NERVES

The last time I ran "long" was at LeGrizz in October. I stopped logging in September and can't really be sure what I've been doing for the past few months. After Nikki Kimball told me she doesn't keep a training log I felt temporarily emboldened and justified in not keeping a log. Afterall, I do begin to obsess with my weekly mileage and not logging keeps me from the obsessing. But, alas, I am fairly sure I haven't been doing a whole lot. The point of all this is that Saturday I'm running a "Fat Ass 50k" with the Helena Ultra Running League ("HURL"). I hope I still have it in me to run long. If this goes well I will be optimistic about my training. If it goes poorly I will still be optimistic but will likely have to put the pedal to the metal with my training for Western States.

The running club's Thursday night runs are in the cemetary these days -- it's a nice place to run. With all the snow and the warmer temps it was a mess up there. But we had a good time. Kent's two dogs saw a fox or something and took off at top speed -- Kent looked like he was skiing -- I wish I could have taken video of it. It was totally unreal.

So, let's see how it goes on Saturday. Between the great company and my iPod as emergency backup company, I bet I'll be fine. But I really don't know since I haven't run more than a few hours in, oh, who knows how long!!!

Sunny Skateskiing

Left to right, Ty, Leanne, Sonal and TJ. We went skate skiing today, which is a fun but difficult activity for me. I am pretty bad at it. It was gorgeous though and pretty much perfect.
Although I still have no technical ability, I could tell that I am stronger because I had much more control on the downhill parts. Otherwise, I'm a flailing mess. Remarkably, I fell only once, and that was while standing still.

The sky was a perfect blueberry color. Days like this are rare in the wintertime 'round these parts.

I think that skate skiing is more work than running. Much like snowshoeing. Probably in large part due to the fact that it's pretty new to me. Also because it's more of a full-body endeavor. After 2 hours of this I thought I was going to fall over in exhaustion. Hopefully this winter I can make some big improvements. I actually had someone ask me if I was new and gave me a card for lessons. :-)

WELCOME 2009

One of my Christmas presents from Ted was overshoes for showshoeing. They are thick neoprene and are basically mega-gaitors. Today I took them for a spin and was really happy to be wearing them. My feet were warm and dry and happy. But the real reason I was happy was because it was a beautiful snowy day and it was nice to get out and work out some of the New Year's tiredness from being up late and stuff.

Sonja and I snowshoed (sort of ran) for about 2 hours and I was ready to fall over by the time we were done. What an incredibly challenging workout. I'm tired all over, including my trunk which worked hard trying to maintain balance in the uneven snow.

Sonja cools herself off by burrowing in the snow and rolling around. It's prett y cute. When I hook her harness to my waist on a snowy trail she seems to be in doggie heaven.
Gotta get a cheesy self-portrait to prove I was really there.

2008 was a good year for me. I ran 100 miles, which was a very proud accomplishment for me, knocked an hour and a half off my 50 mile time and became an aunt. I took some great trips and had a lot of fun. Sadly, 2008 also marked the 10 year anniversary of my mom's death -- it's hard to believe it's been 10 years since she passed. That's almost a third of my life. However, 2009 will mark 10 years that Ted has been my special friend. It's hard to believe that he's been in my life for 10 years. That's almost a third of my life!!! And truthfully, it just gets better and better.

With each passing year I have found more balance and more happiness. Accordingly, I greet 2009 with open arms and say "bring it on year."

NOT A WHITE CHRISTMAS

For Christmas I met up with my brother Dave, SIL Tina and neice Stella at my Grandma's house in Arizona. I got in a couple good runs while there -- wearing shorts! The picture above is on Mount Picacho on Christmas morning. I wussed out sadly on that adventure because it became a little technical for me all alone. There were rocks to be climbed via pulling myself up cables, and I was scared :p
The above picture is where I turned around. I ran into a really nice group on my way back who invited me to finish the hike with them -- they offered to share food and water even. I figured I should head back to Grandma's though.

This part I managed! A lot of steep rock on Mount Picaco!

Below is the star of the show, Miss Stella. She is a really cute and happy baby!!!

Below is my ultimate poser picture. I was really overheating in the longsleeve shirt. It's a scary reminder of how important acclimitazation is for Western States -- I am not used to heat.

Below is from Ted and my Solstice Celebration. We spent Christmas apart so we celebrated the solstice. Ted made me the hat.

I'll be back soon with snowy pictures -- I am going for a snowshoe hike today!

HOLIDAY CHEER

The past couple of weeks have been busy with lots of travel (for me anyhow) -- the upshot of it was that I got to go to Boulder Friday to see Joanna, Kale and the girls. It was great to see them!!!

Hedy amused and dazzled me with her dancing and brushed teeth!

Maggie showed me how much she doesn't care for people who aren't her mom.

But it wasn't all tears. See? We're peas in a pod. Finally, if you need some holiday cheer check out Hedy's graceful ballet performance -- set to Sufjan Stevens' rendition of Oh Come Ye Emmanuel (or whatever it's called). It's somewhat interpretive.

FINALLY!

We have snow and cold. Sonja and I ran this morning in the 2 degree weather and it felt really good. I missed winter!!! And as you can see from the picture below, we warmed right up after we safely returned home.

CUTENESS

Dave (my widdle brother) and Stella, my niece. I am looking forward to seeing them at Christmas at our grandmother's house (Stella's granny!)

Have you ever seen such ginormous cheeks in your life? I have a sneaking suspicion that the girl was "blessed" with the same healthy appetite I have (and my dad has and my grandmother Edythe had).

Half Marathon and Girls Weekend

Yesterday Sonal, Leanne, Callie and I drove to Missoula for the Freezerburn Half Marathon. I had low expectations for the race itself since our office Christmas party was the night before and I was still recovering from Thursday night's late-night Christmas party fun. I was short on sleep and heavy on belly. We had freezing rain Friday night so I wasn't sure whether we'd brave the roads but we did and we survived. However, the race course was pretty icy, which made me even less optimistic about the race. But the important thing was that we were going to go shopping afterwards and eventually bar-hopping. So the race didn't especially matter.

We lined up and started the race -- I had to pee so I immediately went to the porta-potty (yeah why didn't I do that before the start???!) and started the race as literally the last person. It was actually kinda fun passing people and moving my way up and I ran the whole race this way: trying to pass the next person ahead of me. I'm not a competitive person so I don't typically run this way but it was fun and kept me moving. Much to my surprise, I finished the race in 1:47 -- which includes my potty stop. Not bad for running on ice, taking a pee break and being relatively out-of-shape. I'm happy.

For the first time in my life I felt like my strength was better than my cardio capacity, which was an interesting feeling. I truly think Crossfit is helping me run better. Considering how fat and out of shape I am (relatively speaking obviously) I'm shocked that I ran as well as I did. Must be cross-fit and my fantastic playlist.

We met up with a couple of Callie's buddies, who were super fun and awesome girls, and had Mexican food. Kalispell has no good Mexican restaurants so it was nice to get a decent meal in the metropolis of Missoula.

Above is Leanne, me and Sonal all dolled up (dolled up for us that is) ready to hit the town.


Leanne and Danni at the bar. We first went to this bar called Stockmans which got really crowded and was really hilarious. Some country singer named Keith Anderson was there and the drunk girls were ridiculously following him around the bar. There was some confusion at first because someone said Trent Reznor was at the bar, which I suppose was possible since NIN was playing in Missoula that night, but instead it was this random country dude. Oh well :p

I was excited to run into the Missoula Hash House Harriers -- our running club will try to go down for a hash soon :-) (The Hash House Harriers are an international organization of "drinkers with a running problem.")



We met up with Kent, one of our running buddies, who had a friend visiting from Boise. The group of us is pictured below. It was fun to go barhopping (ok we went to two bars :p) in Missoula with the college kids. I wouldn't want to do it every weekend but it was really fun. We actually closed down the bar. Aren't you proud? That's way past my 9:00 pm bedtime.


Because Leanne's college experience involved drunk Pita Pit, we hit the Pita Pit before returning to our hotel room. Lord knows I needed more to eat.

It was a really really fun weekend and a good race. Thanks girls!

HOLIDAY IN BANFF

much to be thankful for!

Thursday morning Ted and I loaded up the car and drove to Banff, AB. The drive takes about 5 hours and is beautiful. It's only about an hour to the Canadian border (Port of Roosville) and then most of the drive goes through British Columbia. It's a lovely drive and very beautiful. We met up with our friends Erik and Krista, pictured below.
En route, we experienced some of the finer things Canada has to offer, like Tim Hortons:

and coffee crisps and dill pickle potato chips:

When we first arrived, I headed straight for the spa. The spa at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel is incredible. Mineral pools, hot tubs, waterfall hottubs, sauna, smelly sauna, steam room, tea, fruit etc. I had a nice massage too -- although I don't think I have enough stress in my life to justify the luxury. We had cheese fondue for our Thanksgiving meal and went bowling. I'll leave the bowling pictures out.

Our room was very nice, and below is the view outside our window when we woke up Friday morning:

One of the best parts of our trip to Banff was that Banfassador extraordinaire, Leslie, took me on a running tour of this amazin area. She is in the picture below. First, a word about Leslie. She is awesome. She is such a neat person and I hope to return and spend more time with her. And meet her husband. I really just can't get over what a warm, funny, cool chica she is, and how nice it was of her to take me on the Banfftrailtrash tour in 3 hours or less. Anyhow, I think she's just swell.

I took a lot of pictures but they didn't all turn out as awesome as it looked. Leslie above is looking at the frozen falls.

Above is our hotel, seen from the other side of the river which I believe is the Bow River. The Valley is the Bow Valley.

Isn't Banff beautious?

Here I am, happy as a clam. I think I was in heaven.

Leslie looks towards Banff in the valley below (above).

Blurry shot of us post-run in the lobby of the hotel. My hair froze solid into pippy-longstocking like chunks. Pretty funny.

That night we went to the German restaurant and I enjoyed braised cabbage, sauerkraut and spaetzle. Mmmmmm. And beer.

Those beers were big!

I was just looking for an earring, I swear.

Anyhow, it was an awesome trip. The rest of my pictures are here

We definitely have much to be thankful for. Life here is just wonderful. It's our 2 year anniversary basically of our new life and it just gets better and better. I'm thankful for new friends and even newer friends. I miss and love my old friends and family too and am thankful for their support in our lives. Life is good!

BE VERY AFRAID!!!

Another photo lifted from the Crossfit blog (http://crossfitflathead.blogspot.com) Coach Buf took the photo. This was tougher than it probably looks. We had to flip these darn tires as part of our workout on Saturday. In other news, we've had such warmish and lovely weather. The group ran this morning and we had no fewer than 7 dogs in the mix. Tom took a picture and I will post it if he sends it to me. I think I need to show him how to upload photos to a computer :-)

WE'RE GOING TO CANADA EH?

I'm very excited to report that we're going to Banff for Thanksgiving. Erik and Krista were planning to go and they invited us to join them (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) The best part is that we're going to stay in Leslie and Keith's cottage while we're there (pictured below). Their servants will give Krista and me massages and serve us cheese fondue and bartend all the while. I'm so excited. I'd be interested in any suggestions for short-ish adventures that can be had before the rest of my gang awakens. And I'd be interested in a run-in with the local (trail) trash eh. I love vacations! Yay us!

Oh, do I need bear spray in Banff? I wonder if I can even bring it across the border??? I wonder how much snow there will be? I could bring my snowshoes. Oh joy I'm so excited.

CROSSFIT

(photo by Buf, shamelessly lifted from crossfit blog)

Normally, when the workout for the next morning is something along the lines of "row 5k" I skip the workout and run instead. Last night I forgot to check the crossfitflathead blog and failed to see that "row 5k" was on the menu. Ugh. Can you see how much I was not loving it in this picture? I sucked at it too. I was the last to finish and finally floated to the dock in 24:xx -- even now I could run faster than that. Despite all this whining, the truth is the workout was excellent crosstraining and I secretly enjoy it. . . in hindsight. Crossfit is really good for me I think, both physically and mentally. There are things in life other than running. It makes me stronger. It reminds me that I have to work hard at athletic stuff to avoid embarassing myself.

And maybe when tricked into doing stuff that isn't running I might not mind it all that much.

SUNDAYS
are the best, wouldn't you agree?

LATE FALL UPDATE

Today Leanne, Callie, Sonal and I braved the rainy cold and enjoyed a late season trail run in Jewel Basin. We ran on the Alpine #7 trail and enjoyed the dense fog and faint noise of gunshots in the air. I have been kind of "meh" about running the past couple of weeks, but trail running had me feeling much more "yeah" about it. It was just so nice to get out, even if we all had frozen wet fingers by the end of it.
Our neighborhood is the premiere trick-or-treating neighborhood in Kalispell, so this year we made sure we wouldn't run out of candy and we dressed for the occassion. Below is Ted, who seemed to truly disturb the parents when he went to the door to hand out candy.
And below is me, in my outfit that doesn't quite qualify as a costume but isn't what I normally wear around the house (complete with Moeben sleeves to keep warm):
I am waiting for snow. I am very ready to get out on my XC skis and snowshoes and even my new/old alpine skis. I'm also enjoying learning to box in Crossfit. I've learnd 1,2,3 and 4. Oh, jab, something else, left hook and right hook. Who knew it was so fun to wear big gloves and punch stuff!!! I'm thinking maybe I need a bag of my own :-)