Running in the Rockies

AM: 3.10 mi in 13:03 avg pace with L and B pup and neighbor's pups Q and N pup (whom we were watching for them yesterday and last night). Avg elevation: 8,500'; 523' gain/loss. Avg heart rate: 155, Max heart rate: 179. 

 First run back on the trails. Felt slow and the pups didn't help. N and B are now too strong to run on leash without leash training (they pull like crazy!). Q pup is the same as ever.. mostly fine except he lags behind now and again. L pup was pretty bad, encouraging the puppies to run farther up ahead than I would like. Ran with all pups off leash and only met one other runner. B and N pups barked, but no one jumped up on her.. thank goodness! Progress? Maybe.. might also just be luck. 

Didn't run at all this weekend. Felt tired and well, just lazy. Did some work and cleaned/organized the house some. Legs were a bit tired- so maybe it was for the best. Beautiful weather today though, so hopefully will make it back out for a longer run (sans pups) this evening.

 Mid-morning: Maya Vinyasa flow yoga. Not as good as last week, but okay.

AM: 8.15 in 11:00 avg pace. Avg heart rate: 171; Max heart rate: 186. Avg elevation: 8,500'; 620' gain/loss. 

 Wow, I am at a loss for words. I am in terrible cardiovascular shape! I wanted to keep my heart rate under 160 and every time I looked down at my watch it said 170-175.. then into the 180's on the last hill towards home. Depressing. 

 Afternoon: Conscious flow yoga kicked my butt. The room got so warm I felt a little dizzy/wuzzy. No good. But a good workout.

AM: 5.05 with L and B pup in ~13 avg pace. Avg heart rate: 157, Max heart rate: 175. Avg elevation: 8,500',723' gain/loss. Nice crisp clear morning on the trails. Mountains looked beautiful. Didn't see anyone out, which was nice because B pup was off leash most of the run. I put her back on when she refused to come back to me.. didn't really seem to phase her much. Right knee felt a little weird/tight in the usual locations. Definitely need to get on the stretches.

Afternoon: suppose to get to a yoga class but meeting ran over. grrrr. maybe will try to hit two tomorrow. (note- I bought a month unlimited class since I have ~2 weeks 'off' before new job starts.. hoping to find a few classes I like so that when the schedule becomes more rigid, I can work those in. It is also fun to just do yoga all the time too.. I can't lie. )

AM: 5.04 with L and B pup in ~11:25 avg pace. Avg heart rate: 154, Max heart rate: 176. Avg elevation: 8,500', 740' gain/loss. I ran the roads around the neighborhood with L and B pup. I thought I could try L pup off leash, that did not work so well. He made it for maybe 5 mins at a time before doing something not so smart, like running into the road and or continually falling behind of ahead, or stopping to 'mark his neighborhood'.. seriously L pup... not necessary. I would give him a C- off leash, but on leash he was pretty good, so maybe an A. B pup however.. well, let us just say that leash training is going to take a good long while. Overall a D-. And she wanted to chase giant trucks.. so I'd make her sit and chill out for a second or two. Wow.. I do not think she would last long if Darwinian theory were the only factor in her life. 

 Missed Yoga again. Boo. 

AM: 3 on trails with pups. Don't know stats since the garmin watch was freaking out on me. This is actually the first time this type of glitch has happened. About a mile into the run, it started beeping at me and continued to cycle through power up and powder down mode. I tried the hard reset numerous times to no avail. When I got home, I plugged it in and it said 100% battery and continued to either power up/down or just beep with a blank screen with a single line across it. I got online and apparently this is a common problem and the hard reset usually does not work (the fix is to just send it back to Garmin for a replacement). I called garmin and got someone that said well, it was probably because the bezel wasn't working because it had gotten wet. Ummmm, no- it was a mile into my run on a crisp clear, COLORADO day.. e.g. there is very little humidity. I have had problems when I've run in the rain or snow melted on the watch, but this was not the problem. He insisted it was. Whatever. Then when I was on the phone with the guy, the watch just reset and came back on. (Of course, this time it said low battery.. not sure how that happened in the course of 2-3 minutes). Anyways, the guy said maybe I needed a software update and tried walking me through the steps of doing that.. thanks, but no thanks.. I can do that on my own. So- I'd say 0% helpful overall. I did the software update and did another hard reset so we'll see how that goes. 

 I have to say, I've not been all that happy with the recent garmin purchases I've made. I'm a pretty tech savvy person (work with GPS and satellite data for Earth and other planetary bodies).. so I should be able to get the software and products to function properly right? Not so much.  I bought a garmin GPS unit before leaving for field work this summer and it has been okay, but the preloaded software is unusable. Terrible- I will not even get into the details. Just don't go there. I think another real let down for the products has been the manuals and information available. It is basically non-existent. For the money you pay, I'd expect a bit more.

Mid-morning: Hatha Yoga.

Afternoon: Maya Vinyasa flow.