Missing U

My boy is in Italy for the next 2 weeks and I am missing him. He's only been gone for 2 days, but quite frankly it's boring without him. I sometimes need alone time, but knowing I have another week and a half of aloneness does not help the missing part. I miss the anticipation of him coming in the door after work. I miss the sound of him puttering around in his bike room. I miss him asking if he can have another Kung Foo Panda (gummy bear type product). I miss the smell of his skin.

2 weeks to GO TIME

Thanks for bearing with me as I attempted to post the slide show from Photobucket. I apologize to all of you who receive a notification email when I post a new blog. I'm guessing you received three or more updates clogging up your inbox. Sorry about that. Technical difficulties.

To finish my blog from two weeks ago... I had one of the best birthdays ever! Sargent, Scout and I camped in the national forest about two miles from the town of Alma, CO and about 2 miles from the base of Mt. Bross. It was the most picturesque location... a mountain lake, sounds of a stream and waterfall, old mine tailings and out-buildings, all nestled in a little valley. It rained hard in the night, and we were worried for a bit that we might get washed away being so close to the lake and clearly in the flood plain. I should say Sargent worried, as I had my one beer and a Tylenol PM so I wasn't worried about anything. The sunrise the next morning was something from a John Fielder picture book. You can see for yourself in the slide show. I cannot put into words how lovely it was. Sargent slept through most of the sunrise, as he was up fretting about the rain all night, while I slept soundly in my chemical induced coma.

After a breakfast of hot coffee, oatmeal for me and stale pizza for Sargent, we started our hike up Mt. Bross. Again, you can see from the pictures just how awesomely amazing it was. I will stop describing it as I use words like "awesomely" which we all can do without.

Training - this last week was one of recovery for me, and I needed it. I have been having a lot of tension and pain in my neck and shoulders. I saw an acupuncturist / cranial massage person on Thursday, and went to the chiropractor on Friday. Needless to say, I was a mess. My neck hurt so bad it was hard for me to hold my head up, and my shoulders so tight they were nearly touching my ears. My regular massage person, Nancy, is out of town, so I had to see someone else. Sorry for cheating on you, Nancy. I feel a lot better today, but I'm nowhere near 100%. I have another week of chiropractic care, acupuncture, and massage to get me on the right track.

I have just two weeks to go until the marathon in Washington. As I said in the last post, training has gone very well, but I've been racing like crap. I think I have a good plan to get me through the marathon in Boston qualifying time, but we'll see. Tomorrow morning I'm planning on running 18 with Scout. The weather is great and it will be cool enough for Scout to run with me. It's been a while since she has been able to do the long runs because of the heat. But now we have a break in the heat and have even had some rain, so all is well.

Mt. Bross, August 2008

Rocky Mountain high...

Hello from Mt. Bross, 14,127 feet above sea level! What a wonderful week. I've been so busy enjoying myself that I haven't had time to post. So, to all of you checking weekly (I had been updating nearly every week), I apologize.

The good week (long weekend, actually) began on Friday. I took the day off of work to paint the blue oyster cult bathroom in the basement. For those of you whom we have had the pleasure of hosting in our home, you can't forget the blue blue blue bathroom (not to be confused with the flamingo pink on the main floor). Well, I hated it. Sargent and I had talked till we were blue in the face (yep, like the bathroom) about remodeling it, adding in a nice soaker tub (for me :), some heated tiles, redoing the shower, nice lighting, etc... Of course Sargent, the logical one in this partnership, always brings up money in this conversation and ruins it for me. I'm a fly by the seat of my pants sort of girl. If I decide I want to do something, my first instinct is to react and just do it, and then stop and think about it (and how to pay for it) later. For example, the Denver Dumb Friends League (dog shelter) was at my work last week with dogs for adoption. I knew they were going to be there, and had marked it on my calendar at work as a "meeting" so I could go outside and pet the dogs. The first dog they brought out was a 6 month old Cattle dog/Border Collie mix. He was adorable. I immediately named him "Jem", as in Scout's brother in To Kill a Mockingbird, took pictures on my phone and sent them to Sargent. At first he thought I was just kidding around, but then he realized I was seriously considering bringing this dog home. His response was "we need to talk". And talk we did. He brought up lots of really good points about why we can't have another dog right now. Jem didn't have any training and would take up lots of time. Both of us would be gone a lot in August and September, work is really busy in those months, I'm trying to train for a marathon, and of course the money thing about how much we have spent on Scout's no goose chasing training, and this dog's training would be even more extensive, etc. , etc., etc., Yes, Yes, I know. These are all really good points. But I want him! (Can you hear the whiny intonation in my voice?) This is how many things work in our relationship. I say I want something and Sargent goes and does a spreadsheet on it, running comps and analysis this way and that. Then three days later he tells me its a crazy idea. And you know what, his spreadsheet is usually right.

So anyway, after numerous conversations and 3 estimates from contractors, I have put down the bathroom remodel torch. A coat of primer and another two coats of paint have turned my blue bathroom into one of "Gray Frost". Now I'm on to the next thing I need...a new refrigerator. I wonder how many different ways you can run analysis on refrigerators...hmmm.

After I spent all day Friday painting the bathroom (ceiling and all), on Saturday I ran the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon. I was all excited for this race. The training has been going well, I seem to be on track. Half-marathons are supposed to be good predictors of marathon finish times, especially if they are run 4-5 weeks prior to the marathon. The timing for this one was perfect. My strategy for this race was to make myself start out slowly, about 30 seconds per mile slower than my target finishing pace, and slowly get my average pace down to a reasonable race pace. If you remember, the last half marathon was a disaster because I ran much too fast in the first 5 miles. This time I wasn't about to make that mistake. So I ran the first mile in 8:28, mile 2 in 8:20. So far so good. A nice and steady pace increase is certainly something I can handle. I do it in training all the time. Yeah, well, that didn't happen. Looking back, I believe I can pinpoint the problem to how I had my Garmin set up. I had it set to show my average pace and not actual pace, so although the first two miles were right on pace, the next 5 were way to fast. I didn't know it at the time, but definitely felt it at mile 10 and 11. So in the end, my Garmin showed I ran a 1:48, but the posting time was 1:52. I'm not exactly sure why these times were so far apart, as I didn't start more than a minute from the front. So I'll split the difference and call it 1:50. Still, that's 5 minutes slower than I had anticipated.

I'm very frustrated with my races this year. Training has gone really well, but in races I suck. I'm going to have to pull my head out of my arse before I get to the starting line on Sept. 7th.

I'm going to end this blog now because I need to log in to work. I told you August is a busy time. Be sure to check back soon as I will post many more pictures from camping and hiking Mt. Bross.

The Curious Incident of the Window Fan in the Nighttime

The human body is equipped with a wondrous network of neurons. Working in synchronicity, these neurons send messages all throughout the body, allowing us to perceive and respond to the surrounding environment. My sensory neurons were firing on all cylinders last night, when at 3 a.m., the fan in the window above our bed abruptly fell right on top of us. Both of us, awakened out of a dead sleep, sat up yelling, frightened, clutching each other, wondering out loud what the @#$% is going on. To top it off, Sargent had his room darkening eye patch on (like the one in this picture with Emily), so he couldn't see what just hit him in the head, which only intensified the fear. Finally I took off his eye patch so he could open his eyes. At the time, I don't think he realized that he had it on. Perhaps he thought that whatever hit him in the head made him blind? However, once he was able to see it was just the fan, he casually put the fan back in the window and went right back to sleep. Sleep! Are you crazy! I was so freaked out there was no way I could sleep. Every neuron in my body was firing at full throttle. I was seeing and perceiving things that weren't there, shaking so much the whole bed was shaking. I was certain that there was someone in the room that pulled that window fan down on top of us. Little did I know it was actually Sargent who, while sleeping, somehow got his long arm wrapped around the cord and pulled it down. So, there was no more sleeping for me. Just lying there, awake, rigid with fear...until my alarm went off at 4 a.m.

You see, today was my long run. Scheduled to do 18-22 miles, I knew that I needed a very early start in order to avoid running the last miles in the heat. Denver has set a new record for the longest number of consecutive days above 90, and today was to be no exception. I had planned to be up at 4:00 and running by 4:30. However, the fan incident had scared me so much, I had absolutely no desire to go running around outside alone and in the dark. Sargent knew this when I turned off my alarm instead of hitting snooze and did not get up. So, the gentleman he is, he got out of bed at 4 a.m., went through the house and turned on all of the lights so I would feel comfortable enough to come out of the bedroom. Then, get this...he got on his bike and rode with me in the dark while I ran. This made me a very happy girl.

So with Sargent by my side, I ran 21 miles. My goal was to keep it slow, like Scott and my online coach dude said to do. My average pace for the distance was 9:38 min/mile, which ends up being about a minute to a minute and a half slower than race pace. I felt good throughout most of the run, up until mile 18 that is, when Sargent tried to kill me with moldy water. Sargent had carried an extra water bottle on his bike so I could refill my handheld without having to stop at a gas station or water fountain. It seems that the bottle he chose to carry already had some water in it...from "two days ago", he says. More like two weeks in 90+ degree temps I say. So at 4 in the morning, he did the easy thing and just added a few ice cubes. At mile 18, I proceeded to refill my water bottle from his, and took a nice big drink. Yuck! I spit it out and almost puked in the process. In my 'I've already run 18 miles' brain, this was too much. I was convinced he was trying to kill me. Then I got all pissy and started running much faster than I was supposed to. I overreacted and thought I was going to die because now where was I supposed to get water? Of course there was a perfectly good water fountain just a mile down the trail, and I knew this, but no, I needed to have my little temper tantrum. This doesn't sound like me, does it? Anyone? Once Sargent admitted that yes, in fact he was trying to kill me (I'm sure he wanted to at that point), I was just fine, and finished out my run without further incident. By 8:00 a.m., I had completed my long run, and Sargent got in a 3 hour bike ride (with a grand total of 300 pedal strokes, mind you).

After a big breakfast of waffles, eggs, and sausage, followed by a long nap, we took the dogs to a nearby pond to swim. I say "dogs" plural because we are watching my cousin Anne's dog, Lady, for the next week. They had a blast and were thoroughly worn out by the time we got home. Lady is the dog on the left. Tomorrow I am looking forward to an hour and a half massage, and then finding somewhere cool to hang out for the rest of the day. Hmmm, the mall?