Running in the Rockies

~3 miles in ~10 min avg pace with the hubby.

 He's not fond of my 3 mile loop (lots of tough hills) and he wanted to do his usually 2 mile loop (only slightly less hilly), but I convinced him he could do 3. I also made him wear my heart rate monitor and as I suspected, his max heart rate was ~20 beats per minute lower than mine and his average heart rate was ~30 bpm lower, despite the fact that I run significantly more miles per week than he does (he hasn't run in weeks and has never run longer than 3). Although, he's one of those lean guys that has great blood pressure, cholesterol, and a low heart rate, even though he doesn't work out all that much (but we eat relatively well- not that it would probably matter for him.. lucky guy).  I'm not sure if I should be concerned about my seemingly high heart rates during my workouts or not...I don't feel pain and although sometimes my breathing becomes very rapid (when climbing steep hills), usually I feel fine for the most part or even feel like I could give more effort. Hmmm... I guess I'll just keep track of it and see where the fitness goes over the next 6 months or so.

13.04 in 10:36 avg pace.

 Ran along Boulder Creek Path and attemped to keep my heart rate between 140-150 bpm. This was a LOT harder to do than I thought it would be. Every few steps I'd look at my watch and realize my heart rate had crept back up and I'd tell myself to slow down. On the way back it was even more difficult because there is a very slight elevation gain as the path approaches the flatirons and boulder canyon. It was painfully slow, I think I approached a 12 minute mile during some sections. Ugh.  I'm not sure I could do all my runs following the heart rate method or not. I suppose it's good to do a few runs a week attempting to keep it lower, but I think that will only be possible to do if I run down in Boulder. The ~8,500' and hills make it very difficult for me to keep any type of consistent heart rate on my normal routes.

 But, when not concentrating on trying to run slower, it was nice to look around and take in the scenery, I saw many prairie dogs and even a fox. The temps weren't bad either and I got a little time to stretch afterwards by the creek. Everything else felt great.

3.4 trail run in ~11 min avg pace. 

I think I may have bruised the ball of my right foot yesterday running on the concrete for 13. I usually do longer runs on the roads because the concrete is so unforgiving for me. It was either that, or the fact that I wore 'nice' shoes to work after my run.. with smallish heels. I'm not good at walking in heels.. so maybe it was wearing those that bruised my foot. Not really sure. It's not too bad, slightly tender. But I thought it was a good enough reason for a trail run. We've been watching our friend's dogs for a few weeks and will have them until Oct. 15th or so (they are in africa-so jealous), so I took them, plus my pup, and we headed out to the trails near our house. My pup did his usually- take off at mach 5, until just out of sight and then come racing back when I called him- so much energy! The other two move more at their own pace.. and get side tracked by smells, sticks, squirrels, etc. But we all managed to stay together pretty well.

 About half way through our excursion, we found a leg of an elk or very large deer laid over the trail. It was much larger than a normal deer leg, and had a much deeper brown colored fur. Looked pretty 'fresh' still had some skin on it. The pups of course were overly interested, but luckily I got them to leave it after yelling at them each a few times. Yuck. It could have been road kill and something carried it back to the trails (a dirt road where people drive WAY too fast isn't too far away and I've sadly seen many creatures killed as they attempt a crossing), or it could have been a mountain lion or beer. Made me realize that it's probably not a good season to go out running alone in the early morning or late afternoon.. at least not in the woods- too many creatures trying to gather 'food' for the winter. I'd rather not be dinner for someone just yet.

 Anyways, around mile 3, I realized that the older of the pups (~9-10 yrs old) was breathing very fast and somewhat shallow.. he's a bit overweight and although I know his people take him out running pretty regularly, I didn't want to push him. I would feel terrible if something happened to him. So we stopped for a short rest and then just continued on home. I think maybe walks with the pups is in order for the next week or so. After we got home, it took him almost an hour to stop panting so heavily..but now he's sleeping soundly (they all are), so I think he's probably okay. Poor old guy. But an inspiration nonetheless. I hope that I am as happy as he is and still willing to give that solid of an effort in my older years.

Garmin was dead so I ran without a watch- it was a great run. I'm sure I ran too fast, but I felt great- so I just went with it. Nice and cool as well- gorgeous fall day. About 7 miles in I'm guessing 9:30 avg pace. 

Hiked ~3.4 miles with the pups and hubby. Nice cool autumn day, the last of the aspen are turning and starting to fall- the trail looked golden from all the leaves. Very pretty. The pups had a great time and no one seemed to get too tired. 

Later, we went to collect firewood in the national forest. The USFS is incredibly civilized when it comes to allowing citizens to cut down and collect dead trees for firewood- a permit for a cord is only 20$! There have been more and more trees killed from the pine bark and ips beetles in our area, so taking down the dead or infected trees is actually fire mitigation (in addition to helping lessen the spread of beetles)- and we get firewood for pretty cheap.  I hope more people take advantage of this and help protect the mountain communities.

At any rate- I think we took down about 5 big trees (bases ~15-22" in diameter and 50-70' tall?) and cut them into ~4-5' logs and then carried them on our shoulders down a pretty steep slope to our truck. They probably weighed anywhere from 20- 80 lbs and maybe 2-3 at 90-100 lbs- I struggled with the really heavy ones this year. Once we unloaded them in our driveway, we had to carry them around the back of the house to our cutting and chopping area. We spent about 4-5 hours on the wood and I got about an hour of actual chopping in. The only thing that was sore was my shoulders- they are pretty bruised from carrying the logs. Now we only need to repeat this about 7-8 more times and we'll be ready for winter!

15.16 miles in ~10:30 pace. Min elevation ~8,400'/max elevation ~9,200'. 

I ran the ~course of the Joe Colton 15 M race and the hubby rode his bike with me. It was very windy (gusts of ~20-30 mph maybe a few 40's in the open areas), and chilly- it starting snowing/sleeting on us near the small town of Tolland (~mile 5) and continued to do so for the rest of the run. My legs felt like icicles until mile 4 or so- and then I started to warm up. I need to get warmer running clothes, I think shorts were okay for this run, but I don't know if I could run in shorts in much colder/windier weather. It was an awesome run though- I LOVE running when it's cold, I felt much faster and stronger the entire run and I felt like I was killing my last time that I did this run.. turns out I did (~11:15 avg pace compared to 10:30 this time around). But it's not only the time that made me feel so much better about this run- it was also the fact that I felt so well. I finished strong (there are two hills in the last mile that I ran hard up and the last time I think I had to walk one of them). Furthermore,  I was immediately ready for food after the run, whereas the last time- I felt sick to my stomach for the rest of the day and could not really eat anything. The last time I ran that route- it was in June and very hot, I don't remember the temperature- but hot. I'm thinking maybe I should enter more fall/winter/ early spring races- I really dislike the heat.

 No soreness on Sunday or Monday (I'm entering this on Monday). Feeling great!

8 miles in ~9:40 avg pace.

13.1 in 8:48 avg pace.

I'm writing this entry significantly after the fact, so I will try to summarize the main points. Overall, I will probably not be running another rock n' roll event. There are some philosophical reasons as well as logistical reasons.

First off, there was a LOT of crap in the participant bags and not a lot of useful stuff, like for example, a map of runners and spectators. It's a big race and I was surprised that they did not include such a map. Now, I know there were maps available online, but I wasn't on top of things, and well, I thought one would likely be provided. Anyways- lots of crap(trying to get you to buy stuff)  in the bag, mostly stuff that got thrown away because it couldn't be recycled. Sigh.

Okay next;  the start and finish was not well marked and therefore difficult to find. There were no well marked signs and given that it was ~15,000 runners + spectators means that it was crowded and difficult to figure out where things were located.

Finally found my corral and got in. The race started pretty much on time- which was nice. But there were lots of people that did not find their corrals and just started jumping in wherever. Okay- I guess that is fine.

Got running after about 5 minutes of waiting (I guess they decided to hold up some corrals and start in waves because it was so packed). The first two miles were very crowded. Hard to get into a pace with so many different paces and people around. Frustrated. I think we passed the first band somewhere in mile 2ish and I realized that most people actually had ipods on and weren't even listening to the bands. Comical. However- I have a small rant about ipods and headphones in general in big races. When it's very crowded and everyone is wearing headphones- I think people can't hear who is around them and end up inadvertently cutting off runners. OR maybe they are just really rude.. I don't know. But I'm thinking maybe not allowing headphones in big races would be a good thing. I can't say how many times I was cut off in this race while running in a very straight line at a consistent pace by runners wearing headphones and not paying attention to anyone around them. Grrr.

Anyways.. the splits:

Mile 1: 9:06
Mile 2: 9:17
Mile 3: 9:28 (the people that started out WAY too fast start clogging up the road here)
Mile 4: 8:54 (ahhh, space! That's more like it)
Mile 5: 9:01
Mile 6: 8:49
Mile 7: 8:51
Mile 8: 8:41
Mile 9: 8:47
Mile 10: 8:50
Mile 11: 8:56
Mile 12: 8:37
Mile 13: 8:16
Mile .27 (from Garmin): 7:22

My garmin was in the heart rate mode, so I couldn't see my splits and I kept missing them at the mile marks from the watch. Since I had started back so far- I wasn't able to calculate on the fly what my pace was from the official clocks when I passed them either- so I was largely running off of what felt right and my heart rate. Towards the end (mile 11,12,13) my heart rate was inching higher and higher and pretty much through the roof down the straight to the finish. I felt like I was going a lot slower than I was, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had finished under 2 hours and judging by my splits afterwards, I probably need to try to start out a bit faster (or get into a faster starting corral).

So- I'll leave my philosophical perspective mostly out and I will just say that I wasn't very impressed with the Rock n' Roll event. It felt like they were just there to sell something. I've done other big events.. Bolder Boulder, Chicago Marathon for example, and they didn't have this feel- so I don't think it's the size- but the organizer. If this event is typical of the other RnR events, the fact that they are actively taking over a lot of the more locally organized events, may not be a good thing. In the next year, I am going to actively seek out the low- environmental impact or zero-waste events and give them my entry fee instead.

7.59 miles in ~9:50 avg pace.

 First run in Honolulu and attempted to run for 75 mins keeping heart rate between 150-160. (avg heart rate for the run was 158). Felt weird to be back in Honolulu. I had forgotten how hot and humid it is even at 5am! Was pleasant to see so many runners out in the darkness though. I ran to Waikiki and watched the sunrise. The ocean is always gorgeous.
 

8 miles in ~9:14 avg pace. 

Felt great and ready for my dissertation defense! Went over my talk in my head during the run. It was more challenging than I thought it would be, but really help me to solidify the main points on each slide. I think it helped to go over the talk and concentrate on what was visually on each slide, it's main points, and what the transition was to the next slide. I recommend it for anyone giving a big talk. 

6.09 miles in ~10 min avg pace.

Heart rate very low today (resting ~50, normally ~68 to 70) and ankles and lower legs very swollen. Swelling started the previous evening at dinner. Not sure what the cause was.. maybe successful defense? Running seemed to make the swelling decrease significantly. Maybe coming down from elevation (~8,500')  to sea level had some affect on my circulation? Or perhaps increased pressure made it harder for my heart to pump effectively? I have no idea- but the swelling was significant, you could not see one vein in either foot/ankle. Weird.  

~4.16 in 9:22 avg pace.

4th run in Honolulu (on 4th day in town). Lower legs and ankles still swollen (swelling from undetermined cause started on Wednedsay evening, 2nd day in town). Very low resting heart rate and it was difficult to get it above 130 during the run.

19.3 in ~10:08 avg pace

Long run on Oahu. First part of the run was pretty awesome because it was dark. However, about when I turned around at mile 10, the sun came up and I knew I was toast. It got hot very quickly and the pace fell off significantly. I just do not deal well with the heat. Only had 1 hand-held amphipod and it was gone near mile 16 and no gels. It was brutal. I'm proud I finished because every mile I would make a deal with myself that if I just made it one more mile, I could call my friend and have her pick me up. It was bad.

However, after finishing, I felt okay- definitely dehydrated and low on calories, but after I ate a prana bar and had some more water and orange juice- I felt even better and ready for breakfast. Very little soreness that day or the next- few blisters probably because my skin just wasn't used to sweating that much. Overall, A for effort :)

5 mi on Boulder Canyon Trail in ~9:11 avg pace

4 mi trail in ~11:44 avg pace.