Slowly, But Surely

The thing I'm most thankful for is just staying upbeat. I finally got back into a training routine at the end of January. Training is going along slowly, but surely, which is a good way for things to go. I'm training with fingers crossed as I build up for my spring races. I signed up for a long ride in effort to improve my cycling skills. I wanted to sign up for a spring half marathon, but I knew I didn't have a good base from which to train, so I scrapped that idea in favor of a slightly shorter summer race. I'm looking forward to both, and I have my eyes on several other summer races, but I'm trying to cut back on my multisport expenses so I'm limiting myself to nearby races that don't require travel.

My mornings alternate between spinning with Troy or running. Cycling and running seem to go together like peas and carrots in the way that they complement one another. One midweek run is a slow and easy run-walk and the other spicy speedwork.

On the weekends, I'm slowly building up my long run by 1/2 mile at a time. I feel stronger now, and I've abandoned the run-walk strategy for now. Instead, I try to run slow and keep on running. I have a new Garmin--a Christmas gift from my husband and something I never thought I'd have in real life--which is set to show the average pace. This is a wonderful tool for helping me maintain a particular pace during a long run, such as a 12 or 13 minute mile. I'm gradually trying to incorporate an itty bitty core workout, as I really notice that my core muscles are weaker now than last fall when I did core workouts once or twice a week. The biggest loss is my husband as my running partner. I miss him running alongside me on longer runs, even if he did wear an iPod and start singing along.

In the evenings, I'm going to trade swimming for studying as I'm working toward an academic goal. Right now, I'm not at all sure about the outcome. The more I study, the worse I seem to do. The only thing that keeps me going is the thought that this is the last shot at pursuing an academic goal--and even if I fail, I want to go down trying.

My older son is having a rebuilding semester. He likes his apartment and his friends come to visit. He's spending every last dime on the slopes, although I wish he would stay out of Teocalli Bowl and the double-black diamond runs. My youngest is very popular and thinks about Woodward all of the time.

"Your journey began from a single point. You travel in a straight line; sometimes the slope may be steep and the distance seems far, but you you are at midpoint. The endpoint is in sight."

---Bob Miller

Maybe someday I'll be able to calculate the slope of this line.

But for now, I had a really nice Saturday morning run twice around Elkhorn and into the woods. It's an unseasonally warm spring day that started out cool in the morning when I ran, and then got up into the 50s! The lake was mostly frozen and there were about three flocks of birds in various parts of the lake that had patches of open water. I always think of winter as a dormant, silent time, but there was a lot more bird call than I thought. At one point, people stood watching an entire flock of birds fly noisily overhead. Then, I saw a blue jay in a bush. The run went well and I ran the whole 4.5 miles without walk breaks, keeping pace by listening to my breathing.

On Sunday, it was 61 degrees--a breath of spring in February!!!! I took my bike off the trainer and went for a 19.5 mile ride. There was a really strong blow-me-over 22 mph wind, especially at the beginning of the ride. To avoid the combination of a strong wind and big hills, I began to do the route out of order and backwards, first heading over into the Clemens Crossing and Hickory Ridge neighborhoods and expanding my route a bit. Then I headed down onto the hilly, scenic part of the route. Except for one long steep incline hill, I could swear the route is easier in this direction and that's why I see so many cyclists heading in the opposite way when I go down this route. I saw probably half a dozen cyclists and two dozen motorcyclists as well as people in cars, just getting out and enjoying the beautiful unseasonably warm afternoon. At the end of the ride, I felt like I could have gone further but I headed back. I was sore yesterday after the run and I'm anticipating a case of Monday morning DOMS, but I don't care.

Graduation

This is a blast from the past. I came across my older son's high school graduation photos on my computer, and I wanted to post them for the memories.

Informal shots after graduation. Ryan saw his grandmother for the second, or maybe third, time in his life. Probably won't see her again for a long time.

I did the tourist thing and took Grandma down to the mall in Washington, DC where we went to the Museum of Natural History. There was a wonderful exhibit of tropical butterflies. The exhibit is a glass enclosure that people can enter to spend time looking at the butterflies and plants.

There was fruit on posts for the butterflies, and information cards that so that people could identify the butterfly and its native country.

Grandma looks at the butterflies.

We watched my youngest son play a lacross game, although the game was rained out shortly after the photo was taken.

Penguin Pace 2009

I had no idea how I'd do in this race because I've barely been training--and I mean barely--but I shaved a few seconds off my time on a hilly course so I was reasonably satisfied, although I keep wishing I was in better shape. The only consistent training has been in the last two weeks in which I've been alternating treadmill running and cycling dates with Troy Jacobson, whose workout killed me the first time I did it. It will be two or three more weeks before I know whether the consistency actually sticks.

Penguin Pace is one of my favorite local races because they give out a great t-shirt. I love it when races give you a moisture management shirt that you can actually wear while training. This shirt is my base layer for my winter training outfit, so I wear it all the time. The race sells out each year and is known for it's catered sit-down breakfast. But this year, a water pipe broke in the senior center where the event is held, so they moved the breakfast to a nearby middle school and handed out bag breakfasts. Not quite the same...but a nice way to start the day. I'll go cook my Super Bowl chili now.

Alley Loop
I know I shouldn't keep using the Internet as a tool for fantasy, as a way to find information, photos, and videos about other places, activities, and events in which I'll probably never get to participate...but I do this a lot lately. This weekend in Crested Butte, the Colorado town near where my son goes to school, they had the Alley Loop Nordic Marathon. There are actually many distances from 1.5K, 3K, 5K (hey I could be doing a xc ski race instead of a running race), 10k, 21K, and 42K. The event is billed as "Crested Butte's largest costume party." All of the races start in the small town near the nordic center and wind through the streets and alleys of the town before heading out onto the trails surrounding the town.

Just to help us all visualize, I found a video of the finish which shows the quaint town:

Baltimore Examiner Closing

Less than three years after its launch as the city's second daily newspaper, The Baltimore Examiner is shutting down, a victim of slower-than-expected ad sales.

Employees of the free tabloid were informed of the closure Thursday morning. The Examiner will publish its last issue on Sunday, Feb. 15. About 90 people will lose their jobs, said Jim Monaghan, a spokesman for Clarity Media Group, the paper's Denver-based parent company.

"We had good people there. We thought we had a good paper," Monaghan said. "It's a disappointment that it didn't work out."

Clarity, owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, also publishes Examiner papers in Washington and San Francisco. Ryan McKibben, Clarity's CEO, told Baltimore staffers that the company expected "strong revenue synergies" between the Baltimore and Washington papers, but those did not materialize.

Clarity had been searching for a buyer for the Baltimore paper for months, McKibben said.
"We didn't get the depth of national advertising that we would have liked. We thought, with the combination of two markets, we would have been able to do that," Monaghan said. "After 30 months of trying, it became clear during the current recession that advertising is not increasing."

The announcement "came as a complete surprise" in the newsroom.

Skiing The Butte

My son took these awesome photos! Part of me worries about my son doing intermediate runs on his third or fourth time skiing. After all, I am his mom and it's my job to worry about everything. But another part of me admires his bravery in tryng new things. Before he moved out to Colorado, my son never went downhill skiing or rock climbing. Now, he's trying all of these things, and last I heard, he was contemplating ice climbing.

The photo above was taken at the top of the Silver Queen express lift--the highest place on the mountain where you can take photos.

This photo looks over the town of Mt. Creseted Butte at the base of the mountain in the foreground, and then the town of Crested Butte. There are a few scattered homes that are not a part of the town...they're actually mansions.

He keeps telling me that the sky is very blue in Colorado because there's less pollution, and you can see a lot of stars at night. Before he moved out there, he never talked about the color of the sky.

There are a lot of warning signs for black diamond trails. My son assures me that he hasn't tried those yet!! He also plans to get a helmet.

He went down the Silver Queen Road to Forest Queen, both intermediate trails.

I know these pictures are his invitation to me.

Musings for the New Year

For anyone who wants to know what I do at master's swimming, just take a look! The group is temporarily crowded into a very small pool, so we're focusing on stroke and the coach is videotaping team members and critiquing our stokes. It was really neat. I have a hard time finding myself on the video--despite watching it several times!! I'm the one with the great stroke, right? Nope, I need to work on keeping my head level with the water at my hairline, which should help me breathe more efficiently. (There may have been complaints about posting the video to YouTube, and if that happens, it will disappear from this blog.)




It's a new year and it's time for some goal setting. After my half marathon, I fell off the bandwagon with all three sports. I worked out periodically during the week, always trying to get back into a routine, but never achieving my goal. At night, I just wanted to go to bed and pull the covers over my head, and there were days I did that. I came to realize the value of going to swim practice and engaging in an endorphin-producing activity with people that seemed happy. Sometimes the good mood even rubbed off on me, even if just for a little while.

My son came back from college for winter break and with both kids home, I took the last two weeks of the year off for a blissful time of relaxing with family, sleeping, eating, watching R-rated movies (I could have lived without) and playing Monopoly (my oldest son became very strategic with the game). My husband and I ran together down our favorite trail, taking our first steps to getting our base back...




Hubby decided that a marathon is on his Bucket List (although I think he's too young to have one). Maybe it was watching me to a half marathon....maybe it was watching the marathoners, run, walk, and crawl to the finish line...or maybe it was the movie and the New Year...but he says that he needs to do the marathon this year.

He's been running for two years; however, he isn't consistent in the days/miles he runs per week and the most he's ever run is 15 miles per week. The longest race he's ever done is a 10K. When I posted his background info to an e-mail discussion group, wondering if perhaps a marathon was a crazy proposition, all I received were words of encouragement. The marathoners who responded said that if he trains consistently and builds a decent base, he can do it. Of course, if he gets serious, I'll be thinking about it too.

I have a lot of big goals this year with sports and studying. And as I try to regroup and rebuild, I hope my son does too. This should be an interesting year, and we'll see how it goes!