I have some very exciting news to share. I wasn’t going to say anything about it for a while, but I really need to hear different perspectives on this.
Veterans Expeditions (VetEx) is an organization that offers adventure opportunities to veterans at little to no cost, and much more. They do everything from: mountain biking in Moab, climbing 14ers, caving, ice climbing, AND hiking Mt. Denali in Alaska.
Speaking of Mt. Denali… This peak (formerly known as Mt. McKinley which Trump is act
Man, I don't even remember the last time I blooped. For the last 6 months or so I haven't been able to get onto the loop anymore so I'm super excited about this new platform.
I know I've been quiet on Loopville, too, but that doesn't mean I haven't been running. This year has been all about picking up speed for me. After my first ever age group win at a 5k in February (27:38min) and DH finally starting to run again more regularly, I had the idea to improve my 5k time this year to sub 25min.
On Sunday, for the first time in three years, I ran a race longer than 5K. This hiatus was caused by a series of bizarre non-running injuries. The worst was two summers ago, when I pulled a groin muscle while trying to pick a hard-to-reach squash. More recently, I tore an intercostal muscle when I fell to the floor while sleeping.
Waking at 5:00am to begin race prep, I was greeted with this local weather alert:
Fortunately, I always try to keep a low profile.
As
Hello again Loopsters! This is my first bloop in the loop reborn. It doesn’t look like I’ll manage to increase my writing on the new loop. But I’ll try…and try to be more interesting. (But this bloop doesn’t really accomplish that. More of a stream of consciousness about my recent training, and minor issues I’ve had)
I am getting into the main part of training for St. Jude Memphis marathon. I’d love to go sub 4:30. That’s been my goal for how long now? It’s been more than a
Winter is coming? Last Monday, it felt like it was already here because it snowed a majority of the day, but wasn’t cold enough to stick on the roads. That’s the kind of snow I can like. “That’s Colorado for ya!”, is said a lot around here and I kinda wanna smack the person that says it. Once October hits, you can expect snow at any point (in the metro area); I think it snowed on the 5th the year that we moved here (2013). It did already warm back up and is supposed to be in the mid-70s today.
I don’t remember the last thing I even blooped about on the old Loop so I’m probably due for a reintroduction. I started running 7 years ago after I had graduated college and needed some kind of exercise. I live near St. Louis, MO and have two young buys that love to go running with me! If you want to know anything else, just ask.
I traveled to Kentucky this weekend with 11 friends for the Bourbon Chase (200-mile relay race for those that may not be familiar with it). My prior Bourbon Cha
First: Good news! My dad does NOT have cancer! His oncologist said it looks like a cyst on his kidney and they will do a follow-up MRI in six months to see if it has desolved or changed. He still has Hep C, so he will begin treatment for that soon.
Now.
I did a thing.
I printed out a marathon training schedule that takes 30 weeks and builds slowly and steadily.
I am signing up for a marathon on October 27 (aka payday). It will be the Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon on
Life (wedding, moving, traveling- Yay!) took precedence over my running since around late 2014/early 2015. I’d still run a few miles here and there, but was averaging around 20 miles/month. For perspective, in 2012 I was just shy of 1000 miles for the year, with some months being close to 200 miles. Fast forward to July 2017. I was feeling very out of shape, and I had some free time to get back into running. For July and half of August, I ran after work through the neighborhoods around our
At 9:30 am, I was lined up at the start of a local 10k race, The Great Pumpkin Challenge. A race where I had set my 10k PR in 2012 a week after my first marathon. A race, where last year, I had come within seconds of my PR. Today, I lined up with no expectations.
Flashback to last year. 2016 was a training cycle disaster. I went into 2016, tired, continually sore, over-trained. I had run a marathon in Oct 2015 and fell short of my goal of 3:30 by 10 minutes after what I thought was a
Earlier this week, the kids said they wanted to run with me today. I planned to take my 3-4 miles to the track. When my BF’s oldest son expressed interest, his little brother jumped on board as well.
This morning the girls backed out. They wanted to play with the toys ex brought over yesterday. 3 weeks since Bobby’s birthday party, two missed weekends and he drops by in the middle of my piano lesson to bring them presents but can’t afford a place to live or his other obligations He le
Hi all,
It has been a long year for me. My Menieres got the upper hand till I saw my specialist. He put me on a strong diuretic ,and I didn't want to push my luck running till I got everything straight. May was a stressful month for my dad and younger brother. Older brother committed a crime, and he fled. He was on local news every night that week. He was caught,and is waiting to be taken to a secure treatment facility. I spent a lot of time helping Dad around the house when I wasn't wor
On Sunday, it will be two weeks since I last ran. That’s right, I haven’t run a step since crossing that finish line…
The magic of what happened isn’t lost on me… but sometimes in the quiet, daily grind of the days that followed, I wondered if it really did happen.
There were plenty of reminders, of course. Emails and posts on social media from the marathon, getting connected to Otto the Pacer via Facebook and Instagram, wearing the jacket (and it’s a mighty sweet quarter-
Glad to find the loopsters again, I was missing y'all..
was doug in co on the old loop, signed up with Google here so now you know my real name.. be kind ;-)
My brother just invited me onto Strava, joined but not sure what I'm going to do there, given that I don't own any GPS devices other than my phone (with Gaia GPS, a wonderful topo map app). Guess the manual logging will have to do..
Also, the R calf muscle that got torn for no apparent reason six weeks ago, and re-torn on the bike ?
Wanted to post a little something about the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon without being too lengthy since I'm using the phone to do it.
This marathon had been in my sights for some time since I last ran it in 2013 when I qualified for Boston here and it became the race i wanted to use to make what i felt was a comeback for me. I did manage two marathons last year which I felt were a success based on where my running health was at the time and the very limited training I did for them. The
TWSS.
I got home from work yesterday just as my two youngest children were arriving home from school. I had time to squeeze in a short run before fixing them something to eat before their soccer obligations. My son had a game and my youngest daughter had practice. I told my kids that I was going for a short run and that "dinner would be served when I returned." My run felt sort of labored and I seemed to be breathing harder than normal. I ASSume that it's because I was running with more eff
First I have to say THANKS for keeping the Loop alive. I had not been on much since April when I had a really miserable race at Toledo and finally admitted I needed to take some time off to let an injury heal. Since then life has been a roller coaster ride of emotion. My son enlisted in the Army about two weeks after he turned 18, just signed himself out of school (with a fake parent note) and enlisted. I thought I had talked him out of but I should have known - he is the most stubborn kid.
I've got 3 PTs who are all pretty great. Kayley evaluated me when I first started. Loved her from the beginning because she knew how important it was to me to keep moving. "Do all you want as long as there is no pain."
I've only seen Toby once but he is a runner. He was amazed that I ran Boston and said if he was me he'd never remove the Boston shirt. It's kind of funny but I'm really weird about how my clothing fits and feels. I like looking at that shirt but not wearing it.
Finally t
Woke Late.
Ran Anyway.
Because it never feels good to give in to the excuses.
Running an hour late means more traffic. Lots. And the drivers don’t expect to see a runner, or anyone on the sidewalk that they should try not to run over. Stupid driver.
Three deer crossing Midway. I was really sure the third one was going to be hit by the 411 Island Transit. Flashed my flashlight at him. Probably wasn’t necessary. He probably saw the deer. Probably thought I was trying to fl
So picture this - you walk in to your sports chiro's office for your weekly torture session appointment and find him sitting at his desk, feet propped up on his table, sipping a Red Bull and grinning at you like The Cheshire Cat...
I kid you not. Dude looked positively giddy. Like - mad scientist giddy. I sorta, kinda wanted to turn right around and run out, but I didn't. I mean - duh - I can't run! But this guy is pulling out all the stops to get me back to it, so I took a deep breath, rep
This is my first post on the new Loop! Woot woot! While I'm sad the other one left, it was nice to see so many people sharing their appreciation of each other. Love you all!
The last marathon I ran was 2016 Grandma's Marathon, where it was black flagged, hot AF, and I got the worst sunburn of my life and had to put medical grade burn cream on it. I had signed up for Kalamazoo Marathon in May, but I didn't go. I hadn't trained in the least and I just didn't want to. I was sick of traveling h
At mile 15 I started crying at the turn from Damen onto Jackson having just done some runners math (complete with padding numbers for marathon addled inaccuracies) because I knew I was going to finish. I could walk the rest of the race and I was going to finish under the cutoff time.
I definitely didn't do that math because that was the plan, but starting about mile 18 it wound up being a good thing that I had that extra time, because it would turn out I'd need almost all of it.
But, a
I mentioned that my DH challenged me to a one-mile race at the high school track this past Saturday. I was not excited. The track and athletic fields are locked up, and although it is a simple matter to go around the 20 foot chain link fence, it feels a lot like trespassing. And that is to go run on a track, which takes all the joy out of running (at least for me), not much better than a treadmill. Then there is the whole flashback to high school gym classes, where I was anything but athletic. A
Note: All 5 of the other Loopsters who participated in the Wineglass weekend are stellar individuals, outstanding people. Words don’t do justice, so I have copped out and not written about them. It’s too difficult to find the right sentiments. To be honest, it’s hard enough to write about this race. My feelings are complicated. Despite the successes across the board that the weekend brought to us, I feel we’re all poised for even better things. May the running gods smile on us, every one.
Long time, no bloop.
I started having trouble with the Loop at the same time as everyone else. It just became frustrating to use, so I just stopped - not even any lurking on posts - but now that we have this new fabulous platform, I guess I'll give things here a shot!
So, where have I been? It's been a crazy year. I've been running and racing a little. Back in May I ran the Maine Coast Marathon in 4:10:xx; I was going for a sub-4, but it was pouring rain and freezing cold, so I was ha
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