2007 Recap

Wow! I can't believe it is already the end of 2007. I just went on my last run for the year. My YTD mileage is a grand 2112.6 miles. I was hoping for a bit more, but it is a vast improvement over the 1462 miles I logged last year and the wimpy 689 miles I logged in 2005! I have admittedly been a complete slacker this month (77 miles), but it has been a much needed rest time for me.

I met many goals this year and saw a lot of improvement in my running. Most notably was my 3:26 marathon and my 5:58 mile. There were a lot of races I didn't quite run right, but boy it was a fun ride.

I am in the process of trying to come up with a spring schedule. Since I will be starting working soon, I will not be able to log 60-70 mile weeks. So, I am going to try to come up with a lower mileage/high quality schedule. Any suggestions for this approach are greatly appreciated. I am shooting for a local mid May marathon. Probably Green Bay, but I may do Madison.

I also want to thank everyone for their well wishes regarding my new job. You guys rock. You have added much to my running and have given me just one more reason to love our sport.

Have a great last day of 2007.

SALTY!

I got an offer this morning at the firm I was hoping to get into! Wheew! Big sigh of relief.... and WOO HOO!

A couple days late

Merry Christmas everyone. And of course, Happy Holidays to those who do not celebrate Christmas. Whatever you celebrate, I wish you the best.

I had an absolutely wonderful Christmas. My kids were thrilled, but not so overstimulated that they were freaking out (as has been seen in years past). They truly were at the perfect age for Christmas this year. They were so excited to receive AND to give. Lots of pure joy and appreciation. No tears or fits or fights. It was terrific.

Unfortunately, I am a bit of an anxious mess right now. You see, I am a person who needs concrete goals and a plan to get there to be happy. Right now, everything is still a bit unknown, so I don't have any goals or plans. So I am driving my poor husband batty.

In addition, my running has been in pretty pathetic this week. We have also gotten a ridiculous amount of snow this month and the temps lately have been fluctuating between freezing and not freezing, so we have a lot of ice and slush on the streets. And the trails are non-runnable. Both of my runs on Christmas Eve and Christmas were through the slop and it resulted in extraordinarly sore core muscles (thighs, glutes). I took yesterday off to heal up and was hoping to run today, but again the streets are covered in snow. I may just have to battle the treadmill.

Sheesh. Listen to me complain. Sorry folks. Life is truly wonderful for me, so I have no business sounding so whiny. I really do not mean to.

I hope you all have some time off this week to relax, run and celebrate.

Getting Back to Normal

I had a nice run today. My Garmin battery died after 2 miles, but the weather was awesome (for running) and I felt great overall. Did at bit over 5 and a half at around an 8:45 pace. It was in the upper 30s, foggy and lightly misting. However, I noticed that the roads were extremely wet from all of the melting snow. Not good considering the temps are supposed to drop dramatically tonight and a blizzard is scheduled to roll in. Yep, up to 60 mph winds and perhaps 12 more inches of snow. Crazy. Looks like we will definitely have a white Christmas. And it looks like running tomorrow will be treadmill or bust.

Adam, the Mad City 100K is April 12. Check it out. It could be fun. If you don't want to run the full ultra, you could always run on our team! We do 20K (2 laps) each. I don't have any ultra plans right now. But I have never completely ruled out the idea either.

As my friend's son said to me today, Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve.

Heat Wave

Woo Hoo! It was a balmy 37 degrees today when I went for my run. It was almost tropical! Seriously though, this is my first run this month it has been above freezing. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. 5.68 miles (8:14 average pace). No HRM today as this was a "clear the mind" run, not a numbers run.

Sedona Part II

OK, so after hiking Cathedral rock, we decided to go to Bell Rock. Bell Rock is the rock you have seen in all the pictures of Sedona. The hiking map said that there is no set trail, you just go. So we did. Heh. But we came in the back way and started trying to hike up the southern portion of the rock. It was NOT easy, even though the map said bell rock was easy to moderate. We finally got around the rock and found the nice easy portion. :) By that time, John had hundreds of tiny needles in his ankle from some cactus he ran into. Ouch. But he was a trooper and continued on. I was having a great time and was climbing pretty high up the rock. John was getting a bit nervous about the heights and stopped. I was able to get about 10 feet from one of the top rocks. Had John come with me, I know I could have gotten all the way up, but it was dangerous (and stupid) to attempt it alone so I came back down. It was very fun and exhilarating. Oh, and an interesting note...about half way up my heart started beating out of my chest. It was weird because it was on one of the flatter sections. Vortex energy? Who knows.

We then went into town for lunch at the Javelina Cantina. It was a fun place, but neither of us are really into Mexican. I got fish tacos. Not the greatest, but I never tried them before so it was an adventure. They were also known for their margueritas, so I tried one.

Next, we went into town and checked out some art galleries. My favorite was Fatelli. We also did some wine tasting, which was a lot of fun. Of course our favorites were California wines though. We got cleaned up and then went for appetizers at the Oak Creek Brewery. It was a fun place, but we didn't eat much since we had such a late lunch.

We had been undecided on whether we wanted to drive all the way to the Grand Canyon since it was so much travelling in a short time. But after all the beautiful sites in Sedona, we decided we were just too close to miss it. So on Saturday, we slept in and had another awesome breakfast at the B&B. I believe it was called blue corn pancakes. Yum. We then jumped in the car and headed to the Grand Canyon. We took 89A, which was undoubtedly the "long way" but it was unbelievably beautiful. We drove through Oak Creek Canyon (which was where Jospeph suggested hiking - I'm sure that would have been amazing). The 28 miles to Flagstaff took almost an hour as we were doing switchbacks all the way up the canyon. In those 28 miles, we went up about 4000 feet. It was awesome, but we made a mental note that we needed to drive back before dark as the road was narrow, steep and would be covered with black ice when the sun set.

Flagstaff was beautiful and the San Franciso Peaks were awesome up close. But we only stayed long enough to get gas, hats and gloves.

We arrived at the Grand Canyon around 11:30. We stopped at an outlook and it was absolutely breath taking. I have seen hundreds of pictures of the Grand Canyon, but it just does not capture the beauty and vastness of the canyon. I then told John I wanted to find the Bright Angel Trail and hike down. He resisted me, but in the end, I got us there. :) I should mention at this point that my arms, shoulders and quads were unbelievably sore from Friday's hikes. It was a good thing the trail was easy!
I have a couple of friends who have done the r2r2r (rim to river to rim) hike down the canyon and it was fun to see where they started and finished. We only had a couple of hours there, so we only went 2 miles down and 2 miles back. I absolutely loved it and the views were ever changing and amazing. I definitely want to come back and make it all the way down the trail (8 miles) to see the Phantom Ranch. It was one of those hikes that was painful to end. But, I was glad we did when we were able to drive home before dark.

Saturday night, we had dinner at Shugrues and celebrated John's birthday. The food was very good and we had a great time. Unbelievably enough, that pretty much wrapped up our trip as we had to get up very early to drive back to Phoenix and fly home. There were so many things that we had wanted to do that we just did not have time for. Specifically, we wanted to visit Jerome and we wanted to do several more hikes. I guess we will have to wait until next time.

Oh yes, and for the record, I did not run at all during the trip, but I was crazy sore from our hikes until Monday!

Some thoughts

So I am going to interrupt my trip report to make a couple of observations and announcements.

1. Coolrunning sucks really bad now. That is unfortunate.

2. It is my 8th wedding anniversary today! I am a very lucky girl.

3. I had my 3rd interview today with the firm I am hoping to get into. I meet with key partners and associates on Thursday. Up to this point, I have only met with their in-house recruiter. He told me that they are hopeful it will work out and it is my "football to fumble" at this point. That is exciting, yet nerve-racking, aye? Wish me luck!!

4. I removed my training schedule because, well, I am so far from training for anything right now it is ridiculous. My guess is that my spring schedule will be completely revamped soon. But I did run a nice 5 miler yesterday.

5. Boy is it cold here. We have a ridiculous amount of snow too.

6. Congratulations Joe Positive on a very good race. Recover well. You rock.

OK, that is enough. I hope you are all well.

Official Sedona Trip Report - PART I

Whew! Now that was a whirlwind trip! We had an absolutely fantastic time. And we played so hard we were ready to crash out by 10:00 at night, despite our preliminary planning of looking for live music each night.

On Wednesday night, we took the boys to Grandma and Grandpa's, then headed to Milwaukee. We spent the night in the ultra-lush Super 8, then got up early for our flight to Phoenix. The flight was uneventful (thankfully) and we arrived in Phoenix around 10:30 am. We got our rental car and headed to Sedona. It was almost a 2 hour drive, but it was fun to watch the change in scenery as we climbed in elevation. I could feel the elevation change as soon as we got off the plane - very weird.

As we reached Sedona, it was just amazing how beautiful it was. All of a sudden the landscape was just littered with deep red rocks. Amazing. We checked into our B&B, which was built on the side of Castle Rock. The owner of the B&B is an avid hiker, so he gave us recommendations for "must-dos" in the area. We decided we would do a lot of hiking, but Thursday afternoon we would explore downtown Sedona and go shopping. Heh. My husband doesn't like to put up with shopping, but he did and we actually had a great time.

We then grabbed a beer and took in some views. We tried cactus french fries and well, they weren't so good, but we were glad we tried them. We had dinner at the Redstone Cabin and it was delicious (expensive, but delicious).

Friday morning we had an amazing breakfast at the B&B, then took off hiking. We first went to Cathedral Rock. It is only .7 miles to the saddle, but was supposed to be a challenging hike with "kodak moment" views. Boy is that an understatement. It was about 9:00 am when we got there and it was still a bit icy. That was scary in a couple of spots where the climbing was steep, but it was gorgeous and so much FUN! I had never hiked like that before and I was in hog heaven. We also discovered that we came to Sedona at exactly the right time. While we heard some of the trails could get very crowded, we had Cathedral Rock all to ourselves. And the weather was perfect for hiking - low 50s.

We spent about an hour and a half on Cathedral Rock although I could have spent days. Oh yeah, and in case you have never heard of it (I hadn't), Sedona is famous for its "vortexes." This is some special energy source that is supposedly measureable. It affects people in different ways and attracts all sorts of New Age/healing type people. While I definitely do not fit into that category, it was fun to look for the vortexes, which were often seen by finding juniper trees that looked twisted like taffy. It was fun.

I love my Garmin

Grand Canyon Hike
Bell Rock Hike

Cathedral Rock Hike (click for large view)

From Phoenix Arizona all the way to Sedona . . .

The view from Cathedral Rock, Sedona

Climbing Bell Rock, Sedona

A plateau on Cathedral Rock

What goes up must come down, Cathedral Rock

San Francisco Peaks, Flagstaff

Mindi at the Grand Canyon, South Rim

Part of the Bright Angel Trail

Running in a winter wonderland

Mother nature dropped another 6 inches of snow on us yesterday, so my run this morning was a slow slog through snow, slush, ice and puddles. I got to break out my Get-A-Grip shoe grips for the first time ever. I bought them last year, but we didn't get much snow after I received them. They were very helpful, but boy am I sore post-run. While they definitely give more traction, you are still utilizing a lot of stabilizing muscles when running in the slop. It was a fun adventure run though. And even though I was running WAY slower, I was able to channel a little quasi-cross country action ala Salty and Bridget while out there.

However, I am glad I was not racing as I am in NO shape to be racing. My HR is still way higher than I would like it to be. Hopefully it will start to come down soon. I am now officially on vacation! I take my boys to my parents house this afternoon and we are heading out west!

Have a great week and GOOD LUCK THIS WEEKEND joe positive!!

Yay! I am on the mend!

I have definitely turned a corner with my injury. I stopped doing the oblique weights a little over a week ago and have done a lot of core work. I have now run 3 days in a row and the hip feels very good. Woo Hoo! This laid up deal was getting old. And it didn't help that I just couldn't seem to befriend my elliptical. It has been extremely cold here, but it is oh so nice to be out and running. I have definitely lost some fitness as I am running very slow with high HRs, but it is a start. And it is hard to accurately measure because I have been sick and it is tough to tell how much of an effect running in 1 degree weather will have on the HR.

Hopefully I will see some progress this week. It is not supposed to get above freezing here all week. And the lows are getting very low (think 1 degree notwithstanding wind chill). The good news is that I leave for Sedona on Thursday and it is supposed to be nice and in the 50s all weekend! Sounds good to me!!

Oh the weather outside is frightful....

It was 12 degrees here today. With the windchill, 1 degree. BRRR. It is one of those days I just can't seem to get warm. My hands are FREEZING. The good news is that I ran yesterday and everything felt good. I ran today and it was the same situation. So, I think I am on the mend. AND, I think I figured out the cause. I had been doing an exercise for my obliques with 25# weights. I made the mistake of thinking it was more like core work than weights and was doing it 5-6 times a week. Too much. Apparently I pulled something. But I stopped doing it a week ago and things are getting much better. The hip is still a bit tight/mildly sore when I stretch to my side, but running is not aggravating it anymore. Hopefully this will be a thing of the past soon.

We finally got around to taking some pictures today for our Christmas cards. It was fun. Unfortunately my husband and I both feel pretty crappy today. Some nasty virus or something. Hopefully it will not hang on for long. As you can see, my kids have been like the Energizer bunnies all day. They really CAN open their eyes - it is just difficult when you are being completely nuts. LOL. I kept taking pictures and the boys had these crazy, strained smiles on their faces or else they were intentionally making silly faces. When I told them to stop it and try to smile "normal," my oldest told me it was just too hard because it was hilarious to do silly faces. So I told him to just think of hilarious things, and well, you can see the result. :)

Salty, I can't wait to hear your report on nationals! I hope it went well!!

Everyone else, I really hope you are enjoying warmer weather than I am! LOL. The funny thing is I don't mind running it it b/c I warm up pretty quickly. I just can't stand hanging around the house!

I am an Ox

So I am bored and was looking at my profile on Blogger. I had typed in my birthdate and it said I was an "Ox" in Chinese Zodiac. Great. So I looked it up to see just what that means.

I discovered I was this: A "Water Ox," which means:

Oxen in China are put on a pedestal. So it goes with Oxen people. Oxen are bright, peace-loving, often easy-going and trusting. But, on the other hand, they can also be stubborn, methodical, and fiercely competitive, with, shudder, fierce tempers to boot. Oxen are natural born mentors and life is filled with examples of people who have gone on to great success because of them. Mentally and physically alert to the point of genius, many Oxen belong to Mensa. They can create the most imposing structures, magnificent sculpture, and homes. They respond like poets to the beauties of nature and of solitude. Oxen are unique, they are The Flower that bursts through the crack of cement.

With Water Oxen you never have to sit around listening to boring lecturing and long-winded yada-yada. Through quiet self-assurance, they simply carry on with life, setting examples by deed, never by words. They make extraordinary leaders. They inspire others to do their best, through kind patience, knowing that even waiters finally come to those who wait. Realistic and open-minded about the foibles of others, they are rewarded with unexpected surprises when people turn around and show their best attributes. Tit for tat!. Their stable careers and "living right" give them the potential to be enormously wealthy, and they frequently are. For Oxen in general, love life is somewhat of a mystery, but immensely satisfying, interwoven very nicely with contrasts of quietude and passion, solitude and togetherness.

So this means I would be very cool in China, right? A pedestal? :) Hee hee. Have you ever read YOUR Chinese horoscope?

Seriously though, it was fun looking at this tonight as I haven't read my horoscope or anything like that in ages. And yeah, for the most part I can relate to it, but supposedly the water ox is every person born in 1973. Um, I'm pretty sure I know a lot of people in that time frame that it does not fit.

My most memorable horoscope was the day my now-husband proposed. My horoscope basically said that someone would ask me to share their life with them. Now I was in love at the time, but my husband is very conservative, and I thought no way! He would never propose during school, before having a job and financial stability, etc. Sure enough, later that day he came to my apartment and popped the question! A shock it was....

BTW - Speaking of profiles - Salty - why are you from the Vatican? I know you had a Catholic wedding, but the Vatican? I do hear it is beautiful! :) Heehee....Speaking of catholocism, it is St. Nicholas Day.

Oh yeah, no running today. :(. Pilates, clearing snow, nothing more, nothing less.

My latest workouts

We have gotten inudated with snow, so shoveling has been my primary workout the last few days. And I have done lots of pilates hoping to stretch my legs and strengthen my core. Running? Not so much. I did 10 minutes on the elliptical Sunday and couldn't stand it anymore so I jumped on the treadmill for 25 minutes. I went a whopping 2.08 miles. Yep, that is just over a 12 minute mile. Certainly a record for me. Next time you feel slow, think of me and my 12 minute miles.

I'm not sure when I will run next - I will probably give it a go on Friday morning. My hip is still acting up and I am determined not to let my obsession with running turn into an injury. Of course darkness by 4:30 pm and 8 degree weather is a pretty effective deterrant too. :)

Thanks for the music selections. Please keep them coming. I have been having a blast on itunes.

The job search is looking very favorable for me, folks. Unbelievably enough, I think I may have found an ideal fit. Keep your fingers crossed.

Oh yeah, and speaking of snow, I hope you aren't covered in ice and snow Salty. That would make for an interesting Nationals. Best of luck to you this weekend. I have no doubt you will impress.

My elliptical and me

Today was a momentous day. We finally brought the TV from our bedroom down to the basement. No one ever watched it in our room other than my boys and I knew I was going to have to start using the elliptical so down it came. I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and it was so flipping boring. Of course I did it while the boys were watching Spongebob. Now I know everyone *loves* Spongebob, but good god that was tough to get through. Tomorrow I get to choose what is on while I am on it. The hips felt better today and my cold is also much better. We got about 5 inches of snow and it is now freezing rain. If there was a good time to try out the elliptical, now would be that time.

I did a lot of Christmas shopping today. Thank goodness for online shopping. I think I would lose my mind if I stepped into a shopping mall on any given weekend in December.

Random question: What "new" music do you like? By new, I mean within the last decade. I am so far behind on my music it is almost scary. Who do you like to listen to that is current?