I only wish I had cleaned my mtn bike sooner

I had another great mountain bike ride today. There's something about mountain biking when it's 30 degrees that is much more enjoyable than road riding at that temperature. Probably it has something to do with averaging 10 mph instead of 16, it just feels warmer.

I headed over to Marshall Mesa again and took the community ditch trail. There was a point about 30 minutes into my ride that I thought I'd better turn back since snow looked imminent, but then it cleared up and was fine:



Then I came back up the mesa and crossed hwy 93 again, met a lot of cows on the west community ditch trail and did the some Spring Break loop as last time. I was planning on retracing my path back to Marshall Mesa, but my arms were way too tired to come back on any more dirt, so I took the road home. 2 hour ride, 18.9 miles.

Brighton 5k Turkey Trot

This week was fairly unremarkable. On Monday I did a 4 mile recover run to get blood circulating through my legs. The 10:40 pace nearly killed me. How can I PR is races and then barely be able to run 2 days later? I was still feeling fatigued at masters and it was the closest I've been to getting out the pool early. Only the reassurance that my lane mates would, in fact, give me crap about it forever kept me in. Peer pressure is a strong force. In the afternoon I had another painful massage on my lower legs. The therapist thinks I went from heel striking to over compensating and hitting too forward on my feet. The wear on my Newtons near the toe would agree. I don't think the Newtons are the problem, exactly, but how I run in them.

On Tuesday I met with a naturopath to discuss other options in acne therapy. She had my hormones tested and felt they were all in normal range, so she suggested that I try following a paleo diet for athletes - pretty much no grains/starches, unless I'm going to workout with in the hour, or it's within the hour apres workout. I was not impressed, I don't like diets and I do like eating starches. Nevertheless, I'm going to give it a shot since it is something I haven't tried yet. I'm also playing around with gluten and dairy free, so I'm going to try to limit my carbs to no gluten.

I wasn't feeling much more motivating on Wednesday so I did my easy run/strider workout. Guilt over not really training this fall pressured me into doing 10 18 second striders rather than my usual 8. And Friday morning I squeezed out 2 more painfully slow miles to justify my gluten free hot cereal in the breakfast.

And on to the race.... Like last year, Becky joined me for a brisk 5k in scenic Brighton. This year I left with plenty of time, did not get lost, and was at the starting line when the gun went off. It was so cold that I had my cuffins pulled over my hands (and watch) so I didn't check my pace until mile 1. Uh oh, 7:55. I don't run 7:55 miles. I did slow down and the remainder of the race was extra painful, but at least I didn't blow up as much as I did at last year's Colder Boulder. I pulled out an 8:22 and then an 8:32 for a new PR of 25:46. And Becky took 2 1/2 minutes off of last year's time with 26:52.



After the race, I checked the results and was completely shocked that I got 3rd place in my age group. I have never podiumed at a running race. And while I try not to be negative, it did seem like my age group was especially under performing at this race. Here's how I would have placed in other female divisions:

9 & under: 1st. Yes!!!! Take that, ankle biters!
20-24: 2nd
25-29: 10th
30-34: 8th
40-44: 6th
45-49: 3rd
50-54: 1st. Woot!
55-59: 4th. Those are some fast old broads.
60-64: 3rd. More fast old ladies.
65-69: 1st! I could beat my mom!
70+: 1st. But a 70 year old ran 26:49. Is that not freaking unbelievable? I hope to still be mobile at 70.

After I saw I won, I had to wait around to collect my medal. I had a breakfast burrito but couldn't eat the free Cold Stone ice cream, even if I wasn't trying for dairy free. My core temperature plummets after winter runs and I was freezing for hours after the race.

Luckily my coach, Mike, ran too and placed 2nd so we waited together. I'm not sure the 90 minutes of my life were worth this, but it is my first real medal that's not just a finisher's medal:

Longmont 10k Turkey Trot

After the Eerie Erie I decided I was ready to start really running again. I was planning on recycling the running program I did last fall - perfect since one of my runs per week was with a group and I never did what was on the plan anyway. I ran Monday and Wednesday after Erie and by Wednesday decided that my Tibialis muscle (runs up the inside of leg under the tibia bone) was unnaturally sore. Actually, I had begun to notice it about 3 weeks ago (from today) but as it neither got worse nor better, I ignored it. And as it had been 2 weeks at that point, I decided to give running a break for a week to see if things got better. Things did not get better, nor did they get worse. And I'm starting to wonder if I'm an injury-hypochondriac or if I'm just really in tune with my body and extra cautious. And speaking of injury - my calves are still a little tight (as in, I feel my heels in the morning, but it doesn't hurt exactly) and I can't tell if that's ok, of if it's a sign that there's still a problem. Anyway, that wasn't exactly clear but I have another appointment with my masochist massage therapist tomorrow and will have a better idea what, if anything, is going on with my lower legs.

By this week I was ready to run again and did a couple short runs in my old Asics. On Tuesday I did a warm up followed by 4 x 400's and it was awful. Well, awful as in hard and painful and not fun. I guess doing 18 sec striders and then jumping into 1:50 intervals is a big jump. Thursday, I just reverted back to my old 8 x 30 left foot strike striders. My lower legs did not feel any different with adding running back in, so I decided to do the Longmont Turkey Trot.

Saturday's temperature was just about perfect for running - somewhere in the mid-30's to '40's. Since I was able to hold an 8:35 pace for the last 2 miles of the Eerie Erie, I wanted to push myself a bit harder this race to see what I was capable of. The course was pretty flat and fast (no dirt roads like Erie) and I was able to hit my first mile right where I wanted it - 8:52. Around miles 2-4 a guy started pacing off of me in right in my blind spot and it helped me bump up the pace a little. I hit miles 3 & 4 around 8:30. I started to get really tired around 5 1/2 miles and I didn't have the kick that I like to have at the end of a 10k, but I didn't drop off too much either.

Mile Splits:
1- 8:52
2- 8:45
3- 8:35
4- 8:33
5- 8:51
6- 8:45
.22- 8:12

All that added up to a new 10k (real 10k - my watch even had it at 6.25 miles) PR - 54:26. Which I'm very excited about, except that next time I'll want to beat it, and it will be hard. Sometimes I think I really enjoy the idea of racing, but when I'm out there doing it, not so much. This race was pretty much a suffer-fest, but as always, after the post race endorphins kicked in, I was already planning the next one.

First Mountain Bike Ride in 8 Years

Yep, me and my 15 year old hard tail were finally reunited. See, I used to mountain bike quite a bit. I'd say 12 years ago I did 30% off road and 70% road riding. Then Jeremy had a mountain bike accident which not only broke his bike, but also caused some expensive and painful dental work. So he gave up mountain biking and my bike went into the shed. Occasionally I'd thought of riding it again, but as years passed, the amount of work to make the bike rideable seemed insurmountable. Finally, I pulled it out this year. I took it over to U-Bikes and asked what would need to happen to make it go. They recommended about $125 worth of work, but thought it would be rideable with some new tubes and the tires pumped up. That all happened about a month ago, and for the last 4 weeks my mountain bike got an upgraded spot in the garage, but the cleaning and tire changing still seemed like too much work. I finally got inspired when I realized that today could very well be the last day of Indian summer and when I got down to it and did the work, it really did only take 45 minutes to have a mountain bike again.

Now the other reason why we stopped mountain biking was that it seemed like too much work. You had to put your bike in your car and go somewhere to ride. With a road bike, you need only point it out of the garage and then there are 100's of miles of possibilities. Today I took the same strategy and pointed my mountain bike out of the garage and rode to the Marshall Mesa trail head in 15 minutes. From there, I rode up the mesa:



And then crossed highway 93 and rode Dowdy Draw to a new section that opened fairly recently, Spring Brook. This trail was a nice loop and though only 3 miles, was really nice single track. I like mountain biking, but I don't like the kind of mountain biking that involves jumping over fallen trees or off 5' high rocks. This kind of mountain biking:



By the time I finished the loop, I needed to just take the Dowdy Draw trail to Elorado Springs and ride home on the road so I could still make it to masters.

And the best part of living is South Boulder is that there are still many many miles of trail that I did not ride today. Hopefully there are still some riding days left this year and I can go a different route. Hey, who knows - maybe I'll even do an Xterra triathlon next year.

Introducing Blue Lightning

The forces of the universe aligned, and now I have a triathlon bike. One of my master's coaches, Luis Vargas of Mark Allen Online, was selling his wife's bike. Now, he being with MAO, I'm sure he gets very good deals on bikes (free perhaps?). And the asking price for this bike was just too good, especially since this bike was hardly ridden and is carbon with Shimano Dura Ace components. I was a bit concerned since having met his wife, she is a few inches taller than me, but I got a great bike fit at Colorado Multisport and with a few adjustments (and new aerobars and saddle) the bike is perfect.

And why did I need a triathlon bike? A road bike with aerobars is not quite right. A road bike has a frame geometry suitable for road bikes, but a triathlon bike has differing geometry to account for the aeroposition.

I took the bike out for a 25 mile ride last weekend and it felt good. The bike has a more aggressive position than my road bike but it's light and fast.







And for those keeping track, if I would do the dirty work and clean my mountain bike and change the tubes, I would have 5 bikes. Jeremy only has 4. Ha, I win!

Happy Halloween!

We started our Halloween festivities the weekend before with our neighbor's pumpkin carving party. Both boys were in charge of designing and cutting their own pumpkins. Alex carved the one on the left, and Adam did the one of the right. Adam enjoyed it so much that he cut faces into 4 sides of his pumpkin:



For the party, I made owl cupcakes (since I promised Alex I would make them sometime in October). They looked easier than the birthday penguins, but still proved to be time consuming. I did both regular and mini-sized cupcakes. We took the big ones to the pumpkin party:



And the mini ones to Alex's first bookclub meeting:



Several months ago, the boys told me they wanted to be Harry Potter for Halloween. I was not terribly excited about this, as officially licensed and as-seen-in-official-costume-catalog costumes run $30 for the robe, then another $5 for each completely mandatory accessory such as tie, glasses and wand. But then, a few weeks before, they both changed their minds. Adam wanted to be a spy, and Alex a ninja. On a random Target trip, I found a $7 ninja costume, and then on Halloween day, I found a $4 mask and hat for Adam.

So here they are Adam the Hamburglar Zorro Musketeer Spy and Alex the Ninja:



We only trick-or-treated around one big block. Alex started out trick-or-treating for candy and UNICEF, but then decided he had enough candy and only asked for change. I guess getting sick last Halloween left a big impression.

I waited until Halloween to carve my own pumpkins:





We did keep the boys' pumpkins around, but they were a bit mushy and moldy: