Ilanarama!

We barely got home from our eclipse roadtrip when it was time for our van to hit the road again. The White Rim trip we do most years was scheduled for just a few days after our return to Durango, so it was a whirlwind of shopping, food prep, laundry, refilling the water tanks, and adjusting the bikes before heading to Moab.

We've done the White Rim so many times now (and posted photos here, not every time but many) ( so here are just a few highlights, more photos than text )

Then it was time to head for the second part of this Moab trip, ( more biking and hiking (and photos) )

We like to get down to southern Arizona in the spring and fall (some previous trips), and while we've most frequently gone to the Scottsdale area, this year we decided to get a VRBO a little further south - in the Gold Canyon area east of Phoenix - and explore some new-to-us trails with our friends Frank and June. We went down in late March, so yeah, I'm a little late in posting, but I've been busy! It was a good time to go, not too hot for riding, and it was nice to escape winter for a little while.

( 4 days in Arizona )

All in all, it was a lovely minivacation and a nice way to ease from ski season into biking season. And fun to be in a different place with very different scenery!

Continued from part 1!

( From Bergamo to Ranco )

In conclusion, a photo that captures the image in my mind of Lombardy - it's a place of flowers:

As I mentioned in my post about our spring trip, pretty much as soon as we came back we made plans to return to the Scottsdale area with friends for Thanksgiving. Rolfe and Kristin are a couple we've done many vacations with, and Frank and June are also good friends we like to do things with; all are mountain bikers, though none are crazy expert lunatic riders, and so we felt they'd all enjoy the easy-moderate riding of the McDowell Sonoran preserve. In addition, Frank and Rolfe are Britt's occasional golfing partners, and Scottsdale is a popular winter golfing destination. (Also we are all vaccinated and boosted, and careful about activities among people.) So we rented a big house, divvied up the Thanksgiving feast responsibilities, and headed south for a four-day Arizona adventure.



( Pictures and words )

Flickr album (photos, no words)

Uh, oops, have I really not posted here in almost a year? (I guess the pandemic is a decent excuse.) Anyway, I wanted to share some photos and blahblahwords from a couple of weeks of vacationing we did in the second half of March, and yes, it was a pandemic-proof vacation, mostly spent in our camper van, but with five days in a VRBO in Scottsdale that we shared with some friends of ours who drove down just for that bit. (They, and we, are fully vaccinated, so we had no qualms at all!) We hiked and biked in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and back to Colorado - around the Four Corners!

Here is a teaser (from the Navajo Rocks trails north of Moab, looking east toward the La Sals):



We started out by driving about five hours south and east into New Mexico, past Albuquerque, to the Valley of Fires Recreation Area (BLM) near the town of Carizozo. This is the site of what's called Malpais Lava Flow; approximately 5,000 years ago, an eruption from vents in the surface of the ground created a lava flow 44 miles long, 4-6 miles wide and 160 feet thick. It's one of the youngest lava flows in the continental United States, and there's a small campground on an "island" in the middle - and we snagged a spot! ( Read more and see some photos! )

These plus more photos at Flickr (album of 36 pictures from our trip), no blah blah

Happy housiversary to us! Yep, one year ago today we moved into our Rim Drive house, and I have to say that considering we have been "forced" to spend a lot of time here lately, it was an excellent decision.



Tuesday was our wedding anniversary, too; I joked on Facebook that the 28th was houses, and the 29th facemasks and toilet paper. Who knows what our 30th (!!) will bring next year?



Of course the Covid-19 pandemic has affected our lives, but we are fortunate enough in our situation that it has not been terrible or terrifying. I work at home anyway, so the only difference is that my cow-orkers (yes, that's deliberate, a habit from my old talk.bizarre days) are also online during our meetings - and actually, this has caused us to switch from a voice-only plus screencast type of meeting to Google Meet and Zoom, where we all see each other, and I think it has made me feel a bit more part of the group. Britt is mostly retired and so things aren't all that different for him, either; he still spends a lot of time on the phone, no change there! Our ski areas never reopened, but after a month of closure and putting new systems in place, the golf course did, so Britt has started playing again.

I'm still running, even though the other race I'd registered for, the Steamworks Half Marathon in early June, just canceled. (In addition to Canyonlands, which was supposed to be mid-March, and canceled the previous week.) I like running, though, so even without a race I'm happy to get out and enjoy the world. Our White Rim bike trip, which would have been next weekend, was also canceled, but we're still hoping that the hut trip in late June will be allowed to proceed (though I'm dubious it will). I feel bad for people who are truly stuck at home, or in tiny apartments in cities (like our Barcelona friends, who can only go out for grocery trips), but our governor recognizes the importance Coloradans place on outdoor recreation, and it's considered the necessity it is - provided, of course, that one practices proper social distancing:



So we have gotten out for longish rides on the mountain bikes a few times, which has been a lot of fun, and I'm running around the neighborhood most days. I haven't ridden my e-bike that much because when I've gone shopping (twice in the past four weeks, go me!) I want to get more stuff than will fit in my panniers. But I did ride down to a quiet country road to do a run last week, locking my bike by my favorite bakery, and then bought bread there. (They only let one person in at a time now, but it was a nice day, and nobody really minded standing in a sparse 6-foot-apart line.) I also rode over to the college (a mile and a half) to pick up some eggs, greens, and bacon from the college-associated farm collective which does my CSA, though that won't start until next month. I'll be getting more eggs from them, as well as honey, on Tuesday.

We've done a few social distancing happy hours over Zoom and Hangouts and WhatsApp, and a friend had a Zoom birthday party for her 40th, but really, I think we're just antisocial people who are happy to spend time together in our wonderful house.

I hope all of you are healthy and happy and doing well! In conclusion:

As some of you may remember, last summer we took a minivacation in Telluride for Britt's birthday, mountain biking and hiking. A few months ago we attended a local Democratic Party fundraiser, and one of the silent auction items was a July 4th stay at a cabin in Telluride, donated by the cabin's owner (an acquaintance who is a stalwart Dem); since we had such a good time last year, I decided to bid on the cabin, and I got it! So on Wednesday afternoon we packed up the pickup with our mountain bikes and hiking gear, coffee and beer and snacks and things to make breakfast and lunch with, and headed out of town.

On the way to Telluride we passed Memorial Rock, our first time on this road since it fell in May. The huge scar on the hillside where the rocks came down is as impressive as the rock itself! We also noticed how much snow still remained in the mountains - what a change from last year. We got to the cabin, which was basically a tiny house in the backyard of another house, put our things inside, and then walked the few blocks to the main street to have some dinner.

The next morning we had coffee and blueberry pancakes, packed a lunch and snacks, and hopped on the bikes. On our visit last summer we rode the first half of the Galloping Goose trail, which mostly follows an old railroad grade. This trip we were determined to ride all the way to Lizard Head Pass! But that would be easier said than done; shortly after the climb out of Ilium, about 10 miles into our ride, we had a moderately intimidating creek crossing. It turned out to be only the first of many. Last year, of course, a month later and after a terrible snow year, the creeks were only trickles.



( Excitement! Adventure! Photos! )

As some of you know, Colorado had a late-season snowstorm earlier this week, but it cleared up beautifully for the Memorial Day weekend so we went on a bike ride! Here is the Strava map: basically, we rode the Skyline Trail (for some value of 'rode' which includes a whole lot of walking the bike up steep and rocky switchbacks, for me at least) up to Raider Ridge, then down the other side, then looped around through the Horse Gulch area and back through the trail system to the Skyline Trail trailhead, then back home. We actually rode to the trailhead on various bits of singletrack and one dirt road, so the amount of pavement totaled less than a mile, yay!

Here is Britt at our lunch spot on top of the ridge (and I know I've posted other photos at this very spot, but lookit all the snow in the mountains!):



I also wanted to post more house photos, since I realized that basically everything I've put up here since we moved in has been either the exterior or the great room/kitchen. Here is our sunroom, which will be getting houseplants eventually. It's designed so that in the summer, the sun doesn't come in due to the angle and overhang, but in the winter the sun should come in and warm up the black stone floor. The view is not as dramatic as on the other side of the house, but it looks out over - well, our driveway, first, but then a golf course (my beautiful lawn that I don't have to maintain!) and Raider Ridge in the background (the ridge we climbed today, though this view is further southwest than the spot where we were).



Here is my office! I waited to photograph it until I got my new office furniture (the Metro line from Pier One, rather simply made but solid wood). I still need to KonMari some of my office things (and put up some pictures!), but I am pleased with it as a workspace.



The thing on the left side of the view with the rock wall is the cat perch, which - I'm thinking of getting rid of since it doesn't seem to be bringing Lucy much joy. Instead she likes to sit in the bottom windows, which open and have screens across them (she loves sitting in them when they're opened), and the other evening I caught her sitting in the small upper window:



We still haven't put out the patio furniture because the landscapers are still working (well, the past few weeks they have not been here, which is a bit aggravating - we want this all done!) but I'm looking forward to moving our primary living space outside!

Huh, from recent posts in my journal it looks like all I'm doing is building a house. Well, that's...not far from the truth. I see that the last time I posted about running was last August, when I decided to DNS the Thirsty Thirteen half marathon, and the last biking was our Thanksgiving vacation to Scottsdale. But I get super antsy without physical activity, so I've definitely been doing stuff, I just haven't been writing about it.

After several years of "exceptional drought" we finally had a relatively epic winter. It snowed a lot in town, and it snowed a LOT up at Purgatory. We pretty quickly earned out our ski passes, going once or twice a week.



Even with the snow, I was able to run 4-5 times a week throughout the winter, because Durango keeps the (paved) river trail plowed, and at midday it was usually pretty pleasant. Because of the issues I had after my pelvic stress fracture, I've been trying to keep up my stretching and core exercises and increasing mileage verrrrrry slowly, so I'm only up to a slow 35mpw right now, but I registered for the Steamworks Half Marathon in early June, so I've got something to train toward.

We also took out our mountain bikes for the first time since our Arizona trip! Things are still muddy up here (though rapidly drying out), but there are a few trail areas near Farmington, New Mexico, about an hour's drive away. Last Saturday we went to an area new to us, the Road Apple Rally trails, and spent a very pleasant couple of hours.



Other than that, we are still madly packing and moving things and cleaning. The movers come on Friday! The closing on our old house is a week later!

Two weeks to go to the Thirsty Thirteen half marathon! I'm...less excited than I might be, because I seem to have pulled a muscle (?) in my groin; it started hurting while in Telluride (where I was doing biking only, no running!) and it hasn't stopped yet. At first I was nervous that I'd somehow re-injured my stress fracture, because it hurts in about the same place, but the pattern is different: it hurts most at night and in the morning, and when I start walking (or running), or stand up from a sitting position, but it eases up after some activity, and doesn't bother me much on runs after a mile or so. My body guy thinks it's a case of inner thigh muscles working when they shouldn't, and I'm doing exercises and have my second appointment tomorrow, but I'm really not pleased with the way things are feeling.

Anyway, the last two weeks. First week was mostly in Telluride and therefore mostly biking:

Monday: 27 mtb with ~2300' climb/descent
Tuesday: 14 mtb and 3.8 hiking (total ~4000')
Wednesday: 14 mtb with ~1200'
Thursday: 11 mtb with ~400'
Friday: 8 miles running with 2x2 tempo (7:57 average tempo pace)
Saturday: 3.8 easy
Sunday: 13 easy and quite a bit slower than I'd like (10:15 pace)

For a total of just under 25 miles of running, plus 66 miles of riding. The second week was back to running, and although I had planned on doing some riding too, it didn't work out that way:

Monday: rest (trying to ease the groin issue)
Tuesday: 6.3 easy
Wednesday: 8.3 with 5 tempo. I have been feeling as though my HMP goal is a bit aggressive, so I deliberately didn't push too hard out of worry that I wouldn't be able to complete the whole distance, but 8:17 was way slower than I wanted! I didn't feel I could go any faster at the end, either, so...I dunno. Maybe I'm delusional about my half goal. :-(
Thursday: 6.3 easy
Friday: 4.9 trail. A bit faster than my previous trail run, yay!
Saturday: 14.4 with 1-minute surges at the beginning of miles 6-14. It went really well, and I felt really good; overall pace was 9:18 which surprised me. I don't record the surge pace specifically, but generally it was in the 7:30-7:45 region, even in the last miles.
Sunday: Had been planning to mtb, but got a migraine and basically vegetated all day.

Total 40 miles nearly on the dot!

Now I'm planning to cut back my running volume and work in a bit more faster running in small doses, as my taper/sharpening period. As I commented four weeks ago, looking at past race failures has suggested I need to be more serious about my taper, even though I never used to do more than front-load race week (back when I was doing half marathons as marathon tune-up races). Hopefully this will give my adductors and glutes a chance to settle down, and give me a better race on the 25th.