A good day

Things have been busy with work travel but the nice thing about holidays is that you can get away with cutting out of work at noon on a Thursday to spend some quality snow time with friends.  Amber, Dave and I hiked up Big Mountain and were disappointed by the endless ugly views.  It's tough living here.

lifted from Dave's blog

 Happy holidays everyone!

Weekend Above the Clouds

Our little mountain valley frequently sees what is known as an "inversion" -- where the clouds hang low above the valley, socking everything in (rather drearily I might add).  But, if you can get on top of a mountain, you can soak in endless sun and, if you're lucky, warmth.  It was opening day on Big Mountain (Whitefish Resort) and while cold, it was beautiful.  Friday morning I had skinned up with Dave and we experienced great snow.  This picture below is of me -- or my light at least.  I was behind Dave.

lifted from Dave's blog -- this is what pre-work skiing looks like

The snow was pretty good yesterday on the mountain but the whole mountain was carved up by the swarms of skiers who made it out for opening day.

Today my friend Amber and I played around on Blacktail Mountain, which is not open yet, and had an amazing day.  We did about 4 laps up/down in approximately 5 hours.  It's a lot of work but it was so incredibly beautiful and we skied some perfect untouched powder.  I can see why people get addicted to powder skiing -- it's like floating.  

We were met with perfect bluebird skies and warm winds above the inversion.  

As the sun started to descend we saw a gorgeous alpinglow (sp?).  This picture doesn't do it justice.  But you can see the blanket of clouds.  It's like being in a plane.

A fantastic weekend.  Good friends, good snow, good exercise, good everything.  Amber remarked that the world would be a better place if everyone could regularly experience what we were able to experience today.  I agree completely.

Yanksgiving

Some good writeups about our holiday weekend in Canadia can be found here and here.  I didn't partakte in all the running though -- Keith and I hiked up Sunshine on our skis and I did a solo 2ish hour run along the Bow River.  It was beautiful.  But...

All I've really gotta say is POUTINE!  And maybe Weight Watchers...

It's Winter!

 Yesterday my friend Shawn and his friend Nate and I headed up to the mountain f/n/a "Big Mountain" to earn our first turns of the season.  The thermometer on the Subaru read 20 degrees and figuring that sounded pretty warm, we decided to ignore the wind that was whipping around us and visibly blowing trees.  "If it's windy in the Valley it's probably going to be windy up high" I keenly observed.  "That's what we would normally say" said Shawn.  We all laughed and pulled up to the nearly-empty parking lot to gear up and head up the mountain.

First, I should note that there is a lack of pictures here because it was so incredibly horrible that the last thing I could think to do was snap pictures.

Shawn is a snowboarder and had his board on his back -- it acted like a sail.  The short skis he was wearing were definitely not providing enough surface area to let the skins to their thing and adhere to the snow.  I know things are very wrong when I'm ahead of Shawn -- he's an uber athlete.  Nate had already darted far ahead.  I kept looking back to see Shawn blown backwards, sliding around, falling and generally looking miserable.  I figured he'd rally and since it was so horribly windy and cold, and because my hands were becoming painful clubs, I hurried up the pitch hoping to find shelter from the wind where I could wait for Shawn.

He never appeared.  I figured he turned back, and thought to take my skins off and head back myself since I had the car keys, but it felt too cold to stop and I was nearly to the Summit.  I completed my mission and found respite from wind at the Summit House where I removed my skins, put on about 5 coats and began my blissful and hard-earned powder run down (a different run, out of the wind). 

Shawn ended up waiting something like 45 minutes for me in the cold, since nothing was open, but managed to forgive me (I think/hope).  We had both planned originally to hike up today (Sunday) as well, but agreed that it was maybe not so awesome when the wind and cold brings you to your knees.  It's a really good reminder about how mean winter can be if she wants to, which brings me to:

My shell sled for Susitna came.  I need to make it into the gear-hauling machine it is destined to be.  I need to get out and find out what it's like to run with a sled full of gear.  After yesterday's punch-in-the-face of winter, I'm thinking I will need many balaclavas and a lot of hand warmers.  If the weather turns like it did yesterday at Susitna, there's no reason why I am subjecting myself to that for 40+ hours.  Rest assurred I'm not that crazy.  Call me weak if you want...  I like my fingers and toes.

Such a Softie

I basically took an entire month off from exercise.  Had a fun time in San Francisco and Vegas and saw Grandma in Florida.  I ran once that I can recall during that month, did no Crossfit and did virtually no skating/roller derby.  I think it's good to take break.   That said, I feel awfully "soft" about now and definitely need to get back into the swing of things.  Remarkably, I didn't gain weight.  However, I probably have half the muscle and twice the fat :p 

November 1 marked the date on which I would return to exercise, and I was sad to realize how quickly I appear to lose strength.  I know that endurance endures with little maintenance (for me anyhow) but my first Crossfit workout back was depressing.  I wanted to cry.  Not only do I have some weird mobility issues going on in my shoulder that prohibits me from lifting over my head, but I can only squat about half the weight I was able to squat a month ago.  It's pretty depressing but I have my work cut out for me.

Time to trade in the beer for vegetables

At the same time, I need to figure out how I'm going to train for Susitna.  It gets pretty dreary here in these winter months, and I now remember why I committed to no early season races last year -- I hate running here in the winter.  I figure I can get by though on the following "training" "plan" -- I am interested in your thoughts on this approach:

M = 2 hour roller derby (p.m.)
T = a.m. 5 mile run, p.m. Crossfit
W = a.m. or lunch Crossfit, p.m. 2 hour roller derby
R = a.m. 5 mile run, p.m. Crossift
F = rest
S = something long (7-12 hours) (Ski touring, snow-shoeing or running)
S = something sort longish (skiing (even a day of downhill), ski touring, snow-shoeing or running)

Between now and Susitna I will aim to do 2-3 12 hour runs with my sled on snow...  those will probably be in January/February.

I hope this will suffice because I simply cannot bear the thought of running long every weekend in the dreary sadness that is road-running during the winter.  Just thinking about it makes me want to cry.  I ran a little under 12 road miles today and although I was in good company, I wasn't really digging it.  So, hopefully this will end up being a sufficient plan.  I know my Swiss-German friend will be underwhelmed, but this is the best I can reasonably do.

Trying to keep up

I have been busy -- with all manner of personal and professional noise, both bad and good.  It's one of those times where all I can do is try to keep up and get everything done.  These pictures convey an opposite message.  Don't be fooled.  :p  

Too busy to blog.  What has this crazy mixed-up world come to?  All is well, but I am going to need a lot of coffee :-) 

Firetrails 50 -- exorcising the misanthrope

Saturday I ran the Firetrails 50 in the East Bay Regional Trails in California.  First the basics: I finished in 11:41, thought it was a very well organized and lovely race and had a wonderful weekend with my girlfriends Cheryl and Jenn, including the huge treat of getting to see Meghan Hicks.  I should also mention I finally got to meet her boyfriend Bryon who is a really cool dude.

photo courtesy of Jean Pommier

This race was a good lesson in head space.  I was in San Francisco hanging out and having a good time and started the race with the sense that I really couldn't be bothered to spend a whole day in the Bay area running.  I looked around thinking about how if I wanted to spend the day outside, why was I running in Oakland, CA?  It seemed insane.  Ridiculous.  I started thinking about when I should drop.  Except what would I do all day?  My friend Beat was incredibly nice enough to drive us to the race, so I'd have to wait for him.  I knew there was a keg so I figured a day draining a keg was better than a day running in Oakland.  (It wasn't really Oakland exactly but nearby so I'm calling it Oakland).  It was hot.  My skin was surely melting right off.  Why is California so hot?  Why do I keep coming here?  Why do I run long distances?  It's sorta dumb. 

My iPod started fizzling out.  That was it.  If my iPod died I was for sure dropping.  That was the last straw.  By mile 17 or so I'd had it.  But then my iPod worked and I finally hit some shady single track.  And I saw Cheryl, who provided me with my super cute plaid running shorts which were acquired on a particularly bad day last week.  She flew in from Chicago to run the marathon and hang out.  It's hard to be cranky around Cheryl.  She just won't really let you be cranky.  That's one of the reasons I love her so.

The ultimate cheerer-upper was seeing Beat sitting on the side of the trail with his laptop open trying to work.  He was on-call and had been paged.  Seeing such an absurd sight was enough to make me smile and move on.  And when I told him about how much I hated everything he made me feel really guilty and bad -- misanthropes don't feel guilty and bad.  The exorcism had begun.

Sigh.  I actually though it was all really pretty.  Even here in beautiful NW Montana you don't see the ocean and the Golden Gate bridge.  Beat started talking about how wonderful life is.  I felt all warm and happy inside.  I felt the goodness of life.  The power of sunshine and endorphins compels you.

I realized I was almost half way done.   It wasn't so bad.  I was enjoying myself.  I hadn't fallen too far behind. My friend Jenn was running her first 50 and flew all the way from Georgia to be there.  I could be bothered to finish afterall.  I finished with Jenn and our friend Chris who was pacing Jenn.   The misanthrope was gone and I was downright cheery.


Jenn and Danni



Cheryl, Danni and Jenn

So, I finished.  It was good mental practice to see how much head-space matters in ultrarunning. 

"Taper"

This weekend, which by the way was an incredibly sunny and warm weekend, I hitched a ride in the Hammer Nutrition van to Missoula where I had a pleasant and lazy weekend. 

Saturday I ran 8 miles in the Rattlesnake while Jill, Beat and Dave mountainbiked.  Sunday I "volunteered" at my friend Mike's 30k trail race (he was RD), which was a fundraiser for the XC team he coaches, which meant laze around in the sun all day.  I did talk up a new Hammer product to someone.  (Hammer version of Nuun -- it's awesome). 


the beginning of the run, before they hit the trailhead

 It was a weekend filled with nothing but good folks, good weather and beer and ice cream.  I hadn't planned to run on Saturday at all but Beat, who was in town visiting Jill, demands that I start "training" for Susitna.  He appears to have caught on already to my M.O. which is to train minimally and complain incessantly about how fat and out of shape I am.  There's nothing like being yelled at in German (he's Swiss but does a good mean German) to motivate.

stolen from Jill Homer

This picture is of Beat mountainbiking.  I didn't take any pictures from my run but I was there, somewhere behind Beat.

I am running the Dick Collins Firetrails 50 this weekend, and am looking forward to seeing friends.  My knee is hurting though and I tweaked it worse this morning on my run when I about tripped and fell on my face.  I am going to rest it the rest of the week, stretch and cross my fingers.  The last thing I want to do is give myself a bum knee for ski season.

Through the rest of the year I am for reals going to drink a lot less beer.  And I will train.  I will.  I don't want to be yelled at in German.  It's my Jewish side.

A fungi thing happened on the way to Stanton Lake

Today was a perfect fall day -- warm, sunny and orangey filtered autumn light -- so we did a little hike near GNP to Stanton Lake.  It was shroomtastic.

Sonja was furious because she had to hang out in the car while wearing the cone of shame, but Zeke had a nice time I think.

Ted and I are good at bringing plenty to drink on our hikes.  It's important to stay fueled.

The grassy area here was perfect for laying in the grass, staring at the sky and taking a million photos of butterflies, none of which I'm going to post because I was frustratingly unable to capture just the right photo.  Zeke kept trying to eat them.

May as well ride this train. . .

I realize how incredibly sadly pathetic it is to be so pleased with myself over winning an age group award in a tiny marathon with the finish time I had but since I've never done so in a marathon I'm going to ride the self-congratulatory lame train as long as I can.  And since blogging is profoundly egocentric to begin with, I may as well go full bore.  Iris took this picture of me accepting my award:



Yay me!  Super awesome!

 The results have been posted and I was 12th woman out of 92, 3rd out of 28 in the 30-39F and 33rd overall out of 183.  I may as well enjoy this morsel of awesome since I always, literally, place last or close to last at trail ultras.

Salmon Marathon Report

This week I decided at the last minute to sign up for the Salmon Marathon in Salmon, Idaho. I think my upcoming 50 miler is in 3 weeks so it seemed like it would be a good training run. In the few weeks preceding the marathon I'd done a 28 mile trail run (last Saturday), a 21 mile trail run (that preceding Monday) a 23-25 mile mega-hike and a bunch of other hikes this summer. My neighbor and I run 5 miles in the morning a couple times per week.

the view from our hotel room on the Salmon River

The main reason to go to Salmon was that a bunch of my running buddies were going.  I figured it would be fun to go spend the weekend with some girls and get some running in.  I went into the race with no taper, dehydration (don't ask) and little road running training.  My last long road run was the 10 miles raced at the Solider Field race in Chicago on Memorial Day weekend.  I knew that, clearly, I should set an agressive goal under these circumstances.

Iris, Danni, Mary Beth (aka Flatlander), Mary Ann, Ruth, Deb and Callie

I had it in my mind that now that I'm in a new age group I should be able to qualify for the Boston Marathon with little effort.  This is pretty dumb since I'm slow by nature and though my PR is 3:37 the vast majority of my marathons have been over 4 hours.  Anyhow, I've run Boston twice and think it's a ton of fun.  When I accidentally called my friend Ed the other day instead of Ted, Ed, who lives in Boston, informed me that he would complete his PhD soon and if I wanted a free place to stay I'd better hurry up and run Boston again soon.  So, I decided my goal for Salmon would be a 3:45, my new BQ time.  I think this comes out to roughly a 8:35 average pace.  I guess since I haven't run a marathon in years I forgot that it's actually hard for me to run a fast marathon and requires specific training and good pre-race preparation.  My splits looked like this:

1 -- 8:27
2 -- 8:27
3 -- 8:24
4 -- 8:20
5 -- 8:31
6 -- 8:13
7 -- 8:40
8 -- 9:02 (uphill)
9 -- 7:30 (downhill)
10 -- 8:13
11 -- 8:16
12 -- 9:02
13 -- 8:07
14 -- 9:27  (these next few miles involved the uphill slog of death in some manner)
15 -- 9:39
16 -- 9:14
17 -- 8:14
18 -- 8:12
19 -- 8:39
20 -- 8:41
21 -- 8:41
22 -- 9:01
23 -- 9:14
24 -- 14:14 (gave up)
25 -- 10:38
26 -- 9:09
.2 -- 2:04

At mile 23ish I did some number crunching and decided I wasn't going to make it so I stopped.  Relatedly, around mile 23 I developed a muscle cramp in my hamstring and calf and it started seizing up and hurting.  I probably could have pushed through if this were a matter of life and death, or I cared that much, but I sort of didn't and threw in the towel.  My finish time was something like 3:54.   I can see where I could have easily shaved off about 4 minutes. . . but a 3:45 wasn't really in the cards.

Nonetheless, I had fun.  Road running brings out the OCD side of me and reminds me why I sort of switched to trails and ultras.  Now that I arbitrarily set this marathon goal and failed completely I'm back to wanting to run a sub-3:30.  It all makes sense, yes? 

The Salmon Marathon is AWESOME.  Beautiful, logistically easy, fairly fast (though at nearly 5,000 feet to start with what seemed like significant hills to the flatlander and one 1.5 mile slog uphill that about killed me) and super mellow.  There was beer at the finish and the people of Salmon pretty much rock.  I highly recommend this race to anyone wanting a low-key gorgeous race.  Definitely PR material depending on sensitivity to elevation and hills.

The cool part was that I won 3rd in my age group.  And yes there were more than 3 people in my age group :p  I think there were 22 or so :-)  So that made me happy.  My highest marathon placement :-)

Swan Crest Run 2010

This weekend I ran a version of the Swan Crest 57k for the fourth consecutive year.  This is a perennial favorite of mine -- the trail is fantastic and it's always a lot of fun.  Last year it was run as a "fat ass" event and this year was yet more informal and casual.  In fact, my friend Erich and I were the only two humans planning to run and a small group of guys mountainbiked.  Zella the dog ran too.

I started a little early assuming the mountainbikers would speed past me and that Erich would easily finish a couple or a few hours before me.  I hate making people wait, though having Zella assured that at least her master (Brad) would wait around for me. 

I felt quite good early on and enjoyed the run.  Zella and I cruised along stopping for pictures and such.

Erich caught me fairly quickly despite having started half an hour after I did.  We ran and chatted and he ended up staying with me.  This was super nice of him since he's really fast.  It was a lot of fun hanging out.  I started to feel icky after awhile, probably a combination of drinking too much beer and wine Friday night and not eating and drinking enough during the run.  I also went out faster than I normally would which likely compounded my malaise. 

Despite my increasingly slowed pace, we never saw the mountainbikers.  At mile 19 we still hadn't seen them.  We ultrimately took a faster/shorter route back, ending with a little under 28 miles, and waited forever for their sorry mountainbiker asses.  I am endlessly amused by the fact that mountainbiking isn't necessarily faster than running.  I'm sure it's great fun for the mountainbikers, and by no means does speed determine the superior way to enjoy trails, but it doesn't make me want to rush out and buy a mountainbike. 

Sonja had to sit this one out as she had a little incident Friday night involving her escaping and getting hit by a car.  Thankfully she's ok with a couple broken bones and a gazillion stitches.  It was scary but we love our doggie and are sure glad she wasn't killed.