5/31/2008

Today was my first day back on the roads in 8 days. Aubrey and I ran just a little over 3 miles in a loop around the house. I was really encouraged that my knee felt okay through most of it however I could have played a John Denver ditty on my IT Band once we went past 2 miles. Man, it got tight!! I just need to keep working it out and it will be fine I think. I also need to focus on getting more quad strength so I am going to work on the elliptical as well as some good plyometrics.
Aubrey seems to be determined to "get back into it" since he has only run 5 or 6 times since Rocky back in February. We plan on going for another 3-5 miles tomorrow so we'll see how we both do.

5/29/2008

Still here in Hobbs. Been busy as hell but the money is good. I haven't been able to work out at all since I have been at work though. Of course, I COULD find time if I really wanted to but I've been a little lazy. I intentionally took time off from running to help my knee but otherwise I could have been doing SOMETHING. It's been 6 days since I have done any kind of strenuous exercise. I plan on going for a couple of runs this weekend with Aubrey and test out my knee. I hope the time off has done it some good. I feel like a fat ass right now too since I've been pretty much eating whatever I wanted. Tastes fantastic but not so good on the body. Oh, well, I will get back into it this weekend. Looking forward to it since the weather is getting so hot. I LOVE running in the heat! I'll let ya know how it goes.

5/23/2008

Heading back to Hobbs today. My contract there will be finished on 6/2. I am trying to get a contract with the Lubbock Heart Hospital in the ER for my next assignment. It will be nice to be able to just drive down the street after work rather than be gone the whole time. I feel pretty good today, my knee doesn't hurt, however I haven't gone for a run today either. I will take the next 3 days off from running and then pick it up again once I get home. I am going to try and find a couple of marathons and half-marathons for June and July and then I want to run Lean Horse half hundred up in South Dakota in August. Looks like a beautiful run and NO MOUNTAIN CLIMBING! I'll holler when I get back from Hobbs. Peace.

5/22/2008

First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! Whoo Hoo!
Ok, enough of that. I ran a mile earlier this am and my knee is still really hurting so I came home and got on the elliptical for 30 minutes and also did some good strength training and plyometrics. I guess I am going to have to just keep a close eye on my knee and see if I am going to have to go to a Dr. for it. It's funny because the knee doesn't really start hurting until I am about a mile into a run. The first 3/4 to 1 mile are okay. Weird. We'll see what happens next.
I am going to go out with my family and some friends tonight at Abuelo's for my birthday supper. I'm excited. I just LOVE my birthday! I wish everyone could be here. The more the merrier!

5/20/2008

I was able to get out and put about 1.3 miles on my legs before that left knee got sore. Aubrey joined me and we just ran once around the park by his house. I am using the foam roller like crazy and bought me an ITB strap so hopefully it will all start helping. I've never really done anything like this in a race so I hope it's not worse than I think. I am going to just try and take it easy for a week or so and see how it goes. Tonight I will get on the elliptical and see how that feels. I'll keep ya posted. Ciao!

Jemez Race Report

I stood at the base of Caballo mountain and said, "You're mine!" And Caballo replied, "Like hell!"
That's kind of the way it went. Let's start at the beginning. I had to go alone because Aubrey had to work Saturday night. So I took off early Friday am and got to Los Alamos around 3pm NM time. I checked into the hotel and then took off to find where the packet pickup and pasta dinner would be then around to the race start. Los Alamos was really easy to find your way around. I got to the posse shack and saw Shanna Armstrong's van, so I talked to her for a little while. Shanna is an AMAZING athlete. You can read all about her at her website, www.shannaarmstong.com. She has won the Ultraman in Hawaii three times and the RAAM twice. Just awesome. Plus she lives in Lubbock so that's cool too. Anyway, I went to the prerace dinner and just hung out for awhile. I saw Kyle Skaggs and Karl Meltzer which I thought was really cool.
Ok, so Saturday morning the race started promptly at 5am. It was around 40 degrees and still dark so we ran to the first aid station with headlamps. I felt really good going out and enjoyed the company of the other runners. Once we got to the base of Caballo mountain is when things started to kind of go wrong. I just wasn't prepared for what lay ahead. I thought I understood the course profile but I guess I was wrong. Later, Shanna and I just laughed it off and blamed it on naivete'. Anyway, going up the mountain was AWFUL. There was no way that I could run, just hike. My quads were burning and I think I even smelled smoke a couple of times. ha So I kept plodding along waiting for any kind of a downhill that I could run. They came few and far between. Once we made it over the first part of Caballo we got to run down the Guaje ridgeline. I REALLY enjoyed that. It was fairly steep and had tons of switchbacks which really made it fun. Every so often there would be a tree at the switchback that you could grab and just swing around it to take the turn. Pretty fun. So at the bottom of this area we had to CLIMB A LADDER to get up to the next section. ha The next section was GORGEOUS. We ran along a beautiful little stream and had to leap over it several times. The foliage here was incredible. Like a green fantasy land in a fairy tale. I like that part. ha Ok, so then the nightmare that is Caballo really began. The climb, I felt, was pretty steep. There was definitely no downhills. At the base there was an aid station and they told us that the summit was 2 miles up then we turn around and come back down. So up we went. The top 1/3 of this portion was snow and slush. I made it to the top after a LONG time. Once at the top, I saw that I had a cell signal and I called Aubrey. I let him know that I was on the Caballo summit and had just gone 12 miles in over 2 hours and 30 minutes. So we laughed! haha After my call I headed back down. It was really precarious going down. Obviously.....since it turned me into a yoga guru without blinking twice. Man, I hit that patch of snow/ice/slop/shit with my left foot and it was GONE! My crotch was in the muck and my left knee started screaming. Strangely enough my groin never hurt. Anyway, I continued to try to run on it and it was no use. I gimped back down to the aid station and knew that I would have to keep going to the next aid station where the drop bags were because these people at the Caballo base aid station had to hike in. So at this point I refilled my bottle and had to hike 3 miles uphill to Pipeline. Once I got there it was over for me. I knew that there was no way that I could make the cutoff with my knee like that. There were two ladies that were dropping as well. One of them had fallen coming down Guaje ridge and had a possible broken arm and the other "Just wasn't having a good time!" haha I loved that! We had to hike out another 3 miles just to get to a car. On the way there we ran into Shanna and she had been accidentally directed off course by a confused aid station volunteer and had also twisted her ankle several times so she was none too happy. Once she saw us she decided to give up the ghost as well. Also on the way to the car Kyle Skaggs came running through on his way to an amazing 8:08 victory. Karl Meltzer was about 45 minutes behind him. Myself, I made it a total of 20 miles including the hike out to the car. haha I can't say that I regret my decision to drop, simply because I just had no idea that the course would be that brutal. In my naivete' I just thought this would be a nice mountain run. Oops!! Sometimes we have to learn our lessons the hard way. Anyway, thanks to Shanna, I really enjoyed her company Saturday evening and hope we can get out for some good long runs there in Lubbock. She had to get up early this am to go and ride in the Santa Fe Century. Hopefully her ankle held up okay for it.
I did enjoy the beautiful scenery and vistas of this trail run ("hike" is more like it) but I would really like to warn people that this course is not for the faint of heart nor for a flatlander that hasn't trained appropriately. It is a really tough course with lots of climbing and steep quad-killing downhills. So next year, I will make sure that I have shitloads of hill training under my belt and give it another whirl. It was definitely well run and the volunteers were great!
Once I got home today I went to my massage therapist and had him hammer my legs so I should be able to get a nice little recovery run in tomorrow.
Next on my agenda is something a little less brutal and a helluva lot flatter!! I'll keep ya posted.
PS Sorry the pics are so blurry, they were taken with my cell phone.

5/17/2008

I DNF'D!!!!!!!!! My first one ever. Huge hit to the pride!! This course was BRUTAL!! When I finally made it to the top of Caballo it was 2 hr and 30 min........for 12 miles! The whole damn course was mountain climbing. There was absolutely no way that I could have trained for that living in Lubbock, Tx. So what else happened, you say? Well, let me tell you. Going up Caballo there was quite a bit of snow, therefore, going DOWN Caballo there was ALSO a lot of snow. Anyway, I planted my left foot as I was running downhill and my foot kept going. So I ended up in the full splits and really toasted my left knee. There was nothing I could do! I kept trying to run and that knee just wouldn't let me. Anyway, I kept plodding along until I made it to the Pipeline aid station and my drop bag and told them I was done. There was no way that I could have made the cut off at the ski lodge with the way I was gimping. I can also say that even if my knee hadn't been hurting me I may have DNF'd. I really mean it when I say it was a sick and brutal course. It should be called the Jemez Mountain Trail "Walk" or "Hike." I'm still here in Los Alamos on Shanna's computer so I will write more once I get home and can get some decent thoughts together. Ciao for now!

5/15/2008

I thought I would take another look at the website for Jemez before I took off tomorrow and I'm glad I did. This little update was posted today.
Update May 15, 2008 - Mother Nature has brought us three new inches of snow (and still snowing) above 9,000 feet so come prepared for some wet feet. If you like dry feet, consider bringing extra socks and shoes!
Not sure I like the idea of cold, wet feet but c'est la vie! So now I have to contend with the altitude changes and "significant climbs" as well as having some slippery, wet "fun." Should be one helluva ride!

5/13/2008

Today is my only day off until Friday so I used it as best I could. I went out to 1585 and ran an easy, quick 10 miles. Even with running 20 minutes and walking 5, my average pace was 9:37 according to my Garmin. Not bad. I felt pretty damn good too which is a good thing cuz I have to run FIFTY on Saturday. I seriously hope that I don't freaking die up on that mountain. With working out of town for the last 2 months my training has really been lax. I am hoping that my extra strength training will make up some difference. Anyway, there are supposed to be 4 "significant" climbs on this run and I don't think it means "significantly easy." Oh, well, left, right, repeat will get me to the finish line. I am really looking forward to seeing some of the ultra elite there as well, like Kyle Skaggs and Karl Meltzer to name a couple. I am not sure if many elite women will be there or not but I didn't recognize any of the female names. It will still be a lot of fun though and I'm excited. If you want to see some of the course pics take a look here.

5/8/2008

It's been a busy day. First off I slept late so that didn't help any. Anyway, around 1100 or so I took off from the house headed out to 1585. I didn't really know what my plans were but I took two handbottles with Accelerade and my trail pack with a bunch of gels and some S-caps. I ended up running a nice round 20 miles. By the end of it I was wasted. I went out way too hard but at the time I didn't know that I was going to run that far plus I had a good strong headwind in my face for the first half. I knew I needed to run that kind of distance but that's different. ha About 2 miles from the house, I had to get off the shoulder because a dipshit driver was blocking the way and I had to detour into a cotton field. Well, with the kind of rain that we've been having........I was COVERED in shitloads of mud. It was fun but really made my legs heavy because I had a couple of pounds on each shoe and up the backs of both legs. Oh, well! Anyway, so I will take tomorrow off since I have to head back to Hobbs. I will get a couple of decent runs in this weekend and then maybe a 15 miler or so on Tuesday which is my day off. We'll see how it goes.

5/7/2008

BORED BORED BORED Well, it's not so beautiful out today. Well, I take that back......it's beautiful but it's not good for running. We've had pretty impressive thunderstorms all night and they've continued on into today. We've even had some hail. Up until that point I had thought about running in the rain (which I enjoy from time to time) but once the hail hit I din't think it was such a good idea. I'm hoping it will clear up here afterwhile and I'll hit the road. I'm off tomorrow too so if the weather allows me, I am going to head out to Buffalo Springs Lake and get a long run in before heading back to Hobbs on Friday. Wish me luck.

5/6/2008

Absolutely gorgeous outside today. It's overcast and cool. A slight breeze blew out of the southeast which kept it even cooler. Just fantastic running weather. I wish I had had time to run a little further than I did but oh, well. I ran a simple, easy ten miles out and back on 1585. Aubrey joined me for the last half which was really nice. He is trying to get back into the swing of things too which will be good for him AND for me. I really don't care for running alone that much. I've said that more than enough on here though. Speaking of which, I received an email from Jemez race director, Aaron Goldman, going over the specifics of the race and apparently we will be able to have a pacer for the last fourteen miles or so. So, I talked to Aubrey about it and he is going to pace me. Maybe not for all 14 miles but at least a portion of it. I'm thrilled at the idea. More tomorrow after my "long" long run.
PS Kyle Skaggs won Jemez last year and is coming back this year apparently. It'll be good to have some competition, ya know? Yeah, that's what I thought too!
Ummmmm, yeah, right!

5/4/2008

Got back from Hobbs last night.........finally. Long 4 days at work. I beat down my cold with the vitamin C after a couple of days and was able to get an easy 10 miles in at Hobbs yesterday am. Didn't feel fantastic but definitely workable. Today I took Zach and his bike with me and I ran an easy 4 miles just as a warmup for later tonight. I am going to put in 10-15 miles later tonight. But first........................I have to go see IRON MAN this afternoon. My whole family and I have REALLY been anxious to see it. I grew up reading Iron Man comics and he's always been a favorite. Of course, he doesn't come close to The Flash!! But he'll do in a pinch. Later, peeps.