Random Acts of Preparation

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. - G.K.Chesterton

The car is packed and I'm ready to head to the Grand Canyon at stupid o'clock tomorrow morning.  It's 11 hours between here and there and once I get to the south end of Colorado Springs, the entire landscape will be new. I'll be heading south and then west through Durango before turning southwest to the Canyon.    

I love road trips and the freedom to move across state lines in a single day. I'm pretty excited to finally be heading out for my second official adventure run of the year (Canyonlands being the first), but a little nervous as well. With the three weeks of sickness I had in March, I wasn't able to prepare as well as I would have liked. This will be twice as hard in elevation and time on feet as my first ultra so there's no illusions of it being easy. 

Naturally, took my mind off of my concerns and painted my nails. See those cute little crooked toes in the snap below?  Did you notice the little gift that I received from my first ultra? Who needs a rad tech shirt when you can have a permanent black toenail to take home? 

My souvenir from the Red Hot 55k 

I didn't even know it was there until I removed the nail polish that I wore for the race. I'm not much of a nail painter, but I like splashes of color. I decided that before all of my races or adventure runs, I'd paint my nails something fun. Now it serves the dual purpose of keeping me in the dark as to how bad the nail damage is until later. Oy.

This run, I'm matching the blue of my outfit on my little piggies too. I feel much better knowing that my toes are festive and ready for showtime when the run is over.

Let's move to the other digits. I've taken to removing my wedding ring and just wearing my band as I use handhelds a lot and my ring gets in the way.  Since it's a family heirloom (my mother-in-law's ring from 1957), I've been keeping it in the jewelry box for safe keeping. My band is a $50 ebay purchase (my choice, 'cause I don't care about bands) that's boring and I've been keeping an eye out for something a little prettier that I can wear instead.

Well, I found this while trading out my Sodastream Carbonator at the mall. I don't shop at Sundance due to lack of $$, but I've always liked their jewelry.  I just thought I'd see if they had anything $50-ish. This band was less than that and just what I wanted while training/racing. Score! 

Couldn't get rid of the glare...grrr.

Last in my randomness, I'm trying something new on this run. I've been enjoying packets of Justin's Nut Butters on my runs and picked up the jar of Chocolate Almond Butter to smear onto a tortilla. I've got two of these delicious burritos in the car which will be consumed on each of the Kaibab trails... yum!

I have my usual Honey Stinger gels to keep me sugared up, but the other will keep me from feeling hungry for hours on end.  

That's all for now.  Time to get some ZZZs. Next time I write I will be sore, tired and full of good memories and pictures to share.  'Til next week...  

Happy Trails,

Shelby

Friday Long Run: Horsetooth Mountain Park

With the Quad Rock 50 coming up in 5 weeks, Sheila and I headed up to Fort Collins to preview the part of the course that wasn't affected by the recent wildfire. It was a tough run (got spanked, actually) and I have nothing but respect for those who can cruise around the technical trails there.   

We persevered through 18 miles of climbing, descending and general gnarliness of terrain and got a good taste of what's coming up. Since a lot of the climbs are not runnable for me, fast hiking skills will be needed to beat the cutoffs.  

Hiking up Towers

Beautiful day, pretty views

My attention is now turned to the Grand Canyon R2R2R coming up next weekend. Leaving early Friday morning, I expect to arrive late afternoon. Last I heard, no snow on the trails. The weather's forecasted to be 30º - 70º and sunny, which would be perfect.   

I've been enjoying Sage Canaday's video of his R2R2R last fall with Brendan Trimboli and another buddy. He took the longer 46 mile route up Bright Angel -- 42 miles is enough for me. Enjoy!

Happy Trails,

Shelby

The Age of Improvement

It's sad to grow old, but nice to ripen. - Brigitte Bardot

One of the things that gets me excited about my running is seeing measurable improvement. Physiologically, I have been on the slow downward spiral for 15 years at least, but as I've become smarter about my training, I'm becoming a better athlete.   

Back in my teens and 20's, I ran at a comfortable pace and relatively flat roads, never pushing myself too hard. I just wanted to finish whatever race I was running, be it a 10k or marathon. In my 30's, I cared a little more about speed and pushed myself on the trails and discovered that I got a bit faster without doing any real speed work. 

Case in point: 9 years after I ran my second marathon and had switched to trails I had an urge to run another one prior to getting pregnant with child #2.  With a base of one hour for my long run, I upped it to two hours on two consecutive weekends. The third weekend (Mother's Day weekend 2009) I mapped out a 26 mile looped course at my mother-in-law's house and ran my marathon in 4:45, beating my PR by 20 minutes. So much for the 4 months of training that I put in for my first two marathons...

It's cool to see myself run a 34 mile race and feel better than I did running road marathons. It's exciting to see my tempo runs knocking a full minute per mile off my average over a 10k distance. It gets me pumped to see just what my body can do after all these years. I'm inspired by the likes of Meghan Arbogast, Mike Morton, Speedgoat and other masters runners that are still posting really impressive wins. What they may be lacking physiologically they are making up in wisdom and maturity that comes from experience.

This week, I added hill repeats to my weekly training. This means going up the Incline and down the Barr, multiple times. Gonna get me some Hardrock legs!  On New Years, I did the double and realized that it was time to make it a triple. This week, I did the TITB and boy howdy, my hams felt it! But I beat my PR going up the Incline by 3 min on lap#1, and beat my PR doing the DIDB by 7 min. Cool!

TITB elevation profile

Sheila and I are in full-on spring training now with Friday-Saturday long runs. We got some sweet snaps this week retracing the Ponderous Posterior course: 

Sheila rock hopping at Red Rock Canyon

Fun on Cap't Jacks 

So this is my current training schedule, which mirrors Sheila's as she prepares for her Rocky Mountain Slam races:

Mon - hill repeats

Tues - 10k tempo run

Wed - long-ish run (2 1/2 - 3 hrs)

Thurs - rest

Fri - long run (5-6 hrs currently)

Sat - long run (3-4 hrs currently)

Sun - rest

It's Saturday night and I'm looking forward to Easter Sunday complete with church and egg hunt afterwards.  He is risen, indeed! 

Happy Trails,

Shelby 

 

The New Normal

There are lives I can imagine without children 

but none of them have the same laughter & noise. 

- Brian Andreas

When I started this blog in January, I was a 40+ hour-a-week employee with a 90 min commute and two young kids trying to squeeze in 30 mi/wk of trail running to complete my first ultra. Now, I am an unemployed mom with one ultra done and a bunch more on the docket, enjoying two whole days of workweek fun with the kids while putting in 60+ mi/wk of training.

Everyone in the house is happier with me less stressed and not running around trying to get the bare minimum done to keep the household functioning (even with the huz's significant help). While I still have M-W-F to train and get household tasks completed while the kids are at pre(school), I'm now planning fun stuff with the kids on T-TH and getting in speed work after J gets home. Having time to be involved in a new church in Rockrimmon has been another upside. I'm doing music again and have had friends over for dinner every week since I left my job a month ago. Feels like old times, back when we were DINKS in Boston and potlucks at our house were the norm.

God - family - friends - running. These are the things that bring me joy and what I want to invest myself in. I'm grateful for the time and energy to do so. Even though having kids makes the running and racing more complicated, they add so much to my overall joy that I feel I have a richer life now than when I was childless. I wouldn't trade the freedom to do what-I-want-when-I-want over the necessary limitations and sacrifices required to take care of them.

I know that children aren't for everyone -- whether by choice or sadly, when it's not. All I'm saying is that I don't look wistfully at the runners who live out of their vehicles traveling from one amazing trail to another. If I'm tempted to feel jealous of that kind of carefree life, I just look at my kids and realize that being tied down to a home filled with love and laughter is a pretty sweet thing. I'll have my adventures, they just look a little different and the trail running ones come more sporadically.

My lovies

Now that my health is back, I'm ramping up the mileage in prep for the R2R2R. Winter hasn't loosened its grip yet as evidenced by the recent single digit temps and need for microspikes. I'm looking forward to a serious melt this week as temps head into the 50's and low 60's possibly.

Some snaps of my recent escapades:

Still sick, but stomped out a 6 miler at the Barr

Sheila at Palmer Lake Reservoir (before the 12 snowy miles)

Ute Valley after a blizzard

Testing my gear in 3° windchill

13 miler on the Falcon Trail

While their future as a touring band remains uncertain, The Civil Wars are recording again in follow up to their Grammy awarding winning debut album, Barton Hollow. I know MJ would be proud if he heard this. You're welcome.
Happy Trails,

Shelby

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

"The measure of anyone's freedom is what he can do without.”

- L.M. Montgomery

THE UGLY

Let's start with the tragedy of the week. Ugly would describe my mood Saturday night when I realized that any hope of finding my Garmin was gone. I lost it after my Friday long run sometime between changing in the park restroom and putting my stuff into the car. I took it off because the battery was dead.  Somehow, everything else made it home, except for my most expensive piece of training gear. I didn't notice that it was missing until bedtime when I went to charge it. After a quick look around the house and car, I went to bed upset but hopeful it would turn up the next day with a more thorough search.  

Security blanket?

I spent the next day checking at the park and turning the house and car upside down, all to no avail. By the time evening rolled around, I was depressed and angry with myself for not keeping better track of it. It wasn't until I went to church Sunday morning that I got my thoughts and attitude adjusted and came to terms with the loss. Worshiping God does that for me and helps to put these kinds of disappointments in perspective.

I'm now back to using my intuition to train, rather than looking at a constant stream of data.  On the Myers-Briggs spectrum, I'm a sensing person, not an intuitive one, and having real-time feedback was something I loved.  But as noted previously, I seem to embrace the suck while running but adapting to life's curveballs is something I'm still working on in my non-running life. 

THE BAD

I'm still contending with this damn crud I've had for two weeks now. I'm sure running Salida didn't help since we know the immune system is suppressed after a marathon. I took a few days off and ran some 5 - 13 mile runs later in the week, keeping the pace easy to moderate since I wasn't feeling 100% yet.  Maybe that 3 hour run at Cheyenne Mtn State Park and 3 miles up the Barr Trail set me back more than I realized.

NORAD's in there somewhere

I'm going to try and take the next several days off to kick this thing for good. I'm need to get my legs ready for the 40 miler I have coming up next month.  

THE GOOD

My baby girl turned three today and we celebrated her with a party this weekend. I love her to pieces. She fills our lives with so much joy:

She's my little mountain lover -- shouts "mountains!" when she sees them and tells me that she is gonna run in them with me. That's my girl!

And shout out to my pal Meghan, who won the 3 Days of Syllamo stage race this weekend -- 95 miles over three days and 80 of them wearing her MdS pack. Way to go, Boss Lady!

We'll end with more good stuff. Thanks to John Standridge for showing me this amazing performance from the 2004 Hall of Fame inductions. Petty's vocals are perfectly suited for the cover and Prince's guitar solo is sublime. Reminded me of how much I loved his 2007 Superbowl halftime show. Time to turn on the Traveling Wilburys methinks...

Happy Trails,

Shelby

Random Acts of Gear and Inspiration

I'm still getting over this cold, but feeling better on a daily basis, so I expect to commence with Hardrock training starting on Friday. I've done a couple of easy 5-9 milers to get the joints limbered up, but taking a day off when my body seems to be telling me to. I don't want to extend this illness any longer (or make it worse) because I just had to train. The Coach has Sheila running long back to backs Friday and Saturday, so that's what I'll plan to do as well.

Yesterday, I got these babies in the mail... my first gear purchase specific to HR and those brutal climbs and descents it's so famous for:

Black Diamond Ultra Distance Z-Poles 

There's a lot of great reviews online (and I'm too lazy to do one), so you can google them yourself if you're in the market for some. I'll just say is that they are very light and easy to deploy/collapse. Didn't hurt to find them on sale at Backcountry Edge either. Booyah!

Just today, I saw this shirt and I'm thinking I should have one after I do the R2R2R next month:

I figure if my mtn biking hubs has jerseys from cool places like Alaska, I surely should have a shirt from my big adventure run, right? (Right, Honey?)  

My path to ultras started with this guy -- Kilian Jornet. I was following him via the Quest videos for years before the ultra bug finally bit. Here he is doing what he does best... inspire. You're welcome. 

Happy Trails,

Shelby