Holy Crap! A Race (report in 3 parts)...Pt. 1: Discovery.

Wow, so it's been a long time since I put keyboard to screen in this manner, hopefully I'm not too rusty.

First, a bit of an apology for dropping off there.  A number of things happened that made writing more than a little difficult (and perhaps too personal) so I took a break.  I don't know how much or how consistently I'll post here in the future, but having just run in my first race since 2011, I figure I probably ought to put something down.

As anyone who's read more than one entry on this blog is likely aware I like to style myself an ultrarunner.  Of course, I've run all of 2 ultramarathons, so it's probably more appropriate to call me an aspiring ultrarunner.

This year I've been hoping I'd be able to get to Colorado this coming weekend to run in Ouray and follow that up with 50 miles in Steamboat next weekend.  I've logged miles directed at Running Rabbit Running in what I thought would be good for a finish time somewhat under the 10 hour mark.

As the race dates have gotten closer though, I've realized that the airfare wasn't going to materialize and I decided to pay attention to an injury (achilles tendon) that I'd been ignoring.  So on August 16, I took the first of 10 days off.

Around that same time I gripped about my achilles on Twitter.  @RunnerMatt (fast guy from Boulder), responded that he'd had great success treating his ailing achilles using a roller.  I gave that a google and found myself a bit confused as to why I'd never encountered the treatment in my previous searches for relief.

I went to the grocery store and bought a rolling pin and went to work on my calfs.

Let's just call them tight and leave it at that (ouch)...

After a week off which involved nightly rolling pin work, I felt good enough to try out a short run.  I made it all of 100 meters from my gate before stopping, turning around, walking home and going to work with the rolling pin.  That was Friday about 2 weeks ago.

The following Sunday, Deneb, Nataly and I were at the IC Norte (a grocery store with a little mall attached) for lunch and some supplies for the house.  Recently a New Balance store opened upstairs in the "mall". Now...I prefer Brooks shoes, but NB are a decent second place and I've written at length about the MT10 on this very blog.  Love that shoe.  Anyway, since they opened I've harassed the store owner to:

1. Order shoes in size 13+, and
2. Stock some of the Minimus line.

This time when we went in there, there was a table set up on the side:

Sign up for 5k & 10k race on Sunday, Sep. 1.  

The woman who was collecting the entry fees and registering participants was on lunch and I wasn't sure how my heel would feel so I didn't leave my name on the desk, but did say I'd be back later on in the week (pending a successful test of the achilles)...

Thanks for reading, up next: 1 week of specific training.
J

Week in review: July 25-July 31

Last week was a recovery week during which I suffered a minor injury.  I'm not going to get into the gory details of the training like my usual WIR posts, but I do want to write about 2 workouts, and the consequences of the little bruise.

The week was scheduled:  Day off, recovery run, recovery run, form work, threshold time trial, whatever in Cuevas, whatever in Cuevas.  It went:  Day off, recovery run, recovery run, form work, threshold time trial (DNF), run really fast from Samaipata to Cuevas, day off.  Guess which workouts I'm going to write about...

Friday I had scheduled a "Threshold Time Trial".  Perhaps you're wondering what that is.  Threshold is really Lactate Threshold - the point at which blood lactate is flushed from your muscles at the same rate it's created by your energy system.  Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR) is the key to all of my training.  It sets my heart rate zones and guides my future workouts.  A DNF in this workout isn't particularly desirable, but does still yield some interesting information.

Anyway, I had a 1 hour 15 minute block of time set aside for warm up, TT and cool down.  It was freaking windy out, I checked out the weather before I set out and saw that the wind was blowing from the north at 50 km/h and gusting to 80.  That's 30 mph with gusts to 50 for the metrically impaired.  I tweeted it'd be a fun run.

My warmup was 3 of my high cadence form drills spaced 5 minutes apart.  At 20 minutes into my run, I hit the lap button on my Garmin and took off.  I was running in the low 6's and my heart rate was surprisingly low.  The way this test is structured, you run essentially as hard as you can for 30 minutes.  At the end of the first 10 minutes of the test, hit the lap button on your heart rate monitor, and your LTHR will be approximated by the average heart rate of the final 20 minutes of the test.

By the end of the first 10 minutes of my effort my heart rate was still off from what I was expecting to see and I was starting to feel like I wasn't getting enough air (I still have some of that goop in my chest from a couple of weeks back).  I was being pushed along by that wind and faced with the prospect of turning around and running back into it.  Less than 5 minutes after hitting my 10 minute lap, I wimped out.

What did I learn from this workout?  I expect I may have overestimated my LTHR previously and have since adjusted it down 3 bpm.  We'll see how that effects my recovery during the week.  I also have a lot to say on the wind.  I mentioned before, there'll be a pretty lengthy nerd post on the wind in the not too distant future.

The other workout was a run from Samaipata to Cuevas.  I didn't bring my camera.  I did it after lunch.  It was downhill.  It was pretty darn quick.  There were 2 chased by dog incidents.

 For the first 4 miles or so I thought I'd run the 20+ km in under an hour and 30 minutes.  Unfortunately somewhere around mile 4, the perfectly sized rock impacted the underside of my heel very hard.  It hurt like a son of a bitch.

I limped along at a decent clip for a while, but quickly started developing a hot spot (which turned into a blister).  This here is one of the arguments against going minimal.  I did this run in my VFF Trek Sport shoes.  Had I been wearing normal road running shoes, I wouldn't have bruised my heel and likely wouldn't have had the weird stride change that resulted in the blister.

I ended up taking Sunday off because of the pain in my left heel and right calf which I assume took on a lot of the load once I switched from running to very fast limp.  Anyway, even though I suffered that injury pretty early on in the run, I still finished the 12.77 mile on a half marathon PR pace, and it wasn't any near race effort.

Oh well, the pain in my heel is almost gone and I was able to get a really good effort in yesterday.  In fact I think the day off really aided my recovery and will likely incorporate the bookend days off into my future recovery weeks (Monday and Sunday - off).

About the dogs, one of them I thought was going to attack for sure.  It was a giant.  I have no idea what kind of dog it was, but if that sucker tripped me, I think I may have been a goner.  Scared me enough that I may never actually do that run again.  We'll see.  I'm looking into pepper spray and/or a whip.

Thanks for reading, and don't be food.
J

P.S.
If you make it all the way through this post, please leave a comment so that I may commend your fortitude.
j

Run: Bermejo to Cuevas.

First off I'll start with a map.

In Google Earth, Bermejo is actually labeled Ceuvas.  Not quite right, but interesting.

Bermejo is a pretty little town in the foothills.  There's a restaurant there - Restaurante Oriental.  Nataly says it's been there since she was a little girl. We stopped there for lunch.  We ate outside, but inside there was a little girl who Deneb was flirting with.

I had milanesa - meat pounded flat, battered and fried - rice and some tomato.  Nataly and Deneb shared some chicken from the oven and Dad ate some milanesa too.  There was also some fairly disgusting juice at the table, but I don't think we finished it.

After I scarfed my plate, I went to change into my running clothes.  I'd used the head earlier and there was no way I was going to drop tro' in there so I just did it next to the street.  That usually wouldn't even warrant a mention, but in Bolivia, that's not something people are particularly used to seeing.  I was able to complete my wardrobe change without unduly shocking the locals and I headed out for my run.

I ran on the road facing traffic.  No headphones.  Anyone who's experienced the life of a pedestrian in Bolivia would think twice about crossing the street wearing headphones let alone go running on a twisty mountain road with them.  Only one time was I shocked by how close a truck came to hitting me and it wasn't even really that close.

No headphones didn't mean no tunes though.  I clipped my phone to my Camelbak and listened to the new Thievery Corp album and then The Unraveling by Rise Against through the built in speaker.  I actually prefer listening to music that way - I'm not a huge fan of stuffing crap into my ears.

The first 6 miles or so of the run are done in a pretty gorge, which eventually the road climbs out of and you get some pretty spectacular views.

This was the first run where I had real interaction with the people with whom I was sharing the road.  One truck driver in particular hauling a tandem load of something heavy and I played leap frog.  He initially passed me on the way out of Bermejo and gave me a bit of a look, but it wasn't, "Dude, get the hell off of my road!" it was more, "Huh, check that guy out..."

About 15 minutes later, I passed him pulled off the side of the road taking a bit of a breather.  We exchanged pleasantries and I continued on my way.

Finally as I was dropping the last 5 km or so into Cuevas, the trucker passed me again.  We waved, he shook his head and that was that.  Many other folks gave me a thumbs up as they went by and generally seemed impressed I was out there.

Anyway, as I mentioned yesterday, this run climbed for something like 15 km before dropping the final 6 into Cuevas.  That makes this a very good road for tempo work or intervals too.  The climbing is gradual enough and pretty steady.  I'll absolutely be running this again - perhaps even regularly.

Thanks for reading and consider smiling at passers by, they might smile back.
J

Diet.

One thing about living in Bolivia is the diet.  Lunch always consists of some sort of major production; it consists of meat, multiple starches and vegetables with lots of fried stuff.  For some reason, Nataly requires that our house hold to this tradition of dinner for lunch.  I'd prefer sandwiches and were it not for our assistant Mary, I'd require them.

Anyway, I bring this up at least in part because of a chart linked to by Scott Jurek about the carbon footprint of food (here's a link to the pdf).  This past weekend, Nataly complained about the amount of meat we were eating, lunch and dinner, 2 big meals with different kinds of meat - chicken then pork, beef then sausage, hamburger then chicken...

I didn't disagree with her.  That put me to cooking other stuff for dinner. Three nights in a row we ate pasta with a variety of vegetable based toppings.  Last night I switched things up a bit and made a quinoa and lentil stew kind of thing.  I'd never made quinoa before and googled around a bit for what to do with it.  Turns out it's a native South American seed with a good nutritional profile.

It's hard to say precisely what I did, I cooked the lentils and quinoa together and them brought them together with the "stewed" ingredients.  Then added things (salt, honey, vinegar, cheese) until I liked the taste.  Turned out pretty good.

I'll be making more quinoa dishes that's for sure and the meatless nights experiment is going to continue that's for sure.

Yesterday, I'd planned a 1 hour and 15 minute long run, but ditched it because of crap in my chest and rainy cold weather.  I'd've gone running were it not for the rain or crud, but the combination forced me to respect the possibilities.

Thanks for reading, and breathe free.
J

Road to Bella Vista - deserving of it's own post...

My weekend in running.

As I noted in my last post my running had been a bit odd on the week.  Not so this past weekend.  In fact, it was downright spectacular.

Looking toward the road from the cabin.

Saturday got off to a slow start.  Nataly and I have been having some work done on the fence around the house and we had to settle up with the guy who completed the work for us.  I was unsure whether or not to knock out my run in the morning, or wait until we left and do it up in Cuevas.  I decided to wait.

For the sake of my blood pressure, that was the wrong decision, but for the sake of the run it was correct.

The guy whom we were supposed to pay at 12:00 didn't show until almost 1.  Then, when we got out onto the road, our assistant Mary called to say we'd forgotten Boo, Deneb's precious dog without which there would be no sleep.  We stopped for some chicken.  Eventually we started toward Cuevas somewhere after 2:30.  Me getting a run in was looking doubtful.

We had no difficulties on the road and eventually pulled up to the cabin around 4:30.  With Hugo's help, I had the car emptied quickly and I was changed into my running clothes (without Hugo's help) and ready to go.  I hit start on my GPS at 4:41 PM for my 1 hour 15 minute run.

Beautiful Green Mountains.

My schedule called for a run with a variety of options.  Had I done it in La Guardia, it'd've been form work, instead it was hills (strength training for runners).  This weekend I actually did 2 runs on the same road, the road to Bella Vista (you can see the GPS tracks here and here).

By the time I'd finish Saturday's run, it'd be getting pretty dark, but no headlamp would be needed.  The thing that was remarkable about my workout Saturday was that I was cruising.  Felt effortless.  Climbing was easy, descending was smooth.

Gearing wise, I was sockless in my VFF Trek Sports, with my Garmin and nothing else.  As far as effort went, when I do "running strength" workouts I use a heart rate ceiling:  No higher than Zone 4.  That still gives plenty of horses to push it on the climbs and I worked on form on the descents - bent knees, high turnover rate, forefoot strike etc, etc.

Typical scene, lots of veg.

Distance wise, this run was nearly identical to a run I took a couple of weeks ago when I went to Cuevas by myself, but temporally, it was five minutes faster.  I worked harder on Saturday's effort, but only marginally - average HR was 2 beats per minute higher.  Anyway, Saturday's run covered 8.5 miles and had an elevation gain of 1250 feet and finished with a "Hot Damn! That was freaking fantastic."  A workout like Saturday's is the reward for the days when one just doesn't care to get out, but does anyway.

Sunday, well that was another kettle of fish entirely.  I didn't really care to get out, but it was my long run - the most important of the week.  It was raining, then it wasn't, then it was pouring.

Nataly thought it would clear, and when I left, I thought she might be right, but within 15 minutes of leaving it has started misting and for the rest of my workout, something would be making me wet either from above or below.

The road which Saturday had been dry with sure footing was now slick and muddy.  For the most part the traction was fine, but there were parts of the road where the mud was downright treacherous.  Toward the top of the final climb before I turned around, I felt like I was sliding backward 3 steps for every 4 I was taking forward.  Then on the descent, because I'm essentially a wimp when it comes to injuries, I proceeded with extreme caution.  My timing for yesterday's workout was a bit off - whatever.  It's possible that I can blame my shoes for my difficulties in the mud, yesterday I went with the NB Minimus, but I'd be shocked if my VFFs would do much better.

Friend along the way.

One of the great joys of running in Bolivia is that darn near everywhere you get to share the road with livestock.  Sometimes they manifest themselves in the form of demon sheep, but most of the time I'm running in close proximity to herds of cattle.  The road to Bella Vista has lots of cows along it's length, as well as a horse or two.

The cows themselves aren't really much of a worry, it's their residue that I'm not a huge fan of.  Yesterday in the rain, well - yuck.

Anyway, I'm really starting to like using this road as one of my main training routes.  Even though when it's wet the mud and cow effluent make it less than a jungle paradise, the route has a bunch to offer.  Yesterday at my turnaround point I seemed to be almost to a spectacular vista, but I was so sick of sliding around in the muck I decided I'd get there another day.

Not single track.

Given the weather yesterday and timing of my run on Saturday, these pictures were obviously not taken this weekend.  In fact they were taken back in May.  The photo to my left was taken at just about the mid point of my run on Saturday.

Today I'm pretty darn sore - calves, quads, glutes, abs, lower back....  I don't do a boatload of climbing here in La Guardia and so this was my first real up and down weekend as it were.  I ended up with nearly 3500 feet of climbing over 23 miles.  Not a bad couple of outings at all.

Anyway, thanks for reading and watch where you step.
J

Cabin, sweet cabin.

On the cold.

A masonry heater my brother  and his ex built.
Want cheap heat?  Got a spare $30,000?

Well, it's really not all that cold.  Outside it's 51 degrees.  The problem is the house isn't heated.  So, it's 51 degrees inside too.  That might be fine as far as my brother is concerned, but you know what:  I like it warmer in the house.

Speaking of my brother.  Several years ago he ripped out his furnace and installed something called a masonry heater.  For a year that was the only source of heat in his house, but he ended up deciding a wood stove for supplemental heat would be nice.  He was proud when the temp in his house was above freezing that first winter.  I guess I'm just a wimp...

While my brother and I may be at odds regarding what constitutes comfortable temperatures indoors, a masonry heater would be the perfect addition to our house.  Essentially it's a big pile of bricks which get heated by a wood fire once or twice a day, trap the heat in a series of semi-complex channels and slowly radiate the heat throughout the day.  A person ends up burning about 3 armloads of wood for 24 hours of supplemental heat.

Enough whining about the cold indoor temps, if it's not raining - this is perfect running weather.  Yesterday form work.  1.5 hours with high knees, butt kicks and "spin ups".  I went out in a short sleeve shirt and shorts and my wife warned me about the cold.  It was perfect.  Oh well.  Two and a half more hours today and tomorrow is a rest day.

Thanks for reading and be safe out there.
J

Cuevas.

Not sure what to say in this post.  Gotta get something down, but what it is...?

Cuevas is the reason I agreed to move to Bolivia.  It's spectacularly beautiful and now it's my job.  This past weekend I went up there by myself to visit with the caretakers, Vilma and Hugo.  Without their help, Cuevas would just be another beautiful curve in the road, with it Cuevas pretty much takes care of itself.

Hugo has said he wants to show me how to get on the highest peaks.  That'll be great: now to make the time.  It's my hope that after a few months of regular running and exploration with Hugo, I'll be able to take people on guided treks (or runs - anybody want to come with?).  English exclusively (or butchered Spanish I suppose).


The pictures attached to this post are from my run yesterday.  The road was quite muddy and probably wouldn't have been too terribly much fun to trek for prospective tourists, but the scenery wasn't very much diminished.

At no point would I say I was terribly "in" to this run.

I decided to try out some new/old gear for this one to see if it would serve for my longer runs when the weather gets hot(ter?).  It was an older version of the GoLite Hydro Cruise pack.

I have a GoLite Slant which I like very much, but this thing, while nice for the greater water capacity and day hiking, is an absolute no go for running.  Damn thing bounced around for my entire 2 hour run and I just couldn't stop fiddling with it.  Very distracting and now I have some chafing I have to attend to. CamelPack it is for my long runs this coming summer.

Anyway my run yesterday took me down a road toward "Palermo".  As near as I can tell Palermo is a town not on the map.  It certainly isn't on Google Earth, though you can make out the road.  Check it out:


If you click over to Garmin's site, you can also see the file from my run on Saturday.  I didn't take any pictures because I got out late and it was getting dark, I've done this run before and I've got some pics, but don't really want to look around for them - sorry.

Thanks for reading and be safe out there.
J

Knee Wha...

This post was supposed to be the culmination of my On injuries and running barefoot post, but as luck would have it, I've got something else to write about instead.

So for the last several weeks I've had a "Goth" toe.  It had gotten to the point to where I'd named it Marilyn.  Black toenails are something I'm familiar with, but this one, well, it is different.

I'm not sure when it first developed, but at some point a couple of weeks ago I noticed dried blood caked around the pinky toenail on my right foot.  I told Nataly that I thought I had a worm living under there and she just scoffed.

I kept running thinking it was just a new manifestation of the black toenail syndrome all runners eventually suffer from if they log enough mileage.  Then the toe started to hurt.

I asked Nataly to look at it several times, but she didn't think much of it.  Black toenail.

Finally this weekend, with some good light she looked at it and declared, "I think I know what this is: 'Knee Wha'."  Cool, I have no idea how to spell that!

Supposedly it's a relative of the tick.  It finds callouses and burrows into them, then lays it's eggs.  This particular one chose my pinky toe.  Sweet!

Nataly spent the better part of an hour and a half last night with a needle picking and squeezing at my toe until no more eggs squirted out and more than half of my callous was removed.

Pretty hideous I know.

Running wise.  Last week I ran 10.5 miles on Thursday to La Guardia, Friday I ran laps of my back yard while Deneb slept (1 hour) and Saturday I got 1.5 hours in the hills behind Cuevas.  That "run" totalled all of 4 miles, but I was completely wasted yesterday - sore and dehydrated.  Ended up flaking on my scheduled workout.

I have an off day scheduled today, and given the gaping hole in my toe.  I expect I'll be taking it.  Tomorrow 1 hour and 15 minutes are on the schedule.  Base 1 week 1 is commencing.

Apologies and thanks for reading,
J

Overcast and kind of cool.

Got out for an hour today even though I woke with a hacking cough.  It faded as the morning went on and is most likely a lingering effect from the party on Saturday - there was lots of smoke in the air.

One thing which is really remarkable here is how people react to the cooler weather.  As the post title notes, it's overcast and kind of cool, really rather pleasant actually, but the way folks complain about the cold you'd think we're in the dead of winter close to one of the poles.  I just don't get that.  To me, this weather doesn't even warrant a long sleeve shirt and shorts are fine.  Doing the math, it turns out it's actually 71 degrees outside.  Not cold at all, but people are wearing jackets and hats.  When high summer comes I can see I'm going to be miserable.  Oh well.

There was a weird odor outside while I was running.  Sort of like a wet dog.  Not entirely unpleasant, but not real enjoyable either. It was a familiar smell, but I couldn't place it and I'm probably glad I didn't.

Anyway my run was really pretty uneventful.  Lots of sand.  I went 6.75 miles in 1 hour with an average heart rate of 157 beats per minute.  Pretty laid back.
Thanks for reading.
J

Mmmmm...Pizza.

...Author's note, this first section was written yesterday on my phone and I don't care to change the date references and such...

This here was arguably the best pizza I've ever made.  Dinner last night, couldn't help but gloat.

I'm currently stuck in Santa Cruz awaiting the magic hour of 2:30 at which time I'll be able to pick up a piece of paper which I needed renewed. Then I'll go wait in another line and hopefully, finally get my residency paperwork finished and off to La Paz.

My run today is a sacrifice to the gods of bureaucracy.  Yesterday though I got a number of running things done.  One thing I've never done is to really work on my form. So I Googled about and found some form drills for barefoot runners. The first link had a bunch of good stuff which isn't terribly surprising considering the author.  While I'm not a fan of his shoes, I am a fan of his philosophy...

The drills consist of things like running in place with a focus on high cadence or knee lift,  butt kicks and jumping rope.  So I spent quite some time chasing and/or being chased by Deneb around the house all the while doing these silly drills (except the rope jumping). He thought it a good time.

I also set up a track consisting of thirty bricks in an oval which I then proceeded to do laps around barefoot. I had thought Deneb would dig this too, but I was mistaken, he rather quickly decided I was working in the (author's note - end of stuff written yesterday) yard and complained "No Ayu-u-da"...

Speed work done, I put on my vffs and got out and ran another 5.5 miles slowly while I thought about picking up my foot rather than pushing off with it.  I actually got in a mile more than I had anticipated because, even though I was tired from the previous 2 days efforts, it just felt good to be running.  I didn't really want to stop.

This photo was taken about 2.5 miles into my run, and the one below is at about mile 3.

Much of my running here is on sandy dirt roads.  Depending on what the weather has been like, the sand can be pretty deep.  Makes for an interesting workout.

Yesterday (really), I finally got my paperwork approved and off to La Paz.  In 3 weeks I'll have a sticker which says I can stay in Bolivia unmolested for a full year.  I was done with that finally around 6PM.  When I called Nataly to hopefully have her pick me up, instead she said, "I've got a few more things to do could you come over here?"

I ran.

Pretty nice spectacle too.  Tan dress slacks, blue cotton button down short sleeve wide open, dress shoes.  More than one person actually laughed at me.  Whatever.  I got 31 minutes running on a day I thought a run would be sacrificed to the gods of bureaucracy - should that be the name of a band?

thanks for reading

J

Holy Customer Service Batman!

A bit of background.  Brandon penned this piece about the Minimus and he tipped me over the edge from wanting to lusting.  I've been wanting a shoe with a bit more to it than the 4 pairs of VFF's I've been rocking since January for my longer runs.  But, I didn't want to go all the way back to my Cascadias.

Go CU!

Before I left for Bolivia in January I was on something of a quest for the New Balance MT101, but nowhere did I find a size 14.  I ordered a pair through a local store, but when they finally came in, I had other things I had to do with my money.  I knew this shoe was coming out but hadn't parsed the timing of it's release properly.

Once I started seeing chatter about the shoe, I realized that I could possibly have a pair brought down to me when my Mom comes to visit at the end of this month.  I couldn't take it anymore and pulled the trigger on the unnecessary expense last Thursday when I also bought some gear for the kitchen (also coming in my Mom's luggage).

The scale shipped on Friday (the same day I expected the shoes to ship), but come Monday I hadn't gotten a shipping advice, so I penned this note to New Balance Customer Service - online:

Subject: Customer Care - Help with My Order

I'm curious if my order:
6251856
Has shipped or will ship prior to the 23rd of March.
I am having the shoes brought to Bolivia by someone who is coming to visit me.  They leave on the 30th of March.
Thanks.

Yesterday I got a shipping advice and I thought, "Ok, that works.  It'll be close, but the shoes should arrive in VT before Mom leaves on the 31st."  Later in the day, I looked at my phone and saw this reply to my note in my inbox:

Dear Jay,

The shoes are shipping today, 03-22-11, with a scheduled delivery for tomorrow, 03-23-11.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to send us another e-mail.  Have a nice day, Jay.


Joe S.
Customer Care

That's just remarkable.  The shoes will arrive today in Vermont alongside of the scale.  Seriously above and beyond - and via a web contact form too.  Thanks New Balance.

Thanks for reading,
Jay

Quick note while the muse is with me...

Today I knocked out a pretty excellent 7 miles (11.27 Km).  I've figured out a loop which is about 2.45 miles long on relatively quiet roads (it's hard to call anything quiet here though).  3 laps and a brief out and back got me to just about an hour.

I'm starting to feel like I can add more days to my schedule.  I've been really focused on staying relaxed while running and taking short but quick strides.  My (Ache)illes is feeling better for the most part.  The last time I ran I felt some pain in my right plantar tendon, but that didn't bother me today.  I did gimp around a bit post run, but simple movement afterwards loosened everything up.

In a couple of weeks my wife and I will be moving out to where we will be spending the next few years.  I'm starting to get excited about the prospect of living out there.

View Property @ Km 14.kml in a larger map - let me know if this sucker doesn't show up well.  
For some reason, Google earth is sweet here, but Maps sucks.


Explore around a bit and maybe you mightwant to come visit - shoot me a note on the Twitter or the FB and I can email you a Google Earth Kml file for you to check out the surroundings.

All are welcome, we'll be living in a 4 bedroom (allocated as: 2 bedrooms, 1 guest room/office, 1 tv room) house.  Grapefruits are just about ripe.  We will soon have more avocados than is humanly possible to eat.  We are actually going to cut down 1 of the 3 mango trees and there are tangerine trees and one bitter orange. That one, I can't wait to use for marinades...

Alrighty then.
Thanks for reading, I'm still working on another "Retrospect piece" but it's being tough to get time to write during the day...
Jay

Freaking Bolivia.

Today I went to Interpol to get some silly piece of paper to prove I am no criminal.  We stopped along the way to pick up the last few pieces of paper I needed from one of Nataly's cousins and headed over to the police headquarters where Interpol is headquartered. I was reasonably confident that all of the ducks were in a row and then...

"Sorry we won't take your money - you're wearing shorts."

Huh?!

Last I checked it's 30C (cloudy) - which is something like 88 degrees - with 75% humidity.  It's not enough that they're rationing sugar for some shady government purpose, they force you to wear inhumanly uncomfortable clothes in brutal conditions.  Ugh.

Almost outta here...

That post title sounds a bit cavalier, but not sure what else to put up there for this one.

In less than a week I'm going to be driving out of Colorado and not coming back for the foreseeable future.  I've got incredibly mixed emotions with regard to the undertaking, but the winds of change have been blowing hard the past year and a half.

I have a fantastic job and a really quality boss, but over the last couple of years my productivity has diminished to the point where if I am not actively repairing a computer, solving a network problem or wiping a virus, it's hard to notice that I'm doing anything at all.  In short, I'm tired of what I've been doing for the better part of the last decade and it shows.  Throw on top of that the potential for my wife's career to blossom into something truly meaningful, and a decision is almost made.  The final clincher was the opportunity to be a stay at home dad to my (less than 2 year old) son in a distant warm place (Bolivia)...

Homey is moving with us and is excited to report that he will eventually be moving into a house that has both a Mango Tree and an Avacado Tree in an honest to goodness back yard.  The house is on a dirt road on the periphery of Santa Cruz where I expect we'll be running together quite a bit.

In fact, I've made it a goal to log at minimum 365 runs of at least 30 minutes in 2011.  There will have to be 2-a-days in there to reach that goal, but my hope is that Homey will accompany me on 90% of my efforts (anything less than 2.5 hours for sure).  At one point in time he could knock out 15 miles in the mountains without problem, I hope to see him back in that kind of shape (besides he'll help with Jaguars)...

Since mid-October I've been quite the slacker.  I went for a Thanksgiving day run of almost 12 miles in Vermont, but that was my most significant mileage in the better part of 3 months.  I could make excuses, but if you read Brandon's Blog, I'd come off like a little whiner.  With that hip, finishing Leadville is quite remarkable.  Anyway the truth is:  I was enjoying time down, working on upper body strength 12 oz at a time.

I've started getting back into the swing of things running wise.  Jackson and I have gotten out for runs each of the last 3 days and today I went on what perhaps was my last trail run in Colorado for the foreseeable future.  Homey and I hit the first trail we ran together - Rabbit Mountain.  The trail is a lariat, with magnificent views both North toward Fort Collins and South toward Boulder.  If the trail is dry, it's horribly rocky and not suitable for (me anyway) minimal gear, but with snow on the trail it smoothed out enough that the Treks were in effect.  We actually knocked out the loop in just over 40 minutes which is my second fastest time out there - That's with snow and me not caring about the timing.  Even with a bunch of 12 oz curls in the last several months, I made some real progress on my fitness this year...

Given my impending exodus, it's hard to know what I'll do race-wise this year.  I will train to run a virtual Boston Marathon in April, and then make a decision about coming back to Colorado for the Steamboat 50 in September: is it realistic?  is it financially feasible?  would it be possible to convince family that visiting Colorado in September is a good idea?  Lots of stuff...

Anyway.  I've been dark over here for a bit, but expect that the next few months will provide more than a few things to write about.  I hope that I have the time to scratch some stuff out.
Thanks for reading,
J