Excitements and Diversions

Jess be gone and I be sad . . .

But there are several things coming up. Exciting things. Fun things. And then some not so fun things, but good just the same.

Firstly, another Jess is here. Jessica Milnes. You will now find a link to her blog on the right side of this page. We'll be traveling around Ecuador attempting and hopefully summitting a few volcanos.

August 11th, Tim and I leave for Peru. We are heading straight to Huaraz and the Cordillera Blanca. No, we're not going to Cusco. No, no Machu Pichu. We are going to the most beautiful mountain range in South America and I can't wait.

Before we go, Justin Kleiter and his girlfriend will be here visiting and we'll do a bit of southern Ecuador with them. Then when we're back from Peru, we'll have a long weekend just with Justin, and then it's straight back to school. Wow. Time flies. Maybe I will too.

I have my sights set on a 10k at the end of August. It's Nike's Human Race and is happening in 25 different cities around the world. If you happen to live near LA, Chicago, or New York, you can virtually run this race with me. Wouldn't that be fun? Of course, that's assuming you live in the States. You might also be near London, or Paris, or Madrid, or Rome, or Lima, or Buenos Aires, or any other city hosting one of these things. I just saw the sign for this thing today, so I don't know much about it, other than Nike races here are well supported and instead of a fish-net blue shirt and bottle of ketchup, I'll get a real technical t-shirt and no ketchup, which is sweet.

In heart monitor news, my running specific one arrives here on August 14th. I won't be here, but I'll go get it the moment we return from Peru and give 'er a test-drive--so you'll just have to anxiously await that information.

Happy running to all!

So Many Doings, So Much Time Away

Jessica is here in Ecuador and we've been frequenting my two favorite city running spots! Okay okay, yes, it's true, I only have two running spots. But I like both of those very much. Jess has set the short term goal of charging the last hill in our big loop around Parque Metropolitano and as that freaky coach from Ashe county (whom Addie always loved to reference) used to say about the last hill: "It's a booger-bear, girls. A booger-bear." I know she'll do it just fine. In between running we've been climbing mountains, repelling waterfalls, and surfing!


However, tomorrow we go to the jungle for 4 days and we're not going to run there. It's just not going to happen. The jungle is hot and sticky and full of snakes and spiders and other scary sorts of things. I think 4 days will be fine. We already took a buncha days off in between going to Cotopaxi park and the beach. Again, I am no longer worrying about time taken off as long as I get straight back into it and push through how hard it is to start back.

In other news, tomorrow is my birthday and to aid in my year-long goal (and beyond), Tim got me a heart-rate monitor. This will be an interesting foray. I have seen plenty of people running with these contraptions but have never used one myself. I have no doubt it will aid in training. But I'm interested to see how my obsessive head handles constantly knowing my heart rate and the target and how long I'm in it and how long not. I'll report regularly. But first I have to get the running specific one. Then I have to go the jungle. Then I have to come back. And THEN I'll get back to it. Until then, happy running to all!

Running on empty...

I am happy to report that for the past few weeks (since my last post) I have successfully incorporated a long run day as a part of my weekly routine. I did have to change my level of ambition from the 6 miles to as many miles as I can handle in an hour (so far this has been about 5). With this added day, I am running three days a week and feeling fantastic! So fantastic in fact that by the time the weekend rolls around I usually celebrate till the wee hours of the morning...case in point this past weekend where I hit the town like a 21 year old champ staying out, dancing, and doing all those things girls do when they go out with their girlfriends (and I mean real girlfriends, not the gays!). Needless to say this party hardy until 3am has got me feeling like my long run always hits on the absolute wrong day...Monday.

Now the obvious thought would be to move the long run day, but it just won't work on any other day during the week; the second option would be to not drink like a fish on the weekends, and while this is a great goal (and I promise, I don't drink nearly as much as I used to) I wanted running to add to my life not take away (unless you mean take away from the belly which I of course welcome); third option (and the one I am doing as I type) is drink as much water as possible at work, have a protein snack right before I workout and tuff it out. Suggestions are always welcome....

To end on a positive note, this long run day is making my interval day very very easy....I am running hard for 1 min and jogging for 2 for a half hour. Last week I was able to do the hard min. at 7.5 mph!!