The Human Race...

...was just what I needed. Details coming soon.

A Little Inspiration, Please

Tomorrow, people around the world, in more than 25 cities, will race a 10k at the same time. How cool is that? Are you participating?

Ever since our return from Peru, I've been averaging a run about every other day. A short run. An easy one, because my knees have been bothering me ever since Urus. And this time, it is mentally difficult to get back to it.

Tomorrow, I won't be just running another road race. I will be out there looking for my mojo that I seemed to lose somewhere between horrible illness and two big mountains. I will be looking for my groove and my inspiration--my drive to get back to it, build a good base, and start training for marathon distance. I'm looking for a certain spark to fuel a fire circumstance put out. What a better place to find it than out on the road at the same time with people all over the world. Many of them might even be looking for the same things. Good luck to them. And good luck to me. I'm not "racing" in that I won't be competitive, but I have so much to lose.

Heartbreak Hills

Tim and I spent the majority of August traveling. It was great, but incredibly detrimental to my running in so many ways. The plan was to first spend several days in the city of Cuenca in southern Ecuador with several friends who were in town from the States. Cuenca is home to the best rock climbing in Ecuador and is a beautifully renovated colonial city. It's also home to the largest and best preserved Incan ruins in the country as well as the site of an enormous and beautiful national park: Cajas. So you could say there's some cool stuff to do around Cuenca. I'd been looking forward to it all year. Imagine my disappointment when we arrived in Cuenca and that night I was struck with the worst case of gringo-belly of my life. I spent 4 days in the hotel bed. The afternoon of the 4th day I walked a few blocks in town then had to go back to bed. But that night I could eat a little bit of food so at least the next day I got to do a short day-hike in Cajas National Park. Then the following day it was time to leave for Peru.

We were going to Peru for the purpose of climbing mountains in the Cordillera Blanca. I was justifiably worried about my level of strength after not eating for so long, and knew my conditioning was probably out the door as the short day hike gave me muscle cramps. But I was feeling good and thought that as long as I was feeling good, I would recover quickly.

The Cordillera Blanca is so incredible. I had never seen anything like it. I mean, southern New Zealand is beautiful, but the mountains are usually obscured by clouds. In Peru, everything was right there. We spent two days traveling to and through Peru to get to Huaraz where we spent a full day preparing to go into the backcountry. By the time we got out there, we were going to have 4 nights camping and three full days to do what we could in the mountains. We had perfect weather--warm, sunny and dry and NO WIND. At all. We went immediately to the Ishinca valley with our sights set on Ishinca and possibly a shorter peak, Urus. After a day of rest and acclimatization, we decided to just go ahead and try for Ishinca.

Perhaps because we knew it was a long approach, we kinda motored up without taking our time or consuming plenty of calories and water. We came to a fork in the trail a little after dawn. We knew the left hand trail went to the glacier and the "normal route" but looking up at the mountain, the "normal" looked pretty freakin' steep so we chose to keep to the right and go to the other side which was clearly less steep. Hours later we were still on the approach trail, low on water, and I knew I was going to bonk hard, soon. We sat for awhile with the glacier and our route in sight, but we decided to turn back. It was the right decision but it broke my heart. Right then and there it felt like I had lost everything because of my illness. I was exhausted and felt horrible and guilty and so sad that I didn't have the energy to keep going. I mentally counted the miles I put in this summer working on my base so I could soon begin my training plan and I felt the loss of all the acclimatization we did in Ecuador before this trip. Of course, altitude also makes me a bit emotional and maybe I was suffering that as well.

In the end, we turned back and committed to trying a mountain a tad shorter and a little more accessible. And we did it. And we had a great time. And I did it. And I didn't bonk or cry too much or give up. And now I even feel a little proud of the accomplishment. It's more like a big step back onto the path.

I started running again as soon as we got home. It's been hard. I'm fully starting over again which probably pushes real training to November. But I'm not ready to give up on my goal. I want to stick with it. It's just soooooooo hard to start all over when I was doing so well.

"It's Oh, So Quiet--Shhhh, Shhhh . . . "

Do the other authors even read this blog? Just wondering. . . HI MOM!!

We got back to Quito today from Peru and I'm pretty worked, and I need to put in some major hours loving on Bali. But when I feel at ease again and Bali is content again, I have many things I've been wanting to reflect on regarding running and the off-and-on the horse thing, and big mountains, etc. etc. Tomorrow I'll see about getting my heart-rate monitor; so there's that, too.

So, if you're still out there, check back in a couple days. I even promise there will be fun pictures.

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!!