Happy Birthday, Alex!

Alex celebrating his 8th birthday with a fabulous pool party at Louisville Rec Center with friends Ada, Keagan, Ted and his family.

The Penguin Cupcake Extravaganza

For Hannukah, my mother-in-law gave me the book Hello, Cupcake. While I gave it a cursory glance and deemed it "cute," the boys obsessed over it. The looked at every page. Alex read instructions and ingredient lists out loud to Adam. They played games based on cupcakes (how one plays cupcake games, I am still unsure of). At last, Alex decided on his dream cupcakes, the cupcakes to honor his 8th birthday. March of the Penguins (as appears - perfect - in Hello, Cupcake):



Once Alex chose his cupcakes, the obsessing didn't stop. Three weeks out, he was begging me to buy ingredients (after quizzing me extensively to determine I knew where to buy them at). A week out, he told me how he planned to eat his cupcakes (like an ice cream cone). Three days out, he was sure I had better get started. It was implicitly understood that he didn't want just penguins - it had to be exactly. like. the. book. He comes by his OCD naturally. Never have I been under so much pressure to create the perfect dessert.

These cupcakes turned out to be some of the most expensive - and difficult desserts I have ever made. To start with, there are about a billion ingredient. The penguins are made of half a doughnut and a doughnut hole with a marshmallow belly, chocolate chip eyes, cookie wings and a Starburst beak. The accompanying icebergs are topped with coconut and rock candy (requiring a special trip to the candy store at the mall). I have NEVER bought coconut before in my life. I'm not opposed to it, it's just never come up. And one cannot buy a bag of just yellow Starbursts, so I had to eat all the pink ones myself. Alex was disappointed that we didn't get enough yellow ones for every penguin to have feet, but I couldn't eat another bag again.

I started baking the cupcakes Saturday night after a full day of ski school. Right away my cupcakes started out sub-par. The recipe said it made 24, but my cupcakes turned out small, some of them barely making it out of the paper. And speaking of the paper, some of the papers developed weird creases that I thought would unhitch after baking, but didn't.

The real work began Sunday morning with the decorating. First, one must adhere the doughnut hole and mini-doughnut to the cupcake with frosting, then freeze the whole thing so that it doesn't come apart during the dipping. That part went fairly smoothly but the dipping proved difficult. While I held the cupcakes upside down for minutes, the frosting proved to be drippy and slippery. I adhered all the penguin parts, then spent the better part of an hour continually moving back fallen wings and beaks. The icebergs were refreshingly straightforward. The finished product:



My own sign and candle embellishments:





The last penguin pulling the catch of the day home (with a licorice rope and fish candy. Did I mention those?):



Icebergs:



But the good news is, however disappointed (and frustrated!) I was, Alex loved them. And judging by how quickly they disappeared, so did everyone else. Now I just need to hide the book before Adam starts planning his birthday.

Derailed

This cold is hitting me harder than I expected. For the most part, my congestion and other symptoms are gone, but the fatigue is lingering. On Tuesday I tried to do a 40 minute run and I think it was too much too soon. Yesterday I went to my track class. I told my coach straight up that I wanted to ride, but not do "gonzo hot laps of death" as maybe some of his drills should be called. I probably rode about 30 minutes, then we spent a lot of time talking about track races and how they work. At the end of the talking, I raced the other woman in a 5 lap race. She's a stronger rider than me and I didn't intend to ride hard at all, but I just get so darn competitive. I was the first person in the start and when she attacked I couldn't help but push it hard. The whole race probably took a bit over a minute but it was still too hard a minute. And oh yeah, I didn't let her pass. Today I'm just going to go to master's class. This one-workout-per-day thing is weird.

The derailed feeling is coming from being sick, loosing fitness and having a dawning realization of just how much training I'll have to do before September. Had I really thought that through? Did I know it's easier to sit on the couch and read or knit? Am I going to be at all ready for a half-marathon in March?

And here's some more bullet points I should have included in my last post:

- I got my ferritin level's rechecked. In August, I was at 49. Which was way better than the 12 I started out with but a bit shy of the 60-80 goal. Last week I was at 51. The doctor decided that even though I'm still below 60, my cow-nomming and iron supplement is working enough that I'm gaining and not loosing, so there's no need to do an intervenous dose at this time. Yay!

- I forgot that while my last two acupuncture *appointments* have been normal, my at home treatment is getting weirder. I'm now supposed to soak my feet in a warm bath for 30 minutes before bed. And it's very hard to maintain a warm bath for 30 minutes outside a bathtub, so I have to boil water beforehand to add throughout the half hour.

I've been picture-lite lately, so here are Ariel and Hannah, who had their pictures taken on Monday:

I finally jinxed myself

I've not been preregistration for races this fall/winter in case, come race day, I should end up sick. I was intending to do the second Winter Series 5 mile race yesterday, and lo and behold, I got sick. It seems to just be a cold, but I'm tired and have that sinus pressure, sore throat thing going on, with a slight fever (at least I think, we don't own a thermometer). My training plan calls for a 7 mile run today, I'll be happy if I ride my bike for 45 minutes this afternoon. Blah.

And here's a recap of the week in bullet form:

- I finally had my appointment with the new chiropractor and I think he's going to work out fine. He spent more time with me than Dr. Dave did, but that might have been because it was my first appointment. The adjustments and diagnoses were familiar and I'm excited that he's a sports guy too. His waiting room was full of signed magazine covers from the likes of Nicole DeBoom, Ellen Heart and Matt Reed.

- Rally added a new triathlon master's class on Tuesday/Thursday at 1:00. I've been doing the noon Tuesday class for months, which happens to have the title Intro to Masters. I also do regular master classes in the week, so it was an easy transition over to the triathlon class. The triathlon class is going to be more distance based. In my normal intro class, I usually swim about 2200 yards in an hour. In the triathlon class, I did 3100 yards in 65 minutes. There was just more swimming, less kicking and drills and talking. And the bilateral breathing is finally there. It took more like 4 months than the 2 weeks I was promised, but I'm doing it and it feels ok now.

- Last week I was the only one who showed up for my Wednesday track class. I don't mind having private lessons, but I do want the class to stick. This week, there were two other women, who were both better riders than me. I got my butt kicked. I may need to ride more than an hour a week to keep up with real cyclists.

- I had a completely normal, non-eventful acupuncture treatment. Adam had been looking forward to the appointment all week. On the way in, he told me, "I like May almost as much as you." I think that's sweet, but my feelings are a bit hurt that he likes the receptionist - that he had spent 1 hour of his entire life with - almost as much as me. May thinks I should bring both of the boys is sometime because, "With kids like Adam, you could have a dozen!" She doesn't understand that either one is delightful on their own, but together - I wouldn't do that to her.

- The shoes I bought last week and ran 5 minutes on in the store did not work out. I made it about 5 minutes at Rally and then had the same right foot sole pain. I'm torn between returning these and trying Fleet Feet or just sucking it up and getting the same shoe I currently wear and am ambivalent towards. Ambivalence is better than searing pain.

- Jeremy set me up with a playdate at the track. On Friday I went to my first open riding all by myself. Erika and I did a great workout together, though it was a stretch to think of drills for only two cyclists. Jeremy rode at the track yesterday and did a 50 minute straight blue line tempo ride. I think I might as well be riding the trainer than do that. Erika and I came up with an hour's worth of rotating pace-line, lane changing excitement.

That 5% per week business appears to be true

Somewhere I read that every week you take off from exercise, you loose 5% fitness. And for your viewing pleasure, I apparently proved this theory correct. My loss of fitness is most easily quantitative in the pool. Before break, my 50 yard efforts were around 43 seconds. Loosing 5% of that is 2.15 seconds, so after one week I should have been at 45.15. Another 5% of that is 2.35 seconds, putting my new 50 yard time at 47.5 seconds. I must be an over achiever because I had a hard time even breaking 50 seconds today.

Another part of our workout was a set of 10 100's. I remember last year doing 8 100's on about 1:38. Today, I was at 1:48. Same effort, different pace. I knew this would happen, it's ok, it will come back. It's just very frustrating!

Adventures in Acupuncture

I love how America has become an a la cart society. On any given day in Boulder I could eat from about 10 different ethnic restaurants or visit several specialty grocers. And the mash of cultures goes well beyond food, there's the 652,231 yoga studios and centers for any and all religions. And when you don't have luck with Western medicine, it's pretty darn easy to try out Chinese medicine, especially with the Southwestern Acupuncture school right in Gunbarrel.

I've done acupuncture in the past. My high school friend Melissa is an acupuncturist and I got a few treatments from her. Sadly, she works out of Windsor or Lakewood and neither locale is very, uh, local for me. So last month I found a new acupuncturist using the time tested strategy of checking out which ones are covered by my insurance. That narrowed the Boulder field from 432,563 to 2 and I made an appointment with the one closest to me.

This time around I'm hoping to clear up my acne once and for all. Western Medicine, you had about 20 years, 5 major chances and an arsenal of medicine that nearly killed my liver and about destroyed my joints and still you failed. FAILED. Chinese Medicine - your turn now. According to Chinese medicine, acne is a symptom of some full body imbalance, mainly I have too much heat. Or my Chinese lungs are weak. Or possible I have too much heart fire. It's really not beneficial for an American to dwell on the details too much.

I think I've had 5 treatments now and so far, no change. But it is a 20 year old problem and they did tell me to expect it to take a few months, so I will wait. And if you asked me before today if the treatments hurt, I would have said, "No way!" The needles are so thin that there's no pain from puncture, but sometimes there's a little electric zing. Until today. Today I got a needle in a new spot, my heart fire spot. Even before the acupuncturist left the room to let me rest for the 30 minutes I said, "Wow, this doesn't feel right, it's never hurt before." And he said, "Yes, there can be a bit of pain and pressure associated with that spot. Can you tolerate it?" And I spent 10 excruciating minutes wondering, could I? The pain was almost indescribable - kind of a stinging with the feeling my entire arm was being crushed under a rock. And even more annoying to know that if I just pulled out the needle, it would all go away. And so for 10 minutes I dwelt on whether or not I could keep tolerating it, and then the pain finally subsided to a dull stinging. The whole experience was especially trippy, given how uneventful my last 4 visits were. But now my heart has been drained of some of its fire and maybe my skin will clear up this month.

In addition to the needle treatments, I've also been taking Chinese herbs. It's a little like tea, it that it's stuff dissolved in water. But, unlike tea, it tastes like ass. I'm reminded of the old adages that the more bitter the medicine, the more it will help, or some such placebo effect. And lucky me, today I was upgraded from 2 doses a day to 3 a day. Whee!

To also help with the treatments, I'm also trying to follow some Chinese food recommendations. I've stopped drinking coffee (I've made it over 3 weeks, but I did replace it with black tea) and don't put ice in my water. Sadly, one recommendation was to avoid spicy food. It's somewhat easy to get mild salsa instead of the burns-your-tongue-off salsa at Chipolte (but not nearly as fun), but in general I do enjoy spice in my diet. Indian, Mexican, it's all yummy and spicy.

The one bright spot in today's treatment was Adam's behavior. He charmed the pants off the Chinese receptionist. She demanded to know why I've been keeping him from her (picture her like a Chinese Grammie, if that helps). And since most of my treatment involves lying alone in a dark room with needles in my legs and arms, I'll be happy to keep bringing Adam for some free daycare. At least he liked it better than going to Rally's.

Hopefully in a few months I'll be able report a full recovery from my debilitating acne. And if not, at least it was covered by insurance. Thanks health care!

Winter can bite my shiny metal ass

On my run today, it was just me and the cows....



... and two walkers and what I think was a coyote. At least I hope it was a coyote. I don't think mountain lions bounce like that but it was hard to see because my sunglasses kept fogging up. Ah yes, today sets a new record and a new standard. When I left for my run, it was 1°. But as promised, it was sunny (after the initial ground fog/steam abated) and no wind chill. I had on a lot of my ski gear - tights, ski socks, ski shirt, tech jacket, neck gator and hat. And, you know, it wasn't that bad. I was breaking trail on a lot of it, until the cowboys drove by in their pickup to feed the said cows and then I had nice treads to run on. Somehow I'm imagining Ironman race day will be 90° with similar humidity and I'll think back to this day with fondness.

And in other news, I went back to Boulder Running Company and exchanged my shoes. A different pair of Brook's shoes passed the 5 minute treadmill test (somehow, I wish I had thought of my treadmill bench mark test before trying 3 shoes after a 50 minute trail run). I'll be sure to report back if they pass the 30 minute test next week.

I feel a rant coming on

And I can direct my rant at several parties. First, because of changes in our health care, it no longer makes sense for me to see my beloved chiropractor. Alas, he is out of network and it would cost me at least $500 more to continue seeing him this year. So on Monday, my day of hellish chores, I found a new chiropractor IN network and made an appointment for today. And when making that appointment, I got the standard line, "And please be aware that canceling an appointment without 24 hours notice will incur a $55 charge."

I got my Dad to babysit and he drove all the way to Boulder in the snow and then as I was literally walking out the door 15 minutes before my appointment, the office called and said they had to cancel. Really? 15 minutes notice? Does that mean my first appointment is free? Do you owe ME $55 now? Gas money for my Dad? WTF???

I'm rescheduled for Monday. And I don't think I'm going to bother with childcare this time. I'll unleash the powers of Adam and Ariel as my revenge.

PS - I found the missing puzzle piece. I was sitting on it all along.

I hate buying new shoes

Ok, I don't hate buying all new shoes. In fact, maybe once a year I buy a pair of new shoes and sorta even enjoy the experience. But I HATE buying new running shoes. And I hate that running shoe companies make the experience even that much more unpleasant. See, running shoe companies think that shoes are like cars or cell phones and need to be in a state of constant improvement. Not so, my friends! Once you find that perfect shoe, it's PERFECT. It doesn't need fancy reinvention. Really. I found my last perfect shoe about 5 years ago. I think I owned 4 pairs of it. When I found out it was being discontinued, I even bought 2 pairs at the same time, which held me over until August. And then, I "upgraded" to the new and "improved" and have been running on those since August. Except, while new, the are not improved. They are stiffer and I'm more prone to blisters on my arch and if I don't lace them just so, I get a weird foot pain on the top of my right foot.

But they were tolerable and I put my 350 miles on them (savoring race days when I ran on the last pair of old shoes) but now I need new shoes and I want better! On Sunday I went to the Boulder Running Company and got a new pair. They felt fine in the store and fine on the treadmill for 1 minute. I took them to the gym today and ran about 3 minutes on the treadmill before my the entire bottom of my right foot was in stabbing pain each foot strike. So, it's back to square one. Since I only ran 6 minutes on a treadmill (and, like, 20 minutes on some bizarre cross ramp thing that I'm not sure I did right), I can return the shoes and start over. And this time I think I'll make sure to run at least 5 minutes in the store before making any purchases.

Last year at this time I was buying a new bike. That was way more fun.

And while I'm ranting, just once I'd like to put together a puzzle and have all the pieces there. We got 2 new puzzles for Christmas and put one together over break. "Oh boy," I thought, "We just opened the box, this puzzle will have ALL its pieces." Again, not so, my friends. A piece fell on the floor and my new dog-in-law Luna ate it. Well, most of it. Alex started the other puzzle at Grammie's house and we finished it up today.



Oh, and in case you were wondering, Wendy and puzzles are not really a good combination. I stayed up until midnight last night and was lucky to leave the house to go to the gym at noon today. But now it is finished and I can get on with my life.

And... back to reality

I ran today for the first time in two weeks, and really, it could have been worse. Especially when I consider how much breakfast meat and beer I consumed. In fact, I felt pretty good until I ran into Al and Marcy (doing their last 20 mile training run before their Jan 17th marathon) and ran 2 minutes with them. At mile 15 they were running sub-9:00 miles. Ouch. And while my hip flexor didn't bother me while running, I couldn't do my pre-run muscle activation exercises with it (the ones that require me to stand on one foot like the Karate Kid). Hopefully I can get in with the chiropractor tomorrow and figure out what's going on.

And here's a video from vacation. It's kinda trippy but fun. When we ski with the boys we usually take turns going down with them separately as Alex is faster and doesn't have to rest as often. But we did the last run all together and I tried to video it from the back.

Winter Break

First, let me start with a correction. Snowboarding 8 out of 10 days is actually not the restful break I envisioned. There's something about snowboarding that is unique unto itself and no matter much in shape I think I am, I still get sore. I think it has something to do with facing sideways, at any rate there were times this week when my hip flexors were so sore that I couldn't march in place (not that I march in place often, but just an example of how little my hip flexors wanted to do anything). And then there was that one day that we got a little bit of new snow and Jeremy and I went out really early and started when the lifts opened. I was jumping the rollers like I had all week, but somehow the newly groomed snow was faster and I was getting way more air than I anticipated. I biffed 2 landings and on the second I tweaked my knee (and later found out that I gave myself whip lash too). This, coming off on our first day seeing ski patrol removing a guy that died crashing into trees (we didn't know he was dead at the time) and thinking of all my racing plans this year led me to tone it down for the rest of the visit.

Anyway - the vacation. We skied (or snowboarded) like crazy. We went almost every day. We went on Christmas, when it there was a -22° wind chill. We went 4 times with the kids. We had some good snow. We had some crappy ice. We went with Pop-Pop, who hasn't skied in 5 years (and is still faster than me) and with Grammie, who went with us last spring break. The boys did great, by the end of the vacation they were right back where they ended last year and are ready to start ski school next week. And here are some skiing pictures:

Almost the whole gang. Missing me (the photographer) and Pop-Pop, who didn't come out that day:



Jeremy and the boys:



Jeremy and me:



My very awesome sister-in-law and brother-in-law bought a time share at the bottom of Peak 7 to get resort day use. Every day we skied with them, we ended it by going to the hot tub. There's a very cool adult only indoor hot tub/steam room/sauna which I did not photograph. When we had the kids, we went to the outdoor hot tub (and I nearly killed my camera, it was not hardy enough to deal with humid sub-zero conditions. There was probably some sort of clause about that.)

Here's Adam in the hot tub:



And it wasn't just a hot tub. There was a heated indoor/outdoor pool, an indoor hot tub, and a heated slide. Well, the slide was heated insomuch that most of the water wasn't frozen. There was a bit of an ice dam at the top, and shoots of icy water spraying face level and then an icy plunge. It was fun to do when the hot tub got too hot.

Adam was all game for the slide but Alex took a lot of coaxing, peer pressure and plain badgering to get to do it. Here's Jeremy finally getting Alex to go:



What the slide looks like from the hot tub when it's not steaming so much. That's one of the kids using crawl stroke to get out of the slide pool:



Devon coming down the slide:



We played games every night, alternating between Mexican Train Dominoes and Sequence. Very serious business indeed:



And I finally got to see the moose that Devon had been seeing all summer. We first saw them coming home from Peak 7 on the side of the road. Apparently moose like to be camouflaged because this is the best picture I got. But I'll take camouflaged over marauding any day. The next day we heard that the came right on the ski slope near where we were skiing (and if you can imagine, that had ski patrol in a tizzy). And the day after that we saw them when we were riding back on the gondola. Moose, they're here, and here to stay:



And of course, there was Christmas. As usually, the boys were spoiled rotten. Here's Adam playing air hockey with Devon while Alex put his new Bionicles together:



Pop-Pop got Grammie the mink collar she's always wanted and he got himself a very "authentic" Indian pipe.



A big shout out to our great family for a fabulous time!

Rudolph's Revenge 10k

Today I raced the last race of my fall training program, and it went well. I went in with very little expectation. I haven't been following a structured program since the Colder Boulder and my run yesterday felt slow and stiff. And I'm starting to feel like something has to go wrong during every race. Today my headphones crapped out on me and I didn't have music. It didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, though without music you get to hear everyone breathing around you.

I took the first mile easy, mostly messing around with my ipod, trying to verify it was indeed the headphones. I think this was key, not going out crazy like I did in the Colder Boulder. Then I tried to keep it smooth and easy for the 1st 5k. The course was hillier than I expected and there was a nasty little hill at the turn around point.

My mile splits ended up being 9:00, 8:56, 9:04, 8:58, 8:50, 8:55. My first 5k was 28:18 and the second was 27:15, which may be the first time in history that I've managed negative splits. I spent the last mile trying to catch a chick wearing a red footy sleeper and she out-sprinted me in the end. I might have told her, "Damn you" at the end. In a very friendly way. And even though we had timing chips, there wasn't a starting mat and I was a bit in the back (as usual). So my watch time was 55:33 (for 6.24 miles and an 8:54 pace) and my official time was 55:56 with a 9:02 pace. There were over 900 finishers in both the 5 and 10k and a mass start, you so can see how it would be hard to get a completely accurate time.

So next up is the Canyonlands 1/2 marathon on March 20th. It's a race I didn't even know I really wanted to do until I found out it was a lotto entry. And then of course I had to get in. I'll be racing with Becky, Laura and TriBabe Rachel in Moab, it's going to be a blast! In the meanwhile, I'm going to take the next 10 days off from running. Completely. And just the fact that it's freaking me out so much proves that it's time. When I come back in January, I can concentrate on the 1/2 training.

First Night of Hanukah

It feels like the kids have been counting down since before Halloween, but Hanukah is finally here.

We all lit our menorahs. I waited so long to take the picture that the little ones already had burned out.



I made latkes for dinner:



And in the interest of having as much junk food as possible in the house, I bought sufganiyot. They did not have jelly donuts at King's or Safeway, I had to drive all the way to LeMar's in Louisville for these jelly filled bismarks sufganiyot.



And just a friendly warning - eating 4 latkes, challah, 1/2 a sufganiyot and some pre-dinner gingerbread cookies may lead to some indigestion.

And then onto the real fun - presents!





Bionicles for all from Grandma. Thanks Grandma!



The boys put together their sets in a flash, then Alex read a Bionicle comic book before bed.

Winter Training II

After 2 days in a row on the treadmill, I was ready to run outside, even if it was only 19 degrees. This week and bought some YakTrax to assist me in my winter running. They are like car tire cables, but for your shoes:



And, as advertised, they worked very well on packed snow. It felt very nice to run when the trail looked like this:



Unfortunately, 3 of the 5 miles had new snow drifts (courtesy of the 100 mph gusts of wind the night before) and running in drifts is not easy, no matter what fancy foot gear you have. I plugged along went for a hour, though I posted my slowest run pace EVER, 12:07 minute miles. And you know what, it was still worth it to be outside in the beautiful sunshine.

This morning I did the 6:30 am master's class and it felt great to knock off over 2 miles of swimming before 8:00 am. Now I have all day to prepare for the first night of Hannukah.

Winter Training

I guess it's going to be one of those winters. At least, it's not off to a very warm start. We have been stuck with highs under 20 degrees for a week, with periodic snow. But fear not, the pool doesn't close. In fact, I know of at least 3 year round outdoor pools in Boulder.

I swam yesterday and it was fine. It was about 10 degrees, but as long as I didn't stop swimming, I was fine. Today, however, was a different story. The air temperature was a bit lower, probably 7 degrees. But (as I learned about half way through the workout) something happened to the water thermostat and the pool temperature was 76. It's normally kept around 82 in winter. To put 76 degrees in perspective, the USAT allows wetsuits up to 78 degrees. I was not wearing a wetsuit today.

But I, and the other 8 intrepid swimmers survived. I didn't really warm up until I ran 30 minutes on the treadmill, that got the juices flowing again.

First Open Riding Session

Now that I've been taking a class at the velodrome, I've developed some mad track skills - enough so that I was certified last week to ride outside of class. That means that my instructor thinks that I'm not a danger to myself or others. Jeremy and I took advantage of our brief break during Sunday school to ride at the track. The first 45 minutes went pretty well. I mostly rode with Jeremy and his teammate Stephan. We kept a nice pace line and then did some fast laps. About when Jeremy had to leave to pick up the kids, a couple new riders showed up, Alan McCormack and his wife. Don't know who Alan is? I didn't either, but then Jeremy told me that he's an old school pro, rode in the '80 in the Coors Classic, did the Tour de France. Won the pro criterium champion ship LAST YEAR. Not the master's division - the regular pro.



Needless to say, when he got on the track, the pace picked up a bit. I was in the middle of a take-a-lap (when you drop down the the sprinters lane and have to ride really fast to catch up to the pace line again) when he got on our pace line and I never could catch up again. I eventually pulled up and caught on the slow way and spent the next 7 minutes trying to stay on the new pace line. And it was super hard. I took a water break and tried again, but only stayed on a few minute more. Thankfully my hour was up by then so I could leave with dignity.

So today I learned that riding 1 hour a week is probably not keeping my bike fitness up and also, that riding with pros is hard. And, also riding with 50 year old men is hard too (even the non-pros).

And I've realized I've been talking about the velodrome for a while, but haven't really explained what it is. It's this track:



And here's a little video about riding on it. It's a little dramatic, but you'll get the picture: http://www.boulderindoorcycling.com/BIC_video.htm

Colder Boulder

The Colder Boulder was my "A" race this fall, the cummulation of my 8 week training program, and also an apt description of the weather this week. This whole week I've not been feeling on top of my game. On Tuesday, my workout was 15 seconds sprints. The last time I did them I was running around a 5:00/mile pace, and this week it was more of a 6:00/mile with the same perceived effort. It was harder to tell how my easy Wednesday run went, as it was freezing and snowing and slippery, so I was naturally slower but my velodrome class felt harder too. I took Thursday off, then did a treadmill workout on Friday. I was supposed to be doing 400 repeats, which seemed treacherous on icy streets but doable (if not boring) inside.

This morning, we had a bit of a heat wave. It's been about 5 degrees this week in the morning, today it was a balmy 19:



Becky and I posing like we did for the Bolder Boulder 6 months ago.



We did manage to get to the race on time today. I KNEW it would help being 2 miles away. We did a 10 minute warm up jog to the start line and I had time to go to the bathroom, do some running drills and some warm-up sprints.

The race itself was hard. Well, the first mile was pretty easy, it was mostly down hill. I saw my fastest mile time yet, 7:57. Which is exciting, but not how I planned on racing today. I was actually shooting for negative splits, but I ended up with 7:57, 9:11 (I swear this mile was straight up hill) and 8:50. My final time was 26:46, one second off my Brighton time. And I would have gotten that last second if I hadn't been following a girl ahead of me who made a wrong turn and didn't go down the finish chute. I didn't come close to meeting my goal of 26:23, which would be an 8:30 pace.

Becky ran the wave that started 10 minutes after mine so I had some time to get my wonderful camera phone ready. She's in the green shirt, about to take out the small girl who literally stopped at the finish mat:



Becky did an awesome job, getting a PR and going under 29 minutes.

And now, I have a pause in my training. I need to make some goals and re-evaluate what the next 8 weeks will bring. Running is still my weakness by far, so I'll probably do another running block. I could even see training for a late spring half marathon, but I don't think there are any races in Colorado. Stay tuned...