Birthday Weekend Extravaganza Recap

First, a big shout out to my awesome family for an awesome birthday weekend!

My family and Becky, J, Ariel, and Laura all went up to Breckenridge Friday night. On Saturday, we headed over to Keystone for a full day of skiing and riding. We even got Laura out on skis for the first time in 18 years, and I can't believe no one got a picture.

Here's Becky and J in the Gondola:



Laura and Me:



My kids had their regular ski school. We ran into Adam about 3 times on the mountain, but never saw Alex.



Becky's looking pretty strong on the snowboard:



We took a mid-day break to check out the tubing. It was pretty intense. The guys working the top had to do some pretty athletic moves to get a tube going:



Here's Becky and J doing a double tube ride:



After that, we all went together in a 4 cluster for the rest of the hour. And to get back to the top, a covered magic carpet:



Sometime during the day, Jeremy and I managed to work in 5 NASTAR official races. I may be a bit premature, but I do think I qualified for nationals. Because, as far as I can tell, there is no racing my category at Keystone. I'll know for sure on the 16th.

In the evening, we had a wonderful lasagna dinner and the birthday cake my Mommy made:





After we got the kids in bed, I introduced my family to Sequence, the funnest game in the world. As usual, we played boys against girls, and sadly (as usual) my team lost. I'm beginning to wonder if it really is me. When Jeremy called it quits, we played Mexican Train dominoes. What does it say of Dad made it an hour more than my husband?

The next morning, Jeremy, Alex and I went skiing at Breckenridge. I got to ski with Alex first and he has really improved since Christmas. He is matching his skis through his whole turn and I don't have to slow down for him much. I took him for his first run ever on Peak 10. Then Jeremy and I traded and Jeremy took Alex on a couple black runs. While Adam and I managed a blue/black run on 10, it was just steep enough to be slow and hard for Adam so we moved on to easier stuff. It was easy to convince Adam to run some NASTAR races with me.

We ended up doing 3 races but I only videoed Adam's first attempt. Poor guy slipped on the first gate but recovered and didn't disqualify. He was awesome on the next 2 races and was so proud of his finisher's pin. I put it on his jacket right away and it was lost before we got to the car. I feel so bad that I didn't grab an extra one just in case:



I had a great birthday weekend, I should turn 35 more often!

BFITBDAY

Ever since I came across this site, I knew I had to do it. I began planning and worrying about my birthday back at the beginning of January. February is not a very conducive time to plan 3 hours of outside exercise.

I want to start be sharing that I'm not completely insane. I did toss around the idea of doing the platinum level, which could have been achieved by going to the 6:30pm master's class last night. But Swift had a meeting at the velodrome and since the kids could ride the mountain bike course I did that instead. But for the record, I did swim 2400 yards yesterday at noon, so I was within 2 hours of the platinum level.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I woke up at 5:30 (after some nightmares of the track running out of track bikes) to go to master's class. I seeded myself in the guppy lane as usual but today there was a real slow swimmer with me. I wasn't planning on going hard, but I spent a lot of time waiting for him to get back to the wall. Luckily he left after an hour and then I had a jam session to get to 3500 yards. Now, technically the bfitbday rules specify you only have to swim the number of yards of your decade (so, 3000) but where's the fun and symmetry in that? Anyway, the class is normally 90 minutes and that's how long it took me today.

I came home and slammed a Mix1 and then went for a 5 mile run. I felt pretty good and had an average heart rate of 155 while still maintaining a 10:20 pace. When I got home I had 10 minutes to refuel before heading over to Alex's class for my usual Friday morning volunteering gig.

Now here was the part of the day that was most problematic. I wasn't sure if I wanted to ride 35 miles outside or at the track. I finally made the call on Tuesday when the forecast was calling for possible snow to ride at the track. Jeremy said he would ride an hour with me, and my riding partner would ride the other hour. But Jeremy bailed on me (something about work??? meetings???? maybe he doesn't love me anymore????). I showed up at the track by myself. I rode about 15 minutes before the other guy out there asked if I wanted to ride a pace line. He said he was going a mellow pace, but as soon as I jumped on, my heart rate jumped from 136 to 155. He did most of the pulling, but I took some very small turns being on front. At the end he estimated we were doing about 22 mph. By then, I was getting tired and loopy and started my secret weapon Pepsi. The second hour with Erica was much more tame and I stayed in the 135 range. For comparison, if I tool around on my road bike, I'm usually in the 120s. My bike didn't have a timing chip but Erica's did and she did 209 laps. 35 miles is about 400 laps on the blue line so considering how much harder I rode the first hour, I can safely say I did at least 35. And yes, it's killing me a little that I don't actually know how many miles.

And now it's time to relax, have a few beers and enjoy my birthday weekend snowboarding extravagant. Yay!

Total workout time: 4 1/2 hours. It's a long way to Ironman.

I didn't start the day ready...

...but I got through it anyway. One of my various and sundry weekend activities left me really sore. I could explain the sore legs from a full day of snowboarding but my back and arms really hurt too. For the most part, my running program has been building mileage with some non-intense speed work. Today's run called for a 40 minute run at lactic threshold (aka as fast as you can run for 40 minutes). My 10 minute warm up was ok and my first mile went pretty well too. And then I hit a wall. I bargained with myself that I didn't have to do the full 40 minutes, but I did have to do a race effort 5k. I managed to do 28:24 and my average heart rate was 2 beats per minute lower than race pace. And it was unpleasant. All the pain of racing with none of the adrenaline or schwag.

My next workout was masters. With my sore arms and 5 mile run I wasn't expecting much, so I was pleasantly surprised. I was slow, but I was able to swim the entire hour comfortably. We did a fun workout, or at least a novel one, which helped. We started on at 2:30 interval and we were to swim as far as we thought we could and get the rest we needed. I swam 150 yards in 2:27, so I got 3 seconds rest and started again. The interval dropped by 5 seconds every round so the next time I did 125 yards in 2:05 and had 20 seconds to rest. We did the pattern for the rest of class, ending on a minute interval.

Adventures with Ariel

I may not blog about it much anymore, but Ariel and I are still having adventures. This morning we visited the chiropractor again. Ariel stayed in the waiting area playing with Mr. Potato Head and I had a more quiet appointment than last week. Last week she came into the room with me and was coloring quietly until the chiropractor made the mistake of engaging her in conversation, then the two of us never got in another word edgewise.

After my appointment I thought we were going to Rachel and Lilianna's house for a playdate, but when I called no one answered and I didn't want to drive all the way out to Louisville for nothing. So we went to Starbucks, for the second time this year. I got a chai since I'm still nearly coffee free. Rachel still hadn't called back after we were done, so we went home and I started on my grocery list. She finally called back at 9:30 so Ariel and I headed over for a quick playdate.

Ariel told me she wanted to play with Lilianna's kitchen. Lilianna didn't really want to though, so they didn't play there very long:



They did other things, like jump on the bed and play dress up:



After we picked up Adam, we went to the grocery store. It was not the most zen trip I've ever made. Ariel is going through some preschool bipolar stage in which she's hysterically hyper and if you reprimand her, she bursts into tears. She eventually lost 1/2 her doughnut, which we bought to eat after lunch.

Ariel and Adam shared mac & cheese for lunch, along with apple slices and denominations of donuts. After lunch, they played together quite nicely until it was time for Adam to go to chess club and Ariel to take a nap.

We had an incident at chess club today. Alex hit Adam and was sent home early. I hoped Alex was mortified by having to leave (hope hope hope) but as an additional punishment he had to pay me for the missed chess class, which was $3. On Friday, Alex's teacher told me that he feels like he and Alex have been having a lot of words about keeping hands to himself too. I fear we are back to the duct tape solution stage.

Today was my shopping/food prep day. I made some rice krispie treats from the leftover penguin marshmallows:



And a big pot of black beans and rice for Jeremy's burrito factory. And if I can manage to get the bathrooms cleaned, I will consider today a domestic success.

End of the Shoe Saga - for now

Last week I finally resigned myself to just getting a new pair of my current acceptable - but not exciting - running shoes. I returned the latest pair of torture devices to Boulder Running Company but they didn't have the shoes in my size so I walked out with a refund. This was not a bad thing, as I knew I could get the shoes cheaper on line anyway. While I was looking for the shoes, I did a last ditch attempt to find the magic shoes - the shoes before these shoes. And low and behold, on a very obscure and sketchy looking website I found exactly one pair in exactly my size (to be truthful, I've always been able to find the shoe - in size 6 or 6.5). I used the sketchy check out system (to which Jeremy said, "You either bought shoes or gave the Russian mafia all your credit card information.") and on Friday I received a pair of new shoes. At this point, I don't even care if the Russian mafia starts trafficking drugs with my credit information! I have new shoes! And now all my problems are solved for the next 4 month until I get to do this all over again.

This week went pretty good. I felt over my illness and did all my workouts, except the two strength sessions. I'll add some back in next week. I did a 90 minute/8.5 mile run on Thursday that felt better than the 75 min/7 mile run I did last Sunday. This week added a bit of mileage and my knee was fine with it all. I did 2 killer swim workouts. On Friday I took Wes Hobson's last master class at Rally's. The main set was 17 x 100's on a decreasing interval. I was able to do the 100's on 1:45 and 1:40, but when we dropped down to 1:35 and 1:30 I started suffering. My best of the day (at the very end) was 1:32. Much better than the 1:45's I've been complaining about this month. And then I realized, I usually do my run before my swim class now and maybe that's a reason why my times are slower. On Friday, the only workout I did was the swim.

Weekly Totals:
swim: 6100 yards
bike: 1 hour
run: 16.5 miles

Time: 6:20

Ski School

Yesterday we had the 3rd day of ski school, which was also the last day of the first session (out of two sessions). We weren't able to use the Breckenridge house so we drove up Saturday morning. By leaving Boulder at 6:10am, we were able to get to Dillon by 8:00. That left us time for a second hobbit breakfast at Starbucks, plus a chance to get the boys in their ski pants and boots (done better inside than at a 15 deg parking lot).

Since it was the last day of the session, some of the groups did special costumes. Adam's teacher brought everyone a feather from her pet Macaw. Adam talked about getting the feather all week:



Adam skied level 4 this session. That means he rode the big lifts and did mainly green and blue runs. He was the smallest and youngest of his group. The terrain was fine for him, but he had trouble keeping up some of the time. Nevertheless, I think it was a good fit for him to be challenged. He actually does pretty well when he's trying and not goofing off.

Alex skied level 6. He was skiing blue and some black with trees and bumps. They even were doing the race gates (more on that late). He's also finally upgraded to poles. I don't think he uses them much while skiing, but they do come in handy when it's flat. Here he is in blue next to his instructor at the beginning of the day:



Once we drop the kids off, Jeremy and I have 6 hours to ski. Which is about 2-3 hours longer than we would do on our own. We did our first 3 runs in the little terrain park. We did some baby jumps (Jeremy went off bigger ones than I did). Actually, I don't mind the jumping so much, it's the landing that doesn't always go so well. On the 3rd trip I tried a big flat tabletop. The tabletop went fine, but it dumped out 2 feet off the ground and surprised me. I fell pretty hard on my front, that was a new thing. But beyond bruising my hip, I didn't hurt anything.

After that, we skied around until lunch. We found Alex at the Outpost at lunch, and he told us he's been doing the NASTAR race course. I have always wanted to try it. I talk about it all the time, especially when we ride the lift that goes oven the course. But I thought it cost $20/race and that seemed a bit high. But after lunch we went and looked at it and it's only $2/run (it's more if you get into the NASTAR database, but we thought we'd just try it out first).



We each got in 2 races before they closed at 2:30. Jeremy's times were 24.9 and 24.5. I think my first time was 34, and my second was 37 because I slipped on a turn and sat down. The course was pretty hard because it wasn't that steep but the turns were really icy (as is most of Keystone these days). Alex's ski teacher thought his time was 34 seconds too, but I won't believe until I see it. We are so going back next weekend, I have to get under 30 seconds!

After ski school, we didn't want to sit in traffic so we went to the Silverthorne rec center to swim. They have a pretty cool pool, including a 10' dive pool. The boys amazed me by both going to the bottom to retrieve rings. Once Jeremy showed us all how to pop our ears underwater so the pressure doesn't hurt, we all took trips to the bottom. Jeremy and I took turns bringing up a 5 lbs brick (and now my upper body is aching).

We finished the day with a Chipolte dinner and got on the road at 6:45. We hit a bit of traffic around Idaho Springs, but still made it home in 90 minutes. And we were all wiped from our 15 hour day.

I have too many dentist stories...

I had a dentist appointment at 8:30 today. I got there at 8:25 and settled in with a magazine. At 8:35, I started wondering why there was nobody in the office. I finally noticed a sign that said, "Please make yourself comfortable, we will be with you after our 9:00 patient care meeting." Huh? How could I have an 8:30 appointment if they didn't begin until 9:00? Apparently the receptionist called me in November to tell me of the change but I swear I didn't get the message. And she did call again yesterday but I didn't bother to listen to the message since I assumed it would be a standard reminder call. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere...

This was only important because I had a 70 minute run on my schedule today. If I had had an 8:30 appointment, I could have just squeezed in the full workout. As it was, I got in 40 minutes. But, given my illness last week, it's probably ok if this week starts out a little light. I must be in some sort of mileage building phase anyway, tomorrow is 2 miles and the Thursday is 9.

I also did my master's class. I'm still feeling slow. I did 4 x 100 on 1:46 and I know I can do them in 1:40 or under. I was talking to the boys' swim director at their lesson (she swims the intro class, which is ok because she's 9 months pregnant) and she asked me how often I've been swimming. Ok, so not much. I have to WORK to get faster again? It was nice in the beginning 20 months ago when I was starting from scratch and I couldn't get worse. Now I have peaks and valleys and have to WORK. I also remember that my coach said I could swim 2 days a week in January, but need to bump it up to 3 days a week in February. Which mysteriously starts next week.

It's all relative now

I finally feel like I'm over my cold of doom. On Saturday, the kids had ski school and Jeremy and I skied and rode all day (even though the snow was still pretty crappy). After the penguin cupcake bake off on Sunday, I managed to sneak in my long run. I did 75 minutes and while it wasn't the best run of my life, it was ok. I really didn't run over an hour during the fall run-specific program, so I have to build up my endurance again.

So last week, I took 3 days off and swam only once and felt like a big slug. And not counting snowboarding, I still worked out 5 hours. I guess that's a good perspective to have when my weekly workload starts inching around the 20 hour mark.

...

I had another chiropractor appointment today. On my run yesterday, I was beginning to feel the outer bottom of my left knees. Apparently my left pelvic bone is still misaligned, causing some knee misalignment as well. I got my adjustments and left with a foam roller to stretch my IT band on a daily basis. I still feel like I'm catching problems early, but it sure would be nice if there were no problems to catch. And since today's visit wasn't great, I'm to go back in one week. Today was chiro, tomorrow I have a dentist appointment and Wednesday is the acupuncturist. I'm beginning to feel like a hypochondriac.

Cupcakes Part 2

You would think after 4 hours of penguin cupcakes, I would be done with cupcakes for the month, if not the year. You would be wrong. Alex's school is still one of those backwater joints that allows not only treats on birthdays, but homemade treats. I asked Alex what he wanted to bring and he said cupcakes, specifically chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. So last night after the party(ies) I came home and whipped up a batch of homemade chocolate cupcakes. They looked divine. And then, as I was taking them out of the oven, I somehow hit the top of the range with the pan, dropped the pan, and all those lovely little cupcakes crumbled all over the bottom of the oven. Not one was salvageable, though Jeremy and I did find them edible (but after 5 minutes I had Jeremy take the crumbs to the compost, I did NOT need more junk food).

And then, what could I do? Jeremy said, "Well, you could always bring store bought." It's like he doesn't even know me. At that point, it was about 9:00 and I didn't want to go out to get either a cake box or more baking soda so I went to bed. And then this morning, I bought more baking soda and made another batch of cupcakes and delivered them to Alex's class before lunch. And NOW I'm done with cupcakes, at least for this month.

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!