Ilanarama!

I haven't posted since Thanksgiving, oops. So here's the short version:

• After returning from hiking and biking over Thanksgiving, I had a great week of working out, a combination of walking, mountain biking, and the elliptical at the gym. I also started doing short sessions on the indoor track at the gym, alternate loops of a slow jog and a walk, after elliptical sessions, just to ease into running again.


• Then I had a not-so-great week, though I am not sure why - I think I must have been sick - but after a ride on Wednesday I didn't do any exercise until the following Wednesday, when I went for a walk. I got back up to the rec center for some more elliptical and mini-jog on Thursday, December 14th. I also called my mother, as it was her birthday; she was in a nursing rehab facility recovering from a fall the week before, and my father and some of their friends were there, giving her a little party in her room.


• Then it was time for my own party, as Britt's company had scheduled a holiday weekend in Telluride! Since it had been so warm and dry, we packed both ski stuff and bike stuff. On Friday afternoon we left work early and mountain biked at Phil's World, which is more or less on the way (we rarely go there because it's a long drive, so we took the opportunity!) and then when we arrived in Telluride we had just enough time to shower before meeting the rest of the group for drinks and dinner. Saturday was for skiing, which was only possible on a small subset of runs with man-made snow, but for what it was it was fine, and the relatively warm weather meant we could have lunch on the mountain at the outdoor French restaurant Bon Vivant. Stupid expensive for lunch, but really excellent food, and the view couldn't be beat:
  
  ( cut for photo )
  
  
  After a few more runs, we decamped to the hot tub, then went to the big company party. Sunday (December 18th) we had a leisurely breakfast with a couple of friends and then drove back home, taking a detour through Cortez to buy a picnic lunch to take on the Canyons of the Ancients Loop in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. We'd done this ride a few years ago, also during an unusually warm and dry winter. This time, on our newer bikes and in better shape, I think we managed a lot more riding and less bike-pushing!


• We got home, put away our gear, showered, and sat down to dinner...and my phone rang. It was my youngest brother, telling me that my father was in the hospital, having just suffered a cerebral hemorrhage...and my mother was due to return from the nursing rehab center the next day! He and his family live fairly close to our parents, and they'd been helping out while Mom had been in the nursing center, but having simultaneous health crises with both parents was a bit much to cope with.


• And so I flew out to Maryland on a one-way ticket the next day, after spending the morning on the phone with my brother, checking flight schedules online, and emailing my (extremely understanding) boss. Four incredibly difficult but rewarding weeks later, after getting the situation more or less stabilized, I finally came back home. That was two weeks ago.

I'd brought running shoes and exercise clothes, but I only managed three very short runs (15-20 minutes, the last on a treadmill) due to things being in continuous crisis mode. (I also brought my laptop and key cards so I could do work...I did zero work.) So my fitness level is basically back down to zero; I've managed to run pretty much every other day now that I'm home, but I'm very slow and my endurance is pathetic. (The good news is that my stress fracture must be completely healed by now?) We went skiing once, but the winter is still unusually warm and dry, and conditions are not very appealing. I'm hoping to take advantage of the weather to run and bike and slowly get myself back into shape - we've got a White Rim trip on the schedule in mid-May, and we'd like to do some backpacking this summer.

Anyway, that's the scoop. I'll have more to say about that crazy month taking care of my parents, but for the most part, I hope this marks a return to frequent posts about my outdoorsy pursuits!

With the start of the new year, there is a sense of beginning anew, of starting over, even though all we've marked is an arbitrary spot on the calendar. Even so, for me things feel like I'm starting from scratch again - actually, like I'm preparing to begin to start from scratch, because I'm not even there yet!

In the fall I was looking forward to taking a short break from running during the second half of October, then ramping up my training for the Boston marathon. Well, you know what they say about best-laid plans. At this point, not only am I not running, I'm unable to do any exercise at all. I'm fat and cranky and hurting. While I have not yet ruled out going to Boston to cheer on my friends, the marathon is out of the question.

( The story thus far )

When I told Mike (my PT) that I thought it was getting worse rather than better, he suggested that I see a back specialist; he says my lower back is really tight, and he suspects the source of the problem is there, not in my glutes. This is a reasonable possibility, as I've periodically had back issues. So I made an appointment for this Thursday.

And then, on Friday, Britt and I went skiing. This was our first time up to the mountain this season, and we didn't know how his knee or my butt/hip/leg would do, so we planned a relatively short day on easier terrain.

The first couple of runs I felt great. I didn't even notice my usual low-level pain. Plus, I just got new skis this year, longer and smoother and lighter than my old ones, and so it was a real delight to be making turns on the lovely new snow we got on Thursday! Or at least it was for just short of three runs, because I was nearly down to the lift on the third run when suddenly, for no apparent reason, something went SPROING in my back. I came to a screeching halt and tried to put myself into the least painful position while I waited for Britt to realize that I was waving and screaming for a reason :-(

Fortunately, we were not far from the lift that ended at the restaurant, where we'd been planning to stop for lunch anyway at that point. Between the slow lift and the slow service, we took a two-hour break, and I had a pint and a half of muscle relaxant, so our return to the base (which requires two runs with a lift in the middle, taking the easiest path and going slow) was not as miserable as I had feared.

So there you have it. I'm even more crippled up than I was before; I'm sprawled in a recliner, downing copious amounts of Aleve and carefully doing my old McKenzie Method back exercises several times a day. But in a way this is confirmation that the trouble is in my spine, after all. So I'm hopeful that Thursday's appointment will bring some answers, or at least put me on that road.

Yesterday: was our Democratic Party county assembly. For those of you not in caucus states (probably most of the American readers of this journal; and of course other countries do things differently) and for those of you in Colorado who haven't gotten involved, this is where the delegates elected in our caucus get together to cast our county's vote for statewide and national candidates (this year, just for US Senate) and for local candidates, and vote on party platform resolutions, and generally get all rah-rah about politics. I was not a delegate but I am part of the Local Party Machine (capitals ironic) and ran the powerpoint slides and timed the speakers. Woo. ( Making sausage. )

Today: we went skiing, almost certainly the last ski day of the season for us. It was on the order of 55°F out there, and it was like skiing on a slushee, fast and slick but easy to carve turns. The weird thing was that there had been a dust storm early in the week, and much of the snow had a light coat of reddish-brown dust. Not nearly as pretty as shiny white snow, that's for sure. ( It really stood out on the mogul tops )

We still had a lot of fun skiing, though, and my quads are certainly aching from it. And a few more pictures are here on Flickr.

A week from tomorrow: I am running the Boston Marathon! *gulp* I will make a post later this week with my bib number and information so that if you are bored and near a computer on Monday morning (or whatever it will be in your time zone) you can check the marathon website, which is tracking runners every 5 miles (I think; it might be 5K, which is really often, as a marathon is 42K!) and see how I am doing. Needless to say, I am not expecting to win. :-) My original and ambitious goal was 3:30, and my half marathon last month suggested I could do even better, but I've been injured and my training has been really half-assed because of it. I don't really know what I could do right now. I'd like a PR (3:45 or better), I'd be really happy with 3:3x, and honestly, I should just be happy to finish it, considering. So I am probably not going to know what I am targeting until I actually get out there and start running.

ETA: Right now: I totally forgot while composing this post, but I had intended to thank whoever it was who anonymously gave me a month's paid account at Dreamwidth. So, thank you so much!

Eric reminded me on my last post that I haven't posted here in a while. So, what have I been doing?

Running. This has been my first winter of serious training, and I have to say that it hasn't been bad at all. Then again, I don't actually mind running in (light) snow. I have been running more mileage than I ever have before! And I've been getting faster - I finally got the 5K monkey off my back (my 5K time has always been much slower than what is predicted by my faster races) and smoked (relatively speaking) a race on Saturday in 22:14, a PR for me by almost 1:45 and fast enough to get me first place woman! I won a gift certificate for a pair of running shoes, which I graciously gave Britt since he has started running with me on my easy days in his beat-up old sneakers.

Skiing. We have had a lot of snow this year, which has been very nice as we also have weekday passes at Purgatory. Britt and I have gone once a week, not necessarily for the whole day but we get plenty of skiing in. When the weather has been right (and it mostly has) we have gone on Fridays, when the nice restaurant up at Dante's is open: we ski some morning runs, get to the restaurant around 1:00, have some fancy food and a Backside Stout each. It's our special treat, and actually, it costs only maybe 50% more than the crappy food in the cafeteria downstairs, and it tastes 100 times better, and it's so much more pleasant to sit in the pretty room and have a nice waitress bring us our food.

And skiing once a week has definitely improved my skiing. And! I just bought fancy new boots at an end-of-season sale, and I'm gonna try them out tomorrow. I am confident they will make me ski so much better! Right?

Politics. Oh, man, you don't want to hear about local politics. *facepalm* Colorado's caucuses are in two weeks. I'm girding my loins.

Pictures. I keep forgetting to bring my camera while skiing (we have had some beautiful days!) or running. But I got some great shots of some of the deer who hang around my neighborhood, and wow, that was five weeks ago and most of that snow is GONE.