Back by unpopular demand – an account of my WSER
Be patient: I’ll try to keep it as short as possible.
A salacious “Gravity is a b*tch”, uttered by a fellow runner, greets the first, steep uphill known as the escarpment. The race only started a few minutes ago; the anticipation, the jitters and tension, the excitement and fear giving way to focusing on breathing and not going out too fast. I stay well behind: I can actually see the sweep team not far behind me. But this w
I've wandered the Red Desert of Wyoming for decades now, first shown to me by my fishing/canoeing/hunting friend Ken. His father was the state geologist for Dept of Transport and knew all the good places. The Red desert is sometimes red but more often a sagebrush green and grey. This is the Great Divide Basin, where none of the precipitation drains into any ocean, directly or indirectly. The Continental Divide runs through the middle of the basin, which seems odd. Though it's a desert there is a
The last several years me and runners from our running group have been running Gilda's 5K which starts and finishes at the local High School. One of our group runner's employer was a sponsor the race, but they stopped being the sponsor and there was only a few people of our group running this year. But the race is for a good cause and gives me chance to test my speed.
My training this year has been pretty casual; earlier in the year I had bursitis in my foot and didn't run much. After
I’m having a hard time figuring out how to write this RR. I didn’t blog any training details beforehand.
Last year I did this exact race for my first 70.3. I trained well-ish. It was my first real foray into open water swimming. Turns out I’m a pretty okay swimmer. I spent a lot of time on the bike and got consistent with hitting 17-18 mph. Somewhere along the way I hurt my achilles/heel while running. I ran the race with an injured achilles and managed a 7th place in my AG while injured. 6
442 miles on the bike in August. Did long rides of 20, 30, 40 and 50 miles. 50 felt like it was enough. Don't know if I'll go farther than that, unless someone dares me or challenges me. I can never resist either of those. Except for doing a triathlon. Or bungy jumping.
As for running, I did all the simple exercises I found. Most of them I've done before from time to time. This time I was much more consistent. Wasn't until the end of 4 weeks that I stopped feeling the pain in the IT band an
Because it's done.
Met with the superstar marathoner guy as scheduled. Thought about editing the last entry to update. Then thought about adding another post about how it went. Considered saying a final goodbye to the Loop. Finally decided I needed more time to process things before I could put anything down.
Anyway, here we go.
The visit was a total disappointment. I won't say he just blew me off, but he sort of just blew me off. The basic message was, "You'll old now and have to
Yikes! Another two weeks slipping by without my noticing.
With some limited progress, and today I have the long anticipated appointment with the marathon running doctor. As time goes by, everything seems to be getting SLOWLY better anyway, so I'm now worried that there won't be enough pain for him to help me.
Two weeks ago I ran 2 miles twice.
Last week I ran 2 miles on Friday and 4 miles on Saturday. At 2-1/2 miles, I was able to feel the spot in the ITBand twinge a little. Made
I think it’s week 6. Or maybe week 5. Whatever week it is, the 5k is this Saturday and I have been diligently telling my husband that I am not running a marathon this weekend. There is a BIG difference between a 5k and a marathon. Please don’t be telling people that your wife and child are running a marathon this weekend. My body is definitely not marathon ready.
Last weekend we took 2nd place in the PHRF II fleet at the Whidbey Summer Classic Regatta. WSCR, pronounced “Whisker” bec
very late, race report..
In the old days (early 2000s) it used to take me 2 hours to get to the race site down in Pueblo CO. This year it took 1h 20min ? Well I'm getting faster at something anyway. The 2004 Ford Sport Trac is apparently quicker than the old 1990 Geo Metro used to be.
It's on the CSU campus, nice and quiet, up on a hill with a view across the plain to the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The hill is good for views, not so wonderful for running or biking back up at the end of e
I ran the Ragnar Michigan Trail Relay a couple of weeks ago; June 24-25 at the Hanson's Recreation Area near Grayling, Michigan. Things did not go as smoothly as we wished leading up to the relay as Kevin our captain had to drop out, and another runner had to drop out a few days before the relay due to an injury, Normally a Ragnar Trail relay team consists of 8 runners. Fortunately we were able to recruit another 2 runners; one from a Ragnar Michigan Facebook page and another that was frie
Week 4
The fever returned last weekend so I spent the fourth away from everyone not exactly feeling sick and also not feeling too good. When the fever continued to linger, I rested and hoped that it would go away. No pain or other symptoms apart from a headache. The teens had the long fourth of July weekend with their dad and when they returned, Mookie didn’t run either.
I had a lot of time to think last week about why I hadn’t lost a blasted inch or pound in the first three weeks of
Missed that week, however that happened.
Ran again this week (Wednesday) for two miles. Biked after for 8. Total about an hour of work. The bike kept the ITB/hip/etc. nice and loose. No residual tightness or pain. I may be onto something here. Always scoffed at the pro football/basketball players who pedaled on a stationary bike on the sidelines/bench while they waited to get back into the game. I'll stop scoffing now and will be combining this run/ride thing from here on out. At least when
Monday
I woke with what I thought was the beginnings of a migraine. At the end of the day, I thought to take my temperature and surprise surprise, was running a fever.
Needless to say, the headache was enough to keep me from my scheduled Monday run.
Tuesday,
The headache was gone, but replaced with some fun aches in my hands. Still running a fever, I took a COVID test. The last one in our house. It was inconclusive. These things are like pregnancy tests that use boogers in
I have to look at my last entry every time to make sure I get the week number right. That's not because I'm old is it?
Spent most of last week walking through the woods with 150 teenagers for a church youth conference. Done this before, doing a fairly lax re-enactment of what's know as the handcart pioneer trek. In 1856-60, Brigham Young came up with a brilliant plan to have several thousand of the poorest converts to the LDS faith from Europe (mostly England and Denmark) just walk to Utah
I didn't expect this to happen.
Maybe I hoped a little, but I didn't think it was possible.
Maybe it was just a fluke.
Today, only two weeks and exactly 5 runs into this training for my first 5k in overtwo years, the 40 yo Mom outran the teen.
We are still doing intervals of running and walking, but we are going for 20 minutes this week and running 2 blocks with a recovery of one block walking.
About ten minutes in, Mookie stopped running two blocks. My legs were feeling
I'm going to keep calling a comeback until I get officially shut down. Decision on that may not come until July or August.
First will be the new PT group, referred by both my PCP and the urologist. When I mentioned to the latter doc about my side/rib/gut pain, she thought it sounded more muscular than internal organ related, so threw in the PT consult. Then when I saw the PCP to follow up my insulin resistance (I'm protesting by not calling it "diabetes" since I'm producing plenty of insuli
This past weekend, I went to Wisconsin to pace a friend for the last 38 miles of a hundred mile race. I was concerned that he would not be able to finish because he had just completed a 150 mile event two weeks prior. He did not make the cutoff time, in order to be allowed to finish, so the only running I got to do was the 5 or 6 miles I ran when I went out to find him. Also, I had run a little over two miles earlier in the day just to make sure I ran some. I've been running more miles recent
May 2022 in review!
Total mileage for the month: 340.6
May 2-8: 81.5
May 9-15: 80.5
May 16-22: 75.5
May 23-29: 75.7
May 30-June 4: projected at 75
#marvelousmay
Races:
May 21: Bill Snyder Highway Half in 1:30:40 for 1st masters female, 5th OAF, and a wonderful mini-racecation. The situation wa
Two weeks between entries. You know what that means. Either:
1) Been running so much there's been no time to post.
B) The last test run was so terrible that I've been too bummed to try putting anything into words.
Yeah, so I went out for another couple. This time (Tuesday of last week - my new plan was to go Tue-Thu-Sat), it hurt so bad I decided to wait longer before trying again. Since there are times when it hurts walking up stairs or lifting, I'll wait at least until those are
It was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, the day before the Bayshore Races in Traverse City, MI where I had registered to run the half marathon. The Bayshore Races have been deferred (or virtual) for the last two years due to COVID, several running friends and I were looking forward to running it in person this year. Unfortunately, I had injured my foot earlier in the year and had only two solid weeks of running at 25 mi/week, averaging 9-10 minute miles.
My niece had invited my wife an
2 miles. Maybe 4.
My plan is to go out for a couple today, making it 2 runs for the week.
Two doctor appointments on Thursday this week.
First was the follow up with the ortho on this ITB/hip thing, since PT was a bust for the most part. Not that I don't appreciate the work and human contact. Built some glute strength. But he never did address the root cause and that's disappointing. The ITB is all knotted up, which is putting downward pressure on the hip, which in turn is stressi
Another week, another ....
Nothing, really. Had final PT session on Monday and have an appointment with the ortho on Thursday coming up. Really hope he doesn't want to talk about my hip.
IT'S NOT THE HIP!
OK, I feel better now. Emotionally anyway.
Also have an appointment (at Mrs. Dave's insistence) with a GI doc on Thursday. This is part of our quest to get to the bottom of this diabetes mystery. There are two possible outcomes from this line of inquiry. Either a) they find
Another week of zero progress.
Plenty of strength work. Pushing a weighted sled, resistance bands, bridges, lunges. Hip flexibility stuff. PT says he's impressed with how much strength I have for someone my age. 🤣 The last two sessions he's had me run a little. Just up and down the indoor field. Felt a little pain where the ITB attaches to the rear of the hip. If I knew that's all it would do I'd keep running. But it gets progressively worse and hurts more later as things cool. He is ready
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