Mind Games

I've been thinking a lot about the power of our minds. We can do some amazing, and also some amazingly stupid things just by thought alone.
I realized this a few weeks back while I was out for a run. I was nursing a tight and sore hamstring and realized that my inner conversation was about talking myself into running longer than I felt like running that day. I was doing this by "phrasing" the mileage in a certain light. For me, this is playing little numbers games like thinking in terms of four five-mile laps instead of ever letting the phrase 20 miles into my head. It seems like a small difference, but it suddenly came clear to me that I had perfected all these little techniques to add up to a lot of mind games.
On the one hand, I was grateful for this adaptation. I think it made it possible for me to run 80 miles around a very small track. I had spent six months teaching my brain to convince itself that the laps were just that, and not to think of the enormity of the larger goal. It worked like a charm for that, and I was able to complete the 80 miles without a trace of doubt during the entire 21+ hours.
However, I think these games became habit, and I didn't even realize I was playing them any more. I think that I kept minimizing the miles in my head, and it lead to me running way too many miles too soon after the 24-hour race. This lead to the aggravation of some foot problems that I was having and probably delayed my return to strong running.
It's a fine line to walk. To effectively play these mind games, you need to convince yourself that what you're doing is much easier than it is. Basically, you want to lose a little perspective. I seem to be really good at that part. As Brian likes to observe, I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of girl. The harder thing for me is to walk the middle ground. I want to play enough mind games that I can take on and complete challenging events, but at the same time keep my perspective so that I can see (and avoid) injury or burn-out approaching.
So I'm going to continue to play these games, but with a new awareness. An awareness that I'm doing it and a little more caution as to how I'm phrasing things to myself. I'm going to try to allow for the possibility of injury or illness, and let myself feel the feeling of not wanting to do something hard.
It's something for me to work on for the next 70 years anyway.

Across The Years - or almost 24 hours of running...

This race was what all the training in 2011 was about. I don't even remember now how I found this race, or why it aroused such curiosity in me.

But curious was definitely what I was. I checked in on the web pages throughout the spring, because there was a lottery to enter this race. Can you believe that? Too many entrants for the space that they used... they had to restrict to a lottery!

In the meantime, we moved to a new house in the spring, and my running kind of dwindled. I was down to quite a few 20 mile weeks, and even a few 10 mile weeks. I think I had a hard time transitioning to running in "the city". I hadn't realized how nice the washes were for running lots of miles.

As we approached the beginning of the summer, the web page started taunting with statements like "The lottery opens soon. Check back this summer." I kept checking and nothing.

During this time I came upon Aravaipa Running in Phoenix. They put on quite a few distance events, but almost all trail events. I found the Javelina 12-hour run and thought it sounded fun and like a good training run for the 24-hour, if it ever took place. So Brian and I trained and ran the 12-hour race. You can read about that here.

We were a few weeks out from the 12-hour night run when the web page finally announced that financial trouble had put an end to Across The Years with its old sponsor and old location. But lo and behold - Aravaipa Running had picked up the race! Even better, the new location, Camelback Ranch, had more space than the old location, and therefore no more lottery. If you wanted in, you paid your fee and then were in. I quickly found a 100-mile training plan to tack onto the training as soon as the 12-hour race was over and we were off!

I was pretty impressed with how fast I recovered from running 46.2 miles. The weekend after the 12 hour, I ran 10 miles for a long run, and two weeks after, I ran a 28 mile long run. Of course, that 28 hour run should have told me a lot about what my condition was - I just blamed it on being in much colder weather on travel and out of my routine. I think the real truth was that my legs were still pretty beat up, although not reporting it all to my brain very well. I should probably have waited another week or two to attempt that mileage.

I'll try not to bore you with the training details, if you want my training log, you can take a peek at what I was doing here. Suffice it to say that it took a lot longer for the long runs to feel okay, and that the weather turning very cold for last part of November into December did not make it very easy to get up in the morning and knock out the training miles.

Still, I set an ambitious (for me) goal to run 80 miles, and a secondary goal to keep moving for the entire 24 hour period. (Smarter readers than me can probably guess what happens somewhere around mile 75 when you have had your mind set on 80, but I'll get to that.)

Thursday morning before our race day, we watched on the web cam as about 100 runners started on either a 24-hour, 48-hour or 72-hour race! That is absolutely unbelievable. And, pretty boring. There they go, almost slow. It was interesting to check in on them the whole time. The field didn't look crowded at all (I was worried that it would be). And the weather was now beautiful and sunny. Almost too sunny.

We drove up to Phoenix Friday and stopped at 'the ranch' and set up a tent, air mattress and sleeping bags. That way we could check out what the aid station was stocking and fill any specialized cravings at the grocery store. Kudos to Aravaipa Running for running such great events. Even better than the 12-hour race, the aid stations were always fully stocked, and they were continually keeping trash cans empty, porta-potties cleaned, and everything super organized.

Brian's plan was to run 50 miles fast and since the temperature was getting near 80 degrees, he wouldn't start until the evening. Until he started, he was going to be my race crew. The night before I think that I talked him into starting with me. I was worried about the overnight lows being too low for him.

Smiling amid our tent and supply table

So almost too suddenly, it's 9am on Saturday morning, and the race has started.

Just before the start, I'll pass under that banner 77 times

The track is 1.05 miles. 77 times around would be my goal. It's amazing that you can run that track that many times and not get bored. But, as I like to say lately: "If you get bored, then you're a boring person". A human mind is a wonderful thing, and one of the most amazing things is our ability to visualize and introspect. 24 hours of doing one physical action is the most amazing meditation that I know of.

The first 20 miles seemed to pass in a blink. However, it was getting warm! I learned from October's 12-hour race that there is a definite humidity difference between Phoenix and Tucson that I don't notice until I race there. I learned my lesson this time and stayed on top of the hydration issues. As usual, I ate well and timely towards the beginning of the race, but as the miles piled on, I started to resent having to eat. Another lesson learned at the 12-hour came in handy though: Coke has a significant amount of calories and it seems like I can stomach it when nothing else wants to go down. Weird.

I had two pairs of shoes with me and had promised myself that I would switch every 20 miles. Mostly I was doing this to get a chance to clean out my shoes and socks and check in on my feet. I was worried that if I didn't catch the beginnings of blisters, they would then put a stop to the whole thing.

Barb & Dale showed up around mile 35, and mom showed up shortly after. That was a real treat. It made me feel that I was actually still part of the real world. I had a goal to get 40 miles out of the way as fast as I could though, so I motored on a little, just giving hugs, hamming it up for the camera and stopping for water by them each lap.

Hamming it up for Barbara's camera

I finished 40 miles in 8:20 (right at a 12 minute pace). I changed my shoes and socks again, had Brian stretch my legs a little and then headed out to walk a few miles to let my body catch up on food and drink. Brian walked a few miles with me and helped make the clothes transition for the cold weather that was coming fast.

Around 45 miles, I noticed that the bottoms of my feet were burning, and I thought blisters were the culprit. I had read that the medical tent urged runners to check in at the first hint of a problem, as most things are fixable early on. I checked in at the tent and spent a half hour that was well worth it getting my feet taped. I won't go into it here, maybe a future post will explain the magic that Brian and I learned in the medical tent that night...

True to his word, Brian provided support to me for the night. Before going to sleep in the tent, he mixed up a final protein shake for me, charged my Garmin, and loaned me his IPOD to listen to. Even his going to bed was to support me, because I had informed him that there was no way I was going to be able to help pack anything, or drive us home the next morning. I think I convinced him to go to sleep some time before 11pm.

I don't have many memories between when Brian went to bed and when I got to 76 miles and woke him up. I remember the stroke of midnight, because they passed out noise makers to everyone and everyone congregated at the start/finish line to make a ton of noise and sing Auld Lang Syne. That was pretty cool. I remember that I discovered that there was a "real" bathroom at some point, and started using that for the rest of the night instead of the porta-potties. This had the triple-advantage of cleanliness, warmth and I could monitor the color of my pee. That sounds bad, but remember, I had already run for over 12 hours, most of it at 80+ degrees.

When I saw my mileage count had passed 75, I decided I would give Brian warning. My biggest problem at this point was that I was absolutely freezing. I think that I could have done a better job with more layers, but I was so close to being done, and so delerious from sleep-deprivation, that I just wasn't patient enough to change.

Each mile was taking me 25 minutes by this time (including a 5 minute stop in the heated tent to blow heat-cannons into my jackets and mittens). So I would be done in a little over an hour from when I woke him. I told him he had a choice: Either he packed up and was ready to go as soon as I finished, or he needed to put a sleeping bag in the car, and I would be there sleeping whenever he woke up. I'm really glad he chose to be ready to leave, and I think he knew that I preferred that.

I come around for my last lap, and I see Brian at the finish line with my mom's camera. 6:19am, or 21 hours, 19 minutes after I started, I finished 80.85 miles! I was so proud, and so darn frozen. Brian shooed away the guys that were hovering over the monitor, and snapped this picture of me.

Finished! (They later corrected the missing mile problem)

As soon as I stopped moving, my feet and ankles let me know how much pain I was in. Brian and I turned our timing chips into the race organizers and I stood, waiting for them to find our finishing awards (huge beer steins). It was almost comical, me standing there (barely able to without falling over) and them trying to figure out where they put the box of glasses.

So now here we are, a month after the race. The recovery? It's been interesting. The tops of my feet were swollen, and I thought that was the only damage. Two days later, the tops of my feet were fine, and then it was clear that my right quadricep was messed up. Three days later, my quadricep is fine and my left hamstring has the problem. Now I'm back to the tops of my feet being sore. Who knows how many layers of soreness I still have to work through. But I'm back to running, and am already signing up for races again. Not anything longer than a marathon...

...yet.

Javelina 12 hour night run

Where do I start? I won't try to start by explaining why I signed up for the race in the first place. I still haven't figured out what makes me keep going back to the marathon, much less wanting to run more. I think it has a lot to do with testing my limits, and maybe trying to confuse people that insist on putting me in "a box". Whatever the reason, I ended up at McDowell Mountain Regional Park near Fountain Hills on the evening of October 15th, waiting to start what I was hoping would be a 75k (46.2 mile) race for me. It was a 12 hour night run, in which runners get to choose 1, 2, 3 or 4 loops (each loop being 15.4 miles), as long as they can finish the distance in less than 12 hours. I knew that I could finish 3 laps (as long as I stayed awake and moving forward). I also knew that I couldn't finish 4, so that was nice not to have the pressure to try.

I have to talk about my support crew a little here... Originally, I had asked Steve to give us a ride to and pick us up from the race, because I didn't think Brian and I would be in driving condition. In the two weeks leading up to the race, that turned into Barb & Dale picking us up from the shuttle at the airport, after they had setup the tent trailer at the park in their reserved camping spot. It seems that they spent their whole Saturday getting things all setup so that Steve, Denise and Ryder could camp out while we finished up our laps. Not that anyone got that much sleep, especially Steve. I thank them all. They are truly the best support team anyone can ask for. Here's a pic of everyone (except Barb, who's taking the picture) before the race started.

So... the race. First, the high temp that day ended up around 96F?!? This is the middle of October! That wasn't supposed to be an issue. But it was. It especially was on the first lap. Whenever I'm running in higher temperatures, my stomach likes to tell me that I shouldn't be. But here it was, 6pm and it was time to hit it. The sun was still up, but Brian and I set out with our headlamps on, as the sun would set within the first couple of miles. Moon rise was not until 8:05pm, so I knew the first lap was going to be dark.

I ran too fast for the first 2 miles (always), and then settled into an awful rhythm of running until my stomach cramped and then walking until it felt bearable to start running again. I was really disappointed that my stomach was acting up, because my legs and lungs felt awesome. The sun set, my headlamp came on, and I had my first preview of how hard it was going to be running in the dark on uneven terrain. (Have I mentioned that I did zero training on trails? That's how I like to roll.) There were lots of runners strung out along this first lap, and it was really cool to look behind me and see the string of headlamps. Ahead of me, I could occasionally see a headlamp and knew that they were looking back at the same view. That helped a lot to prevent me from getting lost on that first lap. After the aid station (mile 9?), I started to have longer stretches of no stomach trouble, the slope turned mostly downhill and it was mostly sandy there in contrast to the sharp rocks of the first half. I picked up some time here, but a glance at my watch told me that I should start looking for Brian coming the other way. (Each lap this race has you change directions on the loop, so Brian and I would cross at least two times in the night, depending on how many loops he decided to do.) So imagine my surprise when I see in the lead - Brian! I was totally unprepared for him to be leading (silly me), and so I recognized him and yelled out his name after we had already passed. So much for that encounter. I had a little bit of a sprint I'm sure, since I was so psyched to see him running so strong. A few more walk breaks with stomach cramps and I come into the start/finish line to see Denise, Ryder and Steve cheering loudly for me. I got hugs from everyone, Ryder told me that this was "nutty", and I ran for the bathrooms. In the meantime, my awesome support crew switched my race number to a clean shirt and filled my water bottles with ice water. After listening to me complain about my stomach, Denise and Steve decide that I should drink ginger ale. This did not sound good to me, but I gave in to their (probably more sound) thinking. I'm glad I did. It seemed to start working on my stomach right away, and I was ready to start my second lap. Unfortunately, 2 bathroom visits and sitting with ginger ale added up to a 17 minute rest between laps, and I didn't have that much time to spare. I headed out after saying goodnight to Ryder and Denise and hearing that Brian was first on the first 25k and that Steve would be there when I finished my 2nd lap.

My second lap was looking more promising with the ginger ale working on my belly, and I was starting to think that I could finish 2 laps. (Did I mention that I was revising my goals and forcing myself to be happy with 2 laps?) It was a LOT quieter out there on the 2nd lap. 134 people started the race, 59 people continued for a 2nd lap. There was a lot more talking between runners on this lap, and I started passing a lot of people that had planned to run 3 laps, but were going to be lucky to finish 2. Maybe adversity is my motivator, because all of this talk from others about not meeting their goals made me start thinking that no matter how slow it was, I was going to get 3 laps done that night. I hit the aid station feeling pretty good, and even decided that I could eat something then. I ate one of my bean burrito chunks and two chunks of cantaloupe that was provided by the aid station. I started feeling even better after that and resolved to run as much of the sharp, rocky downhill as I could on the 2nd half of the 2nd loop. Just a mile past the aid station, who do I encounter but Brian! This time when I saw the first runner, I just assumed that of course it would be my super-human husband and shone my headlamp on my clothes, thinking he would recognize them if it was him. Sure nuf. It was him. Sounding more tired than I've ever heard him and carrying an empty water bottle. This was a little weird, because he didn't start the race with any water bottles. Apparently, the dryness had gotten even to him, because someone had taken pity on him and lent him a bottle. He asked me how close to the aid station he was (he ran without even a watch), and I mis-informed him that it was a "couple of miles". There was some confusion on counting laps, and I asked him if he was going to do 3 laps (he was past the middle point of his 3rd lap). Anyway, I gave him a peck on the cheek, told him to keep it up, but that he didn't have to win it, and went on my way. It occurred to me after we parted that I could have given him some of my water, but it was too late for that. I couldn't catch him if I tried. I guess it worked out because I finished my 2nd lap parched, having run out of water miles back.

My plan to run most of the downhill worked pretty well. I switched on my tempo music to keep my feet moving fast enough that I wouldn't fall if one foot went out from under me and started making good progress. I started up a conversation with a regular ultra-runner from San Francisco (I never got his name). He was super-impressed by my ability to run downhill without falling on such uneven terrain; but his racing schedule was even more impressive. He was doing this race as a practice run for the 100-mile Javelina race next month. And, he does a race that long about 4 times per year. He was taking an "easy night".

I run into the finish line of my 2nd lap and Steve is standing and cheering and Brian is sitting there looking like he is half sleepy and the other half in pain. Steve asks what he can do and I hand him my bone-dry water bottle to fill. I also ask him to fill my 2nd bottle which I hadn't carried on the previous laps, but I know my last lap will be the slowest and will need the water. Brian is mumbling something about how he should go out with me because "you're going to walk most of it, right?" He has only been done about 20 minutes, so I can tell that the unbearable cold that hits your body after exerting yourself for so long is about to hit him. So I tell him to change all his clothes, I find my jacket in my bag and throw it at him and direct Steve to find the Tylenol in my bag, because Brian should take some. I did all this in less than a 5-minute time period. I needed to get out there because if Brian is going to WIN 3 laps, then I needed to at least COMPLETE 3 laps.

So out I go.

(About Brian's race: He won the 75k with a time of 6:48:20 - truly an amazing performance for his first ultra-marathon.)

There is almost no one out there now (only 28 people start a third lap, and most of them are faster than me, and so started it much earlier). This means that I have no one to follow this time, and I remember from the first loop, the trail was harder for me to follow this way. I learned that Brian's headlamp batteries died, so I start worrying about this possibility. I turn my headlamp off when I'm walking and turn it on only when I'm trying to run.

At this point, I'm getting a little too sleepy to do math properly, but I spend a significant amount of the first 4 miles trying to work out the slowest pace that I could average and still make the 12-hour cutoff (I'm not sure that I ever completely worked that problem out). But it doesn't matter because my GPS watch battery dies. So I have no idea now how many miles I have left. Panic ensues (that I won't finish before 12 hours), so I start to run parts of the trail that I shouldn't. Lots of kicking of 10 pound rocks happens. Good times. No, wait! It gets better! Since I'm trying to run too much now, I have my narrow-beam headlamp on (to see the largest rocks to kick?) It turns out if you take a very bright narrow-beam headlamp and shine it on the reflective light sand/dirt between two trees, it will look like a trail. Between all the trees. BUT THEY'RE NOT ALL TRAILS! So when I find the trail narrowing to impossibly small and having to duck under much lower-hanging branches than I remember, I realize that I have made a bad decision and am no longer on the trail. I stop, turn my headlamp off and look around. I can see that I am in a wash, and I am pretty sure that I was supposed to climb the hill that has been rising to my right-hand-side. I contemplate trying to climb to intersect the trail, but then think about the likely result of a broken leg when I careen back down the hill, gathering a coat of cholla cactus on the way down. No good. So I turn around and carefully retrace my steps with my headlamp off. I luck out and spot one of the glowing blue LEDs that are supposed to be marking the course and find my way back to the trail. Sure enough, it veers to the right and starts climbing the hill. I give up on not tripping on the rocks and resolve to run the rest of the way without my headlamp. By the light of the moon, I can clearly make out which is trail and which is just a gap between trees.

Soon after I arrive at the aid station. (Hooray!) I know that I have about 6 miles left. For the last 3 miles, I've been thinking about how I saw a Coke bottle the last time I was at the aid station.

I mean it.

For 3 miles, I have been fantasizing about a Dixie cup full of lukewarm Coke. Luckily they have it. I ask them what time it is, sure that I'm going to hear that I have to run 9-minute miles to make it before the cutoff. The nice lady tells me the time, and the other two girls that are at the aid station tell me that I can walk the rest of the way and still make it. This peps me right up, so after a minute of drinking TWO Dixie cups of Coke, I head out running on the last 6 miles. I do a little more running and even more walking (but trying to walk as fast as I could), and I think I can see the glow of the lights at the finish line. I ask two guys that I pass if they know how far it is and they say 3.5 miles. Harumph. I was sure it was only a half mile. I keep moving and pretty soon, I hear Brian cheering for the guy in front of me. He had walked back a mile to meet up with me. I lecture him on why he is walking, because he should be resting (I will learn later that sitting around just makes it much worse to move later). Tired and hungry, I think my body starts to turn off (maybe it thinks that Brian is the finish line?) But Brian convinces me to run the last bit to the finish line and I hear him cheering for me the loudest of all. I finish with time to spare (11 hours, 22 minutes and 15 seconds)!

I won't bore you with the recovery details (yes, I was sore). But the soreness lasted only a few days. The memories... They'll be there when I'm 90. What an awesome experience!

60,000 Runners, Oh My!

Brian and I just got back from visiting Dave and Joice in Georgia. While there, we toured Savannah, Hilton Head South Carolina, and the Atlanta area. We also completed the Peachtree Road Race. This race is a 10k ran on the fourth of July. This was the 42nd running of the race. It was a lottery entrance this year, and they capped participation to 60,000 runners.


With that many runners all trying to run on one road, they stagger everyone's start times. I got into corral D (they place you according to your finish time in other races that you've completed). I was pretty lucky, because the later your corral letter, the later you start. The temps start out okay, but the humidity is always high. So the last corrals (they went up to "X") started at 9:30, whereas I started at 7:45 and was done less than an hour later. So the temps were only in the high 70s when I ran.

Brian was placed in the "sub-seed" corral. This means that you're fast, but you're not professional ("seeded"). This race was the US National Cross Country Championship race, and it has a sizable purse, so there were lots of very fast runners there. A familiar name that was there was Ryan Hall. He didn't finish so well - comparatively. The winner (from Kenya), won the race in 28:05.

Brian did pretty well - he finished #397 (remember, out of 60,000) in 39:35. He won a coffee mug for being in the top 1000 finishers.

We milled around after the race, finding all the free stuff (Dave was with us). We then walked quite a way to get onto a bus that would take us to the train back to our car. When we were on the bus, we passed the race course, and could see an entirely full road still packed with people (mostly walking, but a few were jogging). It was a crazy experience.

Attic Insulation

Since we moved into the new house, Brian has been obsessing about the little to no insulation in the attic. Apparently, a lot of remodeling has meant that parts had been taken out or trampled down quite a bit.
So this weekend we rented AttiCat! (That's the machine that Brian is standing next to.) This machine takes those packs of pink insulation and fluffs them to 16 times their size in the package. The "fluff", to use the technical term, shoots out the hose that Brian is displaying.
The whole thing took about 3 hours, including talking to the neighbor about it :)
I was person #1; the person to cut and break the bags in half and shove them into the side of the machine. Brian was person #2; he had a remote on the end of the hose and would turn it on and off as he crawled around in the attic.
Very fun Sunday!

Dijon-Roasted Cauliflower

I'm in love with this recipe lately. We've had it on top of soup, on its own and on top of pasta. It's really fabulous every way. And this comes from someone that just 'learned' to eat cauliflower in the last year.

3 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp evoo
1 garlic clove, minced (of course we always do 3 or 4)
salt & freshly ground pepper
one 2-pound head of cauliflower, cut into 1-inch florets

Preheat the oven to 400F. In a bowl, whisk the mustard, oil and garlic; season with salt and pepper. Toss in the cauliflower; spread on a baking sheet. (It gets a little sticky and browned, so a foil-lined sheet saves a lot of time in cleanup.) Roast for 30 minutes. Serve.

Tucson Marathon 2010

It's been so long since I've posted, I've almost forgotten how.

By popular demand (Barb), I've decided to start blogging again starting with a review of my 2nd running of the Tucson Marathon.

I decided to run this one again because I thought the downhill would help me achieve my goal. The goal the first time (2008) was to finish. The goal this time: 4 hours, 30 minutes. It was an ambitious goal, I'll admit it. My fastest marathon time before was 4 hours, 44 minutes. So taking off almost 15 minutes over 26 miles was going to be tough.

So, you're asking... how did it go?

I failed. And by that I mean I really failed. I didn't make my goal. In fact, I didn't set a new personal record. I was really sad at the finish line. Scratch that, I was sad and frustrated at about mile 17 when I realized I wasn't going to make it. The finish line brought no surprises.

My training was rock solid. 4:30 breaks down to 10:17 minute miles. The plan was to run 10:00 the first half, and that gave me wiggle room to slow down to a 10:30 pace the second half. I had done plenty of long runs between 10:00 and 10:30 pace. As far as cardio goes, I felt like I was on a leisurely stroll. However, the downhill took a toll on my legs again, and the quads and hips started tightening up around mile 17 and just got worse from there.

Lesson #1: I don't think a big downhill is really the wisest race to run for me. I'm still too heavy for all that eccentric contraction on my quads.

Lesson #2: There is a silver lining in everything. After about a week of feeling like the biggest loser for having failed at my goal, I woke up one morning to remember why I started running to begin with. It was because it was hard. It takes work. Even the most natural runner (Brian) has to work hard to get better and improve their own times.

And I am getting better. This was my second fastest marathon. That combined with the 80 degree temps that day is pretty darn impressive. Even a year ago, I don't think I could have finished in the heat.

I still had fun and am glad I did the race. I'm already thinking about the next one where I'll try again. (That's funny, because during the last 6 miles of this race, I was thinking that I was done with full marathons forever.)

The best part of this race was having several friends out there taking part. Chrissy, Carolyn and Justin from work were running on a relay team. So I got to ride the bus to the start line with Chrissy. She's so darn cheerful all the time, that was really fun. She's the one that took the pics of Brian and I in this post. Carolyn, Soraya and Ari all made a sign to hold up for me at the end. It really brightened my spirits, and for that last 100 yards, I didn't feel any of the pain.

I also had a friend that ran her first marathon. She had been curious and was already running quite a bit of miles back in October. So I gave her a little push and some training advice. She showed up, so nervous at the beginning I thought she was going to be sick. I wished her good luck at the beginning and didn't see her again until the finish line. She finished in 3:35. Boston-qualifying in her first race. That's inspiring.

Of course, I owe a ton of gratitude to Brian again. He probably ran at least a half marathon, with all the leap-frogging me with the car and running back to meet me. I think he saw somewhere around mile 15 that things weren't going to plan. He was all pep-talk, and all support. I thank him for his endless energy and inspiration.

Halloween 2009

Sadie just loves Halloween. I think you can tell that in this picture.
Happy Halloween!

Vegan Rant

Let's get it out in the open, shall we? I'm vegan.

The amazing thing about that statement is the uneasiness that it produces in the people around me. This is simply amazing to me. I'm pretty sure that I could say "I'm a serial killer" and produce much less shock to those around me. I don't get it.

For years, 90% of my caloric intake was from soda pop and white rice. Now, when I choose to eat an entirely plant-based diet, you people think I'm weird? Now? You think you need to fix me now?

I really don't care to hear one more uneducated opinion on how much protein I need to eat in order to stay healthy. Do you people know anything about the food that you eat? (per calorie, cooked spinach has more than twice as much protein as a cheeseburger) Are you pretty sure that Shape magazine knows how much protein you need to be healthy?

Let's stop and think about what we say to each other, especially regarding things we know little to nothing about. The deal is this: I won't try to fix you when I see you eating what I believe to be unhealthy things, be it cow's milk or candy bars. In return, you keep quiet about what you think of me when I choose not to eat things made from animals. Deal?

Path Making

3/4 ton of rip-rap (the large rock at the edges), 3/4 ton clay-gravel, 3 Saturdays shoveling and cutting out dead prickly pear and the path is complete. Cheapest home-improvement project yet. ~$50 for all the rock.

Vermillion Cliffs

That's Sadie and I posing (oh so gracefully) in front of the Vermillion Cliffs in Northern Arizona. It's spectacular scenery, but also 105 degrees by 11am. We're standing on a very old bridge that crosses the Colorado River just a few miles down-river from Lee's Ferry. The Colorado here is pretty and lazy looking. It runs through a canyon that is impressively narrow and deep. That is, you would be impressed if you hadn't just come from seeing it meander through the Grand Canyon, which is unbelievable.

I think I have been to the Grand Canyon about 5 times in my life (although always from the much less dramatic south rim). It wasn't until this time that I really absorbed the immensity and isolation of it. It was truly awesome. I think that this is a trip that we'll repeat in a few years.

Holbrook, Arizona

Dinosaurs are big in Holbrook. Every shop there has dinosaur in the name, and potentially some very large dinosaur models standing guard out front. Like these two in the middle of the desert. Yep, that lump of aqua-colored concrete that someone so artistically tagged, is a dinosaur. Sadie didn't really get the idea of playing dead, but you get the idea.

Holbrook is actually a nice little town. There's not much there, but it seems like a decent little community with a large share of manicured yards in front of well-kept homes. Our only intent was to stay in the concrete wigwams. You know them, they're shown in all the route 66 nostalgic images. Anyway, the wigwams were very plain but comfortable, and that's probably what you can say about Holbrook too.

Birthday Cupcakes

For my niece's first birthday party, Brian and I made vanilla cupcakes with pink buttercream frosting and marzipan daisies. Except for the buttercream getting a little too warm (soupy buttercream results), the cupcakes were super cute I thought.

Dog Tired

In the summer time, Brian and I face a huge problem. Sadie is still wildly excited in the morning to go running with Brian (and I mean OUT OF CONTROL excited). However, as it gets warmer each day, Sadie gets hotter and more tired earlier in the run.

The main problem, of course is that she doesn't listen when I tell her to slow down because of the heat (go figure). But the other problem is the difference between humans and all other mammals in our cooling systems. Hers just doesn't work as well as ours. Since it doesn't feel like mine is handling this heat so well, I can really feel for how overheated she must get as she runs at a constant speed of 'as fast as she can'.

I think we may have to resort to trying to sneak out in the morning so she doesn't know what's happening. Since she recognizes Brian's running shoes and shorts, he's maybe going to have to stash his running clothes in the wash and only changing into them when he gets down there.

Pat's Run 2009

Back in April, my mom and I participated in the Tempe Pat's Run. This 4.2 mile run/walk is done in honor of Pat Tillman, who was killed while serving in Afghanistan.

A cool thing this year was the timing chip for ALL participants, including walkers. I think it's a neat thing to be able to look yourself up online amidst all the other participants.

This is my second year of doing the event, and my mom's first. After the event, my mom and I rode the Phoenix light rail system for the first time and then enjoyed a Greek lunch at Phoenicia. This is the same restaurant that we ate at after the Phoenix Rock N Roll marathon, so it was fun to repeat after this bout of running.

Atlantis and Hubble

I can't get enough of this.

This is a picture from Flickr that some guy made of the Atlantis shuttle and Hubble telescope passing in front of the sun. They passed in front in 0.8 seconds! Unbelievable photography.

Does anyone else feel so very small when looking at this picture?

Picture credits http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/3531350583/in/set-72157617823159021/

Ooh, pretty.

My new bathroom chandelier is extravagently lovely.

...until you look up close and see how cheap it is.

The best part was the sticker that says "For recreational vehicles only". I'm still working on the relationship between chandeliers and RV products. But hey, it was made in China, so they probably think that the sticker said something about the 25-watt bulb maximum.

Sweet Pea Sadie

Sweet peas smell especially delicious after an afternoon rain.

Vegan Nachos

I've been curious about making vegan nachos for a while now, but any kind of nachos doesn't really seem like a nutritious meal, right? So, when the Wildcats were playing in the NCAA tournament two Fridays ago, I had my excuse. To watch a basketball game entitles most of the world to eat horrendously unhealthy things, so we might as well participate too.

We based our nachos on Losbetos "super nachos". So, we had to come up with substitutes for the carne asada and the cheese. The pico de gallo, beans, guacamole and chips are already vegan-friendly. We used the "cheezy sauce" recipe from Veganomicon for the cheese substitute. This is made of nutritional yeast and some other things that made us think that eating these were going to be pure torture. Our carne seca was textured vegetable protein cooked in chorizo seasoning. Again, we were thinking that after the game was over, we would have to have backup dinner plans because that just didn't sound good.

We were wrong. Really wrong. These were fantastic! I'm not kidding. I think they were much better than super nachos. (That's not hard to do, as Losbetos really isn't gourmet, is it?) I got a little carried away on my lemon juice in the guacamole and then a little carried away with my dark-red chipotle salsa, so the picture doesn't nearly convey how absolutely yummy these were. And, after reviewing the ingredients, these aren't actually that bad for you. Now, if only the game was as good as the food.

Picacho Peak Hike

After driving past it pretty regularly for the past 16 years, I finally managed to hike Picacho Peak on Friday.

Brian had hiked it several times before, as it was often his boredom-reliever when he was commuting between Tucson and Phoenix every week. He assured me that although it was difficult, I could do it. What he didn't remember is that they advise gloves for the steel cables. Gloves would have been a VERY good idea.

There are two trails to get to the peak: the 2-mile Hunter trail and the 3-mile Sunset trail. Both the trails meet up about 1/2 mile below the peak for most of the steel cable climbing. We took the Sunset trail because it was a mile longer to make the ascent more gradual.

It was a beautiful 2 mile hike before it started to ascend up the side of Picacho Peak. At one point, I really didn't think I could make it; the footing had become very loose and I couldn't even stand up anymore, I was more climbing on all fours. But as soon as we realized we weren't on a human trail anymore and corrected our wrong turn, things became much more manageable. On the way back down, we saw our mistake - the sign telling us to make a turn had been broken and was lying on the ground. We propped it up and laughed at the animal trail that we had followed.

About a mile down, we ran into Kathy from Casa Grande. Kathy was a bit panicked because she was pretty sure she was lost. We asked her some questions and it became pretty clear that she was supposed to be on the Hunter trail. That meant she either had to climb a fairly steep 1/2 mile back up the mountain, or we offered that she come with us and we would drive her around to her car (and family) waiting at the bottom of the Hunter trail. We were very glad she accepted to walk with us, as she was completely out of water and not really doing that well. We shared the last of our water and started walking. I think that Kathy was suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration, but we really didn't have that far to go. Brian and I probably had just enough water if we were able to walk our normal pace back to the car. We definitely didn't have enough water or sunscreen to walk Kathy's pace. We were both parched and sunburnt by the time we got back to the car. The funny part is all three of us are Arizona natives; we're not really the people that are supposed to make silly mistakes like that. But it all ended well and when I drove her back to her car, her family looked relieved to see her.