Ilanarama!

What is this "snow" you all are talking about? *sheds another layer of clothes*

( Back from the Kauri Coast (a bit early) )

ETA: 6 photos from this trip

and justjenine's living room, where Nat and Britt are doing the dishes after a great breakfast.

Yesterday we "fished" for cockles, which is actually easier and quicker than going to the supermarket to buy shellfish (assuming you have an appropriate tidal flat). Step one: walk out into the shallow water during low tide. Step two: dig your hands under the mud. Step three: pull up the cockles. Between easy-to-get seafood and Nat and Jenine's humongous garden, it looks like feeding oneself is pretty darn easy here.

Also - we went to a brewpub! I admit I was disappointed in NZ beer up to now, but I give four thumbs up (mine and Britt's) to the Leigh Sawmill's Thornycroft amber.

Okay, now we are going to a predator-free preserve, or maybe a beach. (Omaha Beach. Insert WWII reference here.) Jenine (and I) wave at all of YOU.

Made it okay. Long flights suck.

I am proud and delighted to live in a town where 300-400 people show up for the ribbon-cutting of the new public library. (Admittedly that's like, 2-3% of the population, okay, not so huge, but still.) And of course I was pleased to see lots of people we knew, because of course anyone worthwhile would want to come see the library on opening night, right? We even checked out a few things. Yay!

7:50 - wake up. Look out window at overcast. Think, "that doesn't look too bad" and get up and make coffee.

8:10 - get newspaper from front walk. Hmm, it's drizzling. Still, not too bad.

8:20 - drink coffee, look out window, OMG it is pouring. Maybe I should go back to bed. Nah, I'm up, might as well make breakfast.

8:50 - finish eating breakfast, hmm, it seems to have stopped pouring and gone back to drizzling. Okay, no excuses. Get into running clothes and pull a rain jacket over, get my Garmin and HRM, look out the window again. Drink more coffee. Psych myself up.

9:10 - head outside and walk/jog up the mesa to the race start on the college campus. I get there around 9:30 and am amazed at how many people are there, warming up and signing up and hanging out. I am pretty much the only person in shorts and short sleeves (under my rain jacket, which I dither about wearing for the race but ultimately decide against). Sign up. Hit restroom. Look out window. It continues to drizzle very lightly. Look at race course map; the course has been re-routed off the singletrack because of the weather, so it's mostly pavement with about a mile of dirt road. Go outside and run around a little. I see a few more people in short sleeves and shorts, which makes me feel better about stripping off my jacket and sticking it under the drinks table at the finish line.

9:50 - line up at start. Freeze.

10:00 - and we are off! I try not to rabbit off too fast but the beginning of a race is always fast. Soon, though, I fall into a nice, comfortable pace. Except for my forearms between elbow and wrist, I am perfectly temperature-balanced. The rain is very light and maybe it stops altogether for a while, I'm not sure. I speed up on the downhill and pass a bunch of people. I glance at my Garmin and it tells me my heart rate is 210 bpm, which is about 20 beats more than I thought my maximum was; maybe the rain is affecting it. I slow down on the uphill, turn the corner, and then it's the dirt road by the reservoir, which normally has a lovely view of the La Platas but right now I can't tell if there are mountains there or not - all I see is cloud. Some woman passes me. I pass her right back, bitch. Up the hill by the golf course, around the corner of the mesa, across campus, and down under the clock tower and across the finish line with a time of 38:52 for the five miles. I won't know how I did relative to everyone else until tomorrow, but I'm happy with that.

10:40 - cool off. Drink juice. Eat a cookie. Watch people finish.

10:50 - FREEZE. It's started raining a little harder.

11:00 - head inside and wait for the raffle. The top male and female finishers in this race get modest prizes - pumpkin pies - but the good stuff, the gift certificates to restaurants and running stores, is reserved for the raffle. Alas, I get none of the prizes, not even a pair of socks (which are tossed at intervals to the crowd).

11:50 - head outside. OMG it is snowing. Thick, wet, gloppy snow. I beg a ride from one of the other runners so I don't have to walk home in it.

12:00 - take a hot shower and drink some hot tea. It's still snowing.

1:40 - Post this. It's still snowing.

I guess the next great adventure was when we bought the Sportsmobile, although so far we've only adventured a bit in Utah with it. (We are hoping to do a big Canada and Alaska trip in about a year and a half, though!) So this is the next next great adventure: we're going to New Zealand, and we're going to hike our butts off. (And also visit justjenineand gnat.)

I am not sure yet if I will try to update this journal or the Windom blog or what, or if I will try to do it in real time, but I might get some photos up at Flickr as we go and point to them from here. We're not bringing laptops (aie!!!)

What is it you are using to echo your Twitter posts to your Facebook status?

Okay, as some of you know, John McCain came here to Durango last Friday, which to most of us Dems was kind of WTF because not only is Colorado polling something like +10 for Obama right now, this county voted for Kerry four years ago and just a few weeks ago registered more Dems than GOP for the first time. (We still have more independents than either.) Plus, there are less than 40,000 people in the county, although if you reach out to areas a couple of hours' drive, there are maybe 100,000. The McCain rally was to be held at the high school football field, not exactly a huge venue. So we got together - we being the county Dems - and put together a huge counter-rally (not a protest, but a positive pro-Obama rally).

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. See, we got a big boost from a front-page article in our local newspaper last Thursday, with the headline, "Dems Prepare for McCain's arrival," and today there was a letter to the editor from some offended Republican, who complained:

We love Durango, but are extremely ashamed of our newspaper. In my opinion, the Herald is now no better than The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and The San Francisco Chronicle.

I am sure the newspaper editor is just devastated by the comparison.

If you are totally bored on Saturday you can, I think, track how I'm doing as I run the Baltimore Marathon. Supposedly the "results" link on the Baltimore Marathon website will give splits (probably at 13.1 and 20 miles) but you can certainly get my results after I finish either through that link or here. My bib number is #3438.

I have fairly narrow goals for this one - I'm aiming at a time around 3:55, I will be happy with anything under 4:00, and if everything comes together and I run a perfect race, with a tailwind, and magic fairy pixie dust, I might make 3:50.

Saturday was the Imogene Pass Run: 17 miles (plus two blocks) from Ouray (7810 ft) to Telluride (8820 ft), over 13,120 foot Imogene Pass. That's over 5000 vertical feet up in 10 miles, followed by over 4000 feet down in 7 miles, most of it on a rough and rocky 4WD road. It was the most awesomely fun race I have ever run.



( Up, up, and away! )

I averaged about 11 minute miles and made it to the finish line with a time of 4:10:42, 19th out of 73 finishers in my age group. I was hoping to get in under four and a half hours, so I'm really happy with that time.

All the photos on my Flickr page are here.