Truly I wanted to get outside more this week, but it was 0, I mean  ZERO degrees today. So today's run was brought to you by the movie Charade! starring Audrey Hepburn and Carey Grant.  I highly recommend it.

Negative daytime numbers are a crime against nature in these parts, even if the sun is shining brightly beconing me to go for a jaunt around the mountains in the neighborhood.  I'd hate to be found Jane Doe frozen to death having fallen on top of the deer droppings.  Yet another TM day.  I am greatful for my TM and for Netflix.

27 degrees! a victory.  I took a little jaunt up to Rock Canyon and Back and then spent the rest of the afternoon skiing really, really fast with 6th graders. I hardly even crashed except when that one kid cut right in front to finish the solomon poles before me. I'll show him next time. He'll be sorry he crossed me.

I had such a great day.  Worked 2 hours, skiied 2 hours in the fresh powder and sunshine, picked up my sister and then went to have lunch with Smooth, Josse, Marion, and Michelle.  It was so good to see everyone today, and fun to share my sis with them too.  We all have so much going on, it was nice to have a reason to catch up. It always makes me laugh a little to see everyone all dressed up  like they dress in real life.  We're so used to seeing each other half dressed, no makeup, sweaty and /or freezing noses. 

I am not very good at blogging recently and have been trying to enter just my mileage but when I only enter my mileage without including a blog entry, the entry does not appear on my blog face.  So this is my blog entry.

Ran outside.  It's not getting dark until almost 6 now. 

Today's 17 mile journey is brought to you by kidney failure, an anuerism, and hypothermia.   Oh...My.....Gosh.  The first 6+ miles were GREAT! ran to the water fountain with Jos and Ericka. We averaged 9:40's I think, but after they left I began my great lonely trek back into the Provo Canyon running against gale force winds with a windchill I am certain was in the teens.  My face and brain became so frozen on the uphill portion against the wind I felt positively comatose. I thought about little smooth with her owie knee also going it alone.  I wished I had the time to run the JRP today.  I ran  many, many  11 minute miles and at the end my average was 10:53.  I was literally hypothermic by the time I got home (I was running too slowly by the end to generate any heat).  Anyway, I did it.  I'm looking forward to the weeks getting better and better. By 2 pm I am more fully recovered after a glass of milk with ovaltine and brewer's yeast and fish oil and a long hot bath.  I stretched right before the bath and my legs were shaking like after I had a baby.  Probably a bad way to jump into the higher mileage--but now I'm patting myself on the back for getting in done and running up hill both ways. 

had to get this done so I could ski Monday.

I'm getting a cold.  I can either blame my sub-zero run on Saturday or a trip to the supermarket in which I did not wash my hands after visitng.

I haven't been sick in a while, so I guess it's due. But still.  it sucks.  I took both yesterday and today as "recovery runs" (10 m/m's).

Atlhough I ran the first and last mile really slowly (11m/m) it did me in.  My whole face and head have been pounding since yesterday.  I'm a gonner now, down for the count.  I'll be lucky if this just stays.  If it goes into my lungs, it'll be a long time.  I shouldn't have pushed the 8 miles this morning, but I think I knew I'd be forced to hiatus the rest of the week.

I came out of a coma at 4:45 after taking two advil and a hit of Flonase.  Hooray for nasal steroids.  My teeth and eye sockets have been killing me. Weird because normally the kind of cold I get goes right for the lungs.  Not to say it won't travel there later, but it has had a heyday in my face these past 3 days.  I got tired of wiping aquafore on my raw nose and whining to my kids for the millionth time how much my head hurt. My daughter rolls her eyes and tells me I'm such a baby.  I have no idea how tomorrow will go down.  I'll run as far as I can with Jos.  We'll see how it goes. But tonight after I started feeling better I took a beautiful sunset joggy walk up to the cemetary hill and down.  The dogs were elated to see me come off my deathbed. But my nose is so raw, it stings in the wind. 

I feel lucky to have had Josse and Ericka to run with.  I had to run with my ski mask to protect my face from the wind. I admit, I looked pretty rad.  Overall, I was doing ok, but had a hard time breathing. I feel 150% better than Thursday and  even better than yesterday.  I'll take it easy at home the rest of today and do my long run on Monday. I'd hoped to have 3 50 mile weeks in a row, but I didn't count on getting sick.  That means I'll  get 60+ miles next week if I stay healthy. 

Sunday I woke up to 24 inches of snow. It snowed another 12 Monday.  So I decided to run my long run Sunday night to free up Monday morning for skiing.  I ran 13.1 miles last night between 8-10 p.m.  I never run at night, and never on Sundays except vacation. But it had to be done. Got up to Sundance by 8:30 and got all the fresh stuff for 4 hours straight.  The powder was sick.  I was thrashed by noon.  Came home at 12:30 when everyone else showed up for half day and the lines got longer. MAN what a morning, that was some awesome snow, there was no wind and some sunshine.  I am still high.  These days have been few and far between this winter.

Today I ran lots of little segments around the house to test out the mileage so I could know how far things are w/o the Garmin.  When I finished up, it landed at 7.16 and I'm not even OCD enough to need to run that .04 to round that up to 7.20  I know I just made all you running freaks cringe.  9:43 AP

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/article_47037ed0-1810-52e2-afc6-fe30569dc093.html  For work, we set up a Curt Brinkman scholarship fund.  Curt of course, in the wheelchair division, won the St. George Marathon lots of times, won the Boston Marathon and several others across the crountry.  He was also Paraolympian gold medalist. Before being in a wheelchair he stood 6'7 and had dreams of becoming a pro basketball player.  When he lost his legs at 17 he was tortured by the thought of not being able to walk again.  But from that greif he summoned the will to become a true champion and world class athelete. Curt spoke at a couple of our Kidney Camps and never failed to inspire and connect to the struggles of those having to survive on dialysis and wait for a transplant. One of his best friend's brother had been a dialysis patient and later received a transplated kidney donated by the man's wife.  Since Curt died last September, we developed a scholarship fund called "Will to Win" that would be made available to any youth transplant recipient (kidney, heart, pancreas, etc).   So yesterday we had a luncheon to announce the first scholarship recipient: Ryan Proctor. I know Ryan because she singlehandly raised $600 for a Kidney Walk he had a few years ago.  The whole experience of remembering Curt, seeing his massive shoulders push that wheelchair, remembering what an affiable, positive person he was; remembering Ryan and her struggles to overcome both kidney failure (10 hours a night on dialysis) and later thyroid cancer, really gave me pause.  We are so lucky who have health, we strive for excellence or to overcome our own challenges. But I was reminded as I am so often through my work what a gift a healthy body is.  Curt and Ryan challenge us to look at what they overcome, to give us the strength to overcome whatever it is we think we can not.  It was a great day.  Curt Brinkmann was a great man.  I'm really proud to be part of the scholarship fund and give young people who have struggled to get through school through chronic illness and financial hardship, the opportunity to go to college.     

10:03 ap Today's run was hard following yesterday's 9. In addition I had at least 1 mile of 35% grade at mile 2 and mile 5. Today's weather made me remember last year trying to do speed work outs pre-Boston on those same hills up and down up and down; panicked about whether or not I could run Boston with any grace. It was the beginning of the end of last year. Running this hard in February is a crime against nature. All white people should be hibernating right now. Our genes have adapted to closing shop for the winter in order to survive our Northern European winters. Why am I running? Someone please remind me to never sign up for a Marathon before May. I like skiing more than I like Marathon training. I don't mind running and skiing, but it's training that takes up the mojo. Everyone keeps whining about this incoming storm. When will it stop? I am sick of this weather....While they whine; I am silently giddy and begin to peruse the national weather service snow reports to see how many inches are predicted.  Last week was only the second good storm we’ve had all winter.   I had a moment last weekend so beautiful and perfect it has sustained me and given me strength all the days of this week.  Here it is:  On my first lift ride up I could see the quality and quantity of the newly fallen snow (36 inches of Pow).   I rushed off the lift without slowing, and flew over top of the rim at Bishop's Bowl.  I caught a good bit of air, taking my breath away, until I landed about 10 feet from the lip.  The snow so soft and ample, the landing caught my skis in a downy embrace as I floated the rest of the way down the bowl; literally in heaven.  I spend days and weeks longing for those moments of beauty and freedom.  Without the bike trail behind my house, this has become my only connection to the outdoors I crave so much. 

Ran a quick easy 4 to dedicate the rest of the morning to 12 new inches of silky dry powder.  It was great snow, but windy and Zero visiblity.  Tomorrow I have to do 18 EIGHTEEN miles.  I'm only going to be able to get to 20-21 before DC. But it's better than nothing. I'm going to miss running with Jos and Ericka tomorrow, but there is no way I can get up as early as they need to tomorrow.  It's going to take me all day to get that 18 miles in the bank.  I hear it's going to snow some more so I may have to do half on the ground and half on the treadmill.  We'll see what happens.

The first 18 miles were run on the trail in 3 inches of fresh wet snow.  I wore my best 'traction' shoes , a pair of Mizunos, that have a hole in the heel (austensibly for shock absorption).  However that hole packed itself full again and again with fresh snow, converting my shoes into those sickening "fitness" shoes everyone is paying $40 for (the ones that look like a pair of teeter-totter wedges).  The further I ran up the canyon, the fresher and fluffier the snow became; tauning me that I was plodding and slushing along on that fresh snow, instead of gliding over the top of it on skis. The run was so slow, labored, and unenjoyable,  I ran back to the house utterly disgusted with myself.  I vaguely enjoyed the solitude of the trail, the stillness of the windless morning, the fresh whiteness of the world or the solidarity I normally would have felt with the with the few brave other runners.  I should have brought my dogs and called it a walk.  I came in the house, changed out of my soaking wet gear and  ran another 2 miles on the treadmill in my bra while crying; utterly exhausted, and dissapointed it took me 4 hours to run 20 miles.  In retrospect, it was a hard run in the snow, a lot of canyon uphill, back up hill toward the cementary, etc.  I don't know where all this negativity is coming from. But I am dissapointed with myself.