhaps it would even save me the climb to the top of Blacktail and would take me to the main road that leads to the top.

I came upon a bizarre homemade contraption that made a stream into a waterfall and poured into a trough. Maybe a horse trough? Realizing I would soon run out of water, I treated and took some of this cold clear water. I felt like my luck was improving since there's really not much water up there at all. As I celebrated my luck, I heard a car coming. It looked like a normal vehicle (unlike the one I described earlier) so I flagged it down. The drive informed me that I was heading to Kila, which is a town about 20 or so miles west of Kalispell. The run would be about 15 miles he said. The other direction would take me to Kalispell. That would be about 13 miles. Yes he was heading towards Kalispell and yes he would give me a ride.

On the ride to town, I was gently reminded that I should carry a light and did I have matches? All those flags are dirtbikers who randomly flag their own little favorite routes. Yeah they're all pink or orange so they're all useless, unless you happen to know which ones are yours. No they don't usually really go anywhere. The dirtbikers start on this road I was on (Patrick Creek Road) and do not intend to make it to Herron Park. None of these flaggers were headed my way. But for some reason I assume surely they were. Hmmm. I guess there's a reason my lack of common sense has failed to elude comment throughout my life.

I rode with the nice man (he had infants in car seats so I figured him *not* a scary man) to his neighborhood which was about a mile from mine. I walked, bear spray in one hand, cell phone in the other, and gabbed with Iris and then Leanne while I walked home. I was worried that Ted was going to be super mad at me. He wasn't. Ted is almost always very sweet, and I think he knew I had learned my lesson.

So what did I learn? First, that despite being on the BOD of Foys to Blacktail Trails, the route from Foys to Blacktail is STILL a complete mystery to me. I'm going to go with Jandy again and see if I can get it right. Second, I should always carry a light, especially if I can going to be running long alone. Third, I am an idiot. Fourth, there are definitely bears up there. Fifth, I have no sense. Sixth, be ALWAYS aware of route in case I need to retrace my steps and NEVER take for granted the possibility of getting lost or maybe even hurt. Finally, if I don't know the route and have never found it in the past, the time to look again is not when I'm alone and not from the opposite direction.

Things could have been much more unpleasant but I got lucky and managed to get through the stupid thing with almost no drama (just a couple sniveling moments with near-tears). Funnily, I got 37 miles in which was more or less what I was aiming for. Above all, I'm really glad to be home.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD STELLA KATE WOODBURY!!!

David and Ellen (well mostly Ellen) gave birth yesterday to a beautiful baby girl. The world will be a better place with another Woodbury/Mir. No pressure Stella but I have high expectations! I'm counting on you, Hedy, Maggie and Georgia to turn things around :-)

4th of July in Montana

MORE ON THE FUN WESTERN STATES WEEKEND

This will be a quick and dirty summary of the weekend, but I figure there's no need to bore you with the blow by blow. This will be more of a "highlights" type post. Sooooooooooo let's begin with the fact that the RD filled the weekend with activities that kept us busy and made us feel like we were still part of the race. There was packet pickup and the WS Store, run by the uber-cool Zombie Runners , was open for business. I even received my bracelet from Stan Jensen (there's a picture down there somewhere). I was not forced to weigh-in, which was a blessing considering the beer and pizza consumption the previous night.

This picture below is from one of the two nights that we all sat around the "campfire" (fire pit in the fancy Squaw village) and laughed and had a great time.
Here's the picture of Stan Jensen giving me my bracelet.
On Friday a group of us "ran" the first miles of the Western States course. It was pretty tough. Pictured below is Cheryl making her way up the steepest part of the section.
This is the monument at the top. It was bittersweet to be here but mostly sweet. It was a beautiful morning and the "run" (i.e. hike) was exhilirating.

On Saturday, a huge group of folks ran on the Tahoe Rim Trail. Paul Charteris, the funniest coolest Kiwi you'll ever meet, organized the group and we had a blast running the high elevation Tahoe Rim Trail. The field was filled with superstars and pacers and foreigners and I have to say I ran ahead of Nikki and the Abbs for about 20 feet or so :-)

Saturday night Cheryl and I drove to Napa where we had a delicious fancy dinner (fancy by Montana standards) and some wine. Sunday we visited the Berzinger winery, which was pretty cool.


Sunday night we went to Jennifer's party in Sacramento, which was a blast. I had the chance to chat with a lot of new friends, including Nikki Kimball and her aunt Mary who are two of the coolest people you will ever meet. Also, below is Paul and he made us laugh so hard we were crying.


Monday, way too early, Cheryl flew out of Sac and I headed back to the nastiness called Reno. It's only today that I feel like I'm recovering from the weekend.

I registered for Headlands 100 which is August 9-10. It will be more mellow and will probably be a better first 100 mile race than WS would have been. I'm getting geared back up!!!

QUICK WORDS ABOUT WESTERN STATES RELATED STUFF

Thanks everyone for all the support both before and during my training. The love I feel for my friends and family is difficult for me to put into words, much less coherent words, but suffice it to say that I am well aware of how lucky I am and how super duper awesome said friends and family are.

Above is a picture of Cheryl and Chris, critical Western States team-Danni members, and I would say we had a great weekend regardless of the non-occurance of a race. We did run though. Just not 100 miles.

I will post more pictures later, and share more about my fun weekend, but I wanted to check in and send out a huge thank you. I think I am possibly more exhausted than I would have been had I run the race. We packed a lot into four days!

I'm thinking that I will attempt the Headlands 100 in the Marin Headlands in the Bay area as a substitute. I am not 100% sure though. I need to get to KCMO this summer as well and all this travelling is overwhelming physically, mentally, professionally and financially!!! But of course running comes first.

KIDDING!!!