j-lyn's corner

Run to & @ DD. Discovered the "middle" horse trail. And here I was thinking the high horse trail earned it's name simply because it was high, not because it was highER.

Felt sick and nauseous the entire time, never ate anything (very unusual for me) my stomach was very upset. Then started heaving the last mile, and walked most of it. I thought maybe it was the meal I ate before I ran... then I remembered I was up with a puking son all night the night before, so maybe it was the flu?

Bailed on the butt-early run for Monday, just in case.

Ran around liberty park. Shin was uber angry. Wasn't very hungry. Stopped and stretched a lot, ended up getting a 90 min massage that worked out everything (including my soleus which was incredibly uncomfortable) except for a knot in one of my calves that wouldn't release no matter what she tried. I was supposed to run tonight for a couple miles with a hot bath to see...

But now that flu bug is back. I'm bailing on my Idaho Mountain Fest duties to lay down, drink ginger ale, and go to sleep. I can't be sick right now. Really, I can't.

4 VERY slow miles, just trying to make sure the shin thing was "OK" after 90mins of very deep tissue massage/stretching/physical abuse.

I now officially dread (and love) the massage room.

You know it's going to be a good morning when you wake up craving black coffee and skittles. Fortunately, a stop at 7-11 set me straight. Although, I think the boys thought I was crazy as I slowly and methodically ate skittles (never purples, they're icky) for the next 4 hours. OOOO and true story- on the way out of the canyon I convinced Craig to be "that creepy guy" who rolls down his window and asks a group of road runner ladies if they want some skittles. haha. I took a picture of it too. Super funny.

Box Elder with Scott and Craig. I like box elder a lot. Almost as hard as Gilbert, better views than Timp, and no one except the angry hunters in sight. They were angry because"we weren't the only people on the trail" and we needed to keep it quiet. Actually, we saw loads of wildlife (away from them) and yes, we were using a bear whistle and shouting "hey bear!" because our intentions were opposite. We wanted to yoddle and yell and holler like bitter rowdy teens.... but unfortunately (and despite my best efforts) I guess we're considerate people.

LOVED the summit push, and coming down the ridge. Daresay incredible. The sunrise this morning was rather amazing.

Coming back down I got lost in a song that was stuck in my head (Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Rey) and thought I got lost. I was kinda melancholy, wrapped up in the song (that had been stuck in my head keeping me up in the middle of the night.) Fortunately I stumbled into Scott, and he snapped me out of it, assured me we were on the right trail, and just down a bit we met up with Craig as well.

One of these days I'm going to get lost in myself and actually get lost.

Added on miles at Dimple Dell... for some reason an 8:30 AP felt nice. For as slow as I was all morning, it was a little ironic.

Twin Aves with Marty bright and early before the crunch for the Idaho Mtn Fest. She did great! 2 hours on the nose roundtrip, and although Marty wasn't feeling great, she pushed me on the downs (I was getting really tired).

Took out the new blue La Sportiva Helios. Man, those shoes are so good.

Cold, wet, heavy blowing snow in the AM- Just under 6 miles, my favorite loop that I call the Castle Rocks High Point Loop. It was a group run lead by the Buddy Jones (La Sportiva athlete). The girls on the run were drilling me with questions (their husbands climb and live in a place we used to live, etc etc). The loop only has just under 1000 vert gain (which sounds worse than it really is, it's really super runnable, and you get all the vert over in the first 2.5 miles) but the one of the girls was saying this was the hardest thing she'd ever done. Ah, poor girl- 25 degrees heavy snow running and snow pack and wet rocks... but it WAS so beautiful and I felt guilty loving the snow since I knew I should be wanting it to stop for all the climbers' sakes. I was doing my own question drilling to glean knowledge form Buddy, and secretly hoping it'd snow the whole run. Such an incredible loop.

Then I went out with Beth to mark the half marathon course. Beth really wanted to come out, and although I didn't really need help (and I had someone simultaneously setting up the 10k and mtn bike race courses) I took the opportunity for company. Unfortunately her hip/ITB issues were flaring and we pretty much walked the entire thing. 

I enjoyed it- it's been a while since I've been on that course. It really is the best link-up through the entire of city of rocks I could piece together. Hits every view of the city, darts between bases of major formations, and gives a tour of the entire park. And since the city of rocks is where I fell in love with running.... well, it's super sentimental for me.

After an impromptu kick-all-my-kitchen-wenches-out-to-climb-bath-rock (class 4) I pulled another friend and had the crew drop us off at the top of the half marathon loop so we could run opposite halves and meet at the start/finish. I didn't have time to clean the entire course but could sneak in half. Finished my half a bit early and ran back on the other loop pulling tags til I found friend Joe Crane. He was bonkinh hard and was confused by it. Maybe becuase he had raced the half marathon, taught 2 slack climbing clinics, sent his climbing project before I made him come out and clean the half marathon course? Maybe. lol. He even packed out an aid station (table, water jug, and box of food). I split his items and we hiked out the last couple miles.

On a side note, I need to do a blog post about being a co-founder of a 300+ person festival (4 days) and then being the only RD for a 10k and half marathon. By the end of Saturday I was more tired than after running 90 miles. It was so gratifying to see all the racers come in from the course after running MY trails. I call them MY trails because most people never leave the climber trails and see those portions of city of rocks, and most of the trails I've never seen footprints on (just cow pies!). The racers came in weary (2400 vert on a half!) and stunned with the beautiful trails they had run. Felt so happy that others were so satisfied with an aesthetic course that I created. :) Fufilling in a different way!

Didn't get all the miles I wanted this week (or many "real" runs or any long runs!) but glad I at least broke 80 miles during the week of the festival. What I didn't get in mileage training I got in exhaustion training....