The Year In Review

As we enter a new year, one can't help but tally the numbers and reflect on what has been accomplished and even where one fell short.

Summary:
Children Born = 1
Total Miles of Running = 1735
Total Days of Running = 273
Mileage Per Running Day = 6.36
Longest Run = 26.3 Miles
Vertical Gain = 195,477 ft
Most Vertical Day = 5,959 ft

This was actually the first year that I've tracked most of my miles and vertical gain. Even though my total mileage was minimal compared to most of the training blogs I follow, I feel that I was more dedicated solely to running this year than any single activity in any single year of my life.

I was pretty consistent throughout the year, logging 883 miles the first 6 months while slipping to 852 for the second. I was please with the following graph, showing a slight improvement in my average pace per run throughout the year.


Overall, I would consider the year of 2011 both encouraging and a learning experience. Encouraging from the fact that, despite my racing times being less than stellar, I feel confident I can improve upon these. I had glimpses of my potential in training runs and know that, given a more disciplined approach, I can accomplish my goals. It was a year of learning that I can devote myself to a physical activity that rids myself of technical gear and complexity and boils things down to simply placing one foot in front of the other. And I've learned that I can actually enjoy it!

That brings me to 2012. I have absolutely no idea what the year will bring, but I'm certain it will be interesting. First of all, I've been given the opportunity to step into an interim position at work. It doesn't come without it's challenges as I basically have 6 months to "perform" or I'll basically be "re-assigned." A re-assignment doesn't factor into my 2012 plans, so I'm going to give it my all. That said, beside the fact that I've been deeply hooked by the running bug, it also fits well into my busy schedule of balancing being a good husband and father with a demanding career. Running has to be the most efficient of activities for me at this stage in my life.

As far as running goes I plan to do another marathon. My primary goal would be to break the magic 3:10, but I plan to train for a 3 hr. My plan will be to go about it a bit differently this year. I hope to commit to a half marathon in the early spring to gauge my fitness and ramp up for an early summer marathon, possibly doing the Steamboat for a second year. By the end of the summer, I hope to be ready for a 50K. This is somewhat of a bucket list thing that I would like to check off in 2012.

The key for me is to actually commit to these races. Sign up, drop the $, and put it on the calendar. One of the small commitments I'd like to make is the one this guy did a year ago. Maybe these small goals are the keys to the larger ones.

Cheers to 2012!

A Little Inspiration

My wife thought I needed a little inspiration for the day, so she sent me the video below. I enjoyed it so much, I thought I'd share. The inspiration is coming off a less than stellar Turkey Trot 10k on Saturday followed by a stressful couple days at work. My wife has also lobbied for us to write down one thing we're thankful for each day between now and Thanksgiving. It's not hard to look around and see how abundantly we're blessed, although sometimes it's difficult to see. Today, I'm thankful for other people inspiring me....whether it's my wife with her love, my 7 week old daughter with her smile, or a handful of strangers on a video!

Forever Changed

On September 27th at 3:12 AM, my life was forever changed! My daughter, Madelyn Grace entered the world. I still struggle to find the words to express what I felt and continue to feel.

Christine's due date was Thursday, the 22nd. The day came and went without very much excitement. It seemed that most people thought she'd be later, although mentally, each day after the 22nd grew increasingly difficult. Physically, Christine felt better than I thought a pregnant woman ever could. The Saturday following the due date, we decided to try all the possible things to induce labor. We began the process by getting a good hike in. We knocked out 5 miles and 1650 vertical feet and I must say, Christine seemed to do it with ease. We finished off the day with some spicy pizza from Proto's. The next day, we headed back to Button Rock for another 5 mile hike and that night I made some especially hot enchiladas. I thought for sure these would do the trick!

The next morning, as I kissed Chistine goodbye on my way to work, she mentioned that her Braxton-Hicks contractions, which she'd had throughout the pregnancy, had been especially strong through the night. I didn't think much of it and headed off to work. Christine had acupuncture early Monday afternoon and called shortly after to tell me she was having "real" contractions. She continued texting me so that I could keep track while I was at an evening meeting.

When I arrived at home, things progressed quickly. I actually thought I pushed things a bit too far, as we didn't leave for the hospital until her contractions were approximately 3 minutes apart and lasting 60-70 seconds. We got to the hospital without a problem and landed in the room at 8:20 PM. To make a long story short, Christine did amazing over the next 7 hours. She went through the labor and delivery with grace, having a completely un-medicated, natural birth.

The next 48 hours passed by with virtually no sleep. We kept a watchful eye on Maddie and rushed to her side with the slightest cough, sneeze or even coo. We decided to leave the hospital a little early, must to the surprise of one of the nurses. We were just too excited to take Maddie to her new home and begin what is now our normal routine.

Since coming home, we've had a couple doctors appointments showing that Maddie is gaining weight and showing no signs of issues. We've taken her on her first walk, which has quickly become a daily routine for her and Christine. I actually got her out for our first run together, but we were rained out within the first mile. We're looking forward to all the firsts that come along with having a child. Just one of the cool things is that you get to expose your children to all the things you love and, in turn, they often force you to get out of your own comfort zone, see the world in a new light, do things you never thought you'd do and be surprised and overjoyed by the entire process.

I'm only 12 days into this crazy journey, but I couldn't imagine being anywhere else in my life. Thus far, I'm absolutely loving being a Dad.....who would have thought?!!

Fall Is In The Air

Over the past week, my early morning runs have started with temperatures between 40 and 50F. With that, my mind moves from the summer season to fall, complete with a warm cup'a joe in hand.

So this morning, I couldn't help but scan through some pictures of this summer to remind me of the places my two legs have taken me. I thought I'd share a few:

Longs Peak - Another Box Checked

Soon after moving to Colorado I found myself at a party in Boulder. As I made conversation with the typical Boulderite (you know, Ph'D's, environmentalists, and of course, outdoors folk), the topic of climbing 14ers came up. That night, as I left the party, I decided to point my SUV towards the Longs Peak trailhead. I typically kept an assortment of gear in my car, including the necessities for camping and hiking. I parked my car off the road close to the trailhead and hopped in the back for a little shut-eye.

Finally, after being continually woken up by the numerous folks headed to climb Longs and planning to get an early start, I got up and readied myself for a day on the mountain. As I walked under the light of my headlamp, I couldn't help but wonder what I would encounter in the Trough, the Narrows, or the Homestretch.....sections of the trail I had read about. Regardless, my mind was made up; I was bound and determined to check Longs Peak off my list.

I felt like I was making good time, as I was continually passing people on the trail. As I neared the Keyhole, I saw a number of people turning around and heading down the mountain due to the extremely high winds. I decided to take a pit-stop in the hut to grab some food and get a break from the wind myself. While huddled inside, someone walked in, windblown and tired. He said he had just came from the summit and he was the only one up there and encouraged me to keep going. With that, I layered up (long pants, fleece jacket, wind shell, winter hat, and gloves to be exact) and made my way through the key hole.

As I was grunting, breathing hard, and stopping every few feet, I caught a glimpse of a guy in running tights and a thin shell, practically running up the Trough. He called out a few words of encouragement, shot up the remainder of the couloir and quickly disappeared. What seemed like only minutes later, he came bopping by again, making his way down the mountain. He again spit out words of encouragement like, "doing great man" and "you're almost there." I was completely blown away that a guy, in such little gear, this high on a mountain, could be moving as fast and effortlessly as he was. I was sure he had ran from the trailhead to the boulder field. From that moment, the thought of running a majority of Longs Peak was burned into my brain.

Yesterday, I was able to place another check-mark by one of my longtime goals. I headed up to Longs Peak to attempt to run as much of the mountain as I could. Despite the snow that made for slow going at times, I was pleased with the effort and the day. I was able to run a majority of the mountain between the TH and the boulder field. Here are my splits:

TH - Battle Mtn Junction - 40:24
Chasm Junction - 54:54
Keyhole - 1:52:38
Summit - 2:56:30

It took me almost an hour to get back to the keyhole, which meant I spent almost 2 hours total between the keyhole and the summit. I'm confident I could knock a considerable amount of time off the total if the conditions were better (i.e. drier and warmer). Although, it's rare for someone to say they had a lone summit of Longs Peak on a summer Saturday and that's exactly what I had. I finished with a total time of 5 hrs 13 minutes.

Looking up at the Diamond from the Chasm Junction

One of the only views I had from the summit, as it was pretty socked in with clouds

Longs partially blocked by clouds. As seen from Mt. Audubon today.

I'm Still Alive and Running

Needless to say, I haven't posted in quite some time. This is mostly due to how busy I've been over the past few months and deciding that blogging fell very low on the priority list. That said, I have missed the outlet of documenting my runs here and felt compelled to post this morning.

Quite a lot has happened in my life, as well as the life of my family. The most important of which is the upcoming addition to my family. My wife is pregnant with our first child and we could not be more excited. This is a great time in our lives and we're doing our best to prepare both mentally and physically over these whirlwind months. We also purchased and moved into a new house. This brought its own set of challenges as we decided to make some changes to the house before and during the move, most of which should finally wrap up this weekend. During this time, I also managed to get a few week long work trips in, visiting Tennessee, Virginia, and Texas. If that wasn't enough to keep us busy, Christine decided she needed to go to her sisters wedding in Oregon (just kidding Kim) so we thought it would be fun to tack on a trip to Seattle and Vancouver afterward. It was actually a very relaxing trip. One which we were able to unwind and enjoy not setting an alarm, having an extra coffee (or 3) and take in the city for a change.

In the midst of all of this, I've continued to run, albeit not as much as I'd like. This running was mostly geared toward one of my 2011 goals, which was to run the Steamboat Springs Marathon. I was able to accomplish this goal last weekend, knocking down a 3:22:50 in my first marathon. I goes without saying that I would I liked to do much better, especially since my original goal was to qualify for Boston at 3:10:00, but as life grew busier in the months leading up to the race, I somewhat lowered my expectations. The last thing I wanted was for running to become another chore rather than something I craved and enjoyed amid my hectic, time crunched schedule. I must say that running was a refuge during this time, something I could look forward to each day and be thankful for.

I was extremely nervous leading up to the race, feeling that I hadn't trained enough, that I should have gotten one more long run in, or that my taper wasn't adequate as I was super stiff leading up to the race. I did put together a solid plan for the race, that include where I wanted my pace to be at certain miles and when/how I would fuel. As for pace, I had hoped to average a 7:30 min/mil pace for a majority of the race, although it was more detailed by mile. Also, my plan for fueling was pretty simple. There were aid stations every 3 to 4 miles. I decided to mix cliff shot bloks and gatorade throughout the run. I stopped and walked through each and every aid station, driving one dixie cup of g-rade and took one cliff shot blok in between each aid station. I felt this technique gave me adequate fueling for the durati
on of the race. So, here are my splits:

Mile 1: 7:45
Mile 2: 7:19
Mile 3: 7:25
Mile 4: 7:51
Mile 5: 7:02
Mile 6: 6:58
Mile 7: 7.24
Mile 8: 7:34
Mile 9: 7:27
Mile 10: 7:30
Mile 11: 7:32
Mile 12: 7:31
Mile 13: 7:23
Mile 14: 7:36
Mile 15: 7:35
Mile 16: 7:37
Mile 17: 7:41
Mile 18: 7:52
Mile 19: 7:33
Mile 20: 7:34
Mile 21: 8:21 - This is where things started to fall apart - yeah, I know, "the wall!"
Mile 22: 8:11
Mile 23: 9:11
Mile 24: 7:42 - Short surge, thinking I was going to finish strong - didn't happen
Mile 25: 8:32
Mile 26.2: 10:37 - Ouch - starting cramping in my left leg - definitely not my dream mile!

My watch showed 26.28 miles with an average pace of 7.43 min/mil, ascending 1408 vertical feet, while descending 2663 vertical feet with a total time of 3 hr 23 min 1 sec (the official time was a hair under 3:23).

All in all, I'm pleased with my first marathon and feel confident I could easily drop this time by 13 minutes to get in under the sought after 3:10 Boston qualifying time. That said, I'm not sure what's next for me. As the spring weather arrived in Colorado, I found that I missed being on my mountain bike. I loved running on the trails, but there was a little envy seeing those guys on their sweet singlespeed 29er's. There's still a couple of local runs that have been goals for me since the beginning of the year that I plan to check off the list in the coming months, one of which is Longs Peak.

I've spent a considerable amount of time on my feet this year. Currently I've logged over 800 miles and 80,000 vertical feet. This puts me on track to log 2000 miles in 2011 which I believe would be an accomplishment in and of itself. Leading up to the marathon, I spent more time pounding the pavement than I'd prefer and I hope to be on the trail more this summer. Regardless of the next goal or objective I set for myself, I plan to be outside as much as possible and look forward to including my wife and child in our outdoor adventures soon enough!

Here are a few pictures from my travels and runs over the past few months:

Looking toward the Skyline Traverse from Heil Valley

Viewing Longs Peak from a window in our new home

My Wife's favorite store in the city where it began

North Vancouver singletrack

Portland at night

The two things you think of when you think about Seattle - Coffee and Pike Market

Looking across to North Vancouver

Seattle near the locks

My beautiful wife and I wrapping up her sister's wedding celebration

Weekly Summary - 2/6

Monday, January 31st - 5.5 Miles in 48:27 - Treadmill (PM)
Still feeling a little sore from the weekend ski trip. Just a nice and easy shake-out on the mill as temperatures continue to drop.
Sit-ups & push-ups (1 set)
AM Food - Granola Cereal + Banana + Coffee
Lunch - Sandwich (turkey & cheese) + Sun Chips + Apple + 2 Clementines
PM Food - 2 Burritos (1 wheat + 1 corn tortilla) with lean beef, rice, & salsa

Tuesday, February 1st - 4.5 Miles in 44:57 - Treadmill (AM)
Another easy shake-out on the mill. It's been a while since I've gotten up early and got a short run in. I woke up surprisingly easy at 4:50 AM and felt ready to go after my run.
Sit-ups & push-ups (1 set)
AM Food - Wheat bagel with homemade strawberry jam + Banana + Granola Bar + Coffee
Lunch - Blackened Redfish with Rice & Ice Tea
Mid-afternoon - Trailmix
PM Food - Spicy Chicken Pasta from the Pumphouse + Beer

Wednesday, February 2nd - 6.5 Miles 55:10 - Treadmill (Late PM)
Another nice and easy run on the mill, just not wanting to battle the negative double digit temperatures. This should be the last night of the extreme cold and tomorrow will become more manageable. I'm taking it pretty easy this week as I contemplating the Skyline Traverse for Saturday. Just as I say that, a friend invited me backcountry skiing on Saturday morning. Oh, decisions, decisions.
Today was a bit of a heavy day as far as food is concerned:
AM Food - Wheat bagel with jam + Coffee x 2
Late AM - Coffee
Lunch - BBQ Chicken Wrap + Fries + Cantaloupe
Midafternoon - Banana
PM Food - Wheat pasta with peppers & tomatoes + 2 slices of wheat bread

Thursday, February 3rd - Off
Decided to take the day off, since Christine is heading out of town early tomorrow morning.
Sit-ups/Push-ups (PM)

Friday, February 4th - Total 8.44 Miles
3.0 Miles in 25:54 - Treadmill (AM)
After waking up at 3 AM so that I could get Christine to the airport, I only had enough time to get a few miles in before heading off to work.

5.44 Miles in 44:57 @ 271 vert ft - McIntosh Loop (PM)
I was able to get out of work and watch a nice sunset as I ran around the lake before meeting a friend at Oskar Blues. It was a beautiful evening to be out, especially since I've spent so much time on the mill this week.

AM - Bagel with Jam + Banana x 2 + Coffee x 2
Lunch - Spinach Lasagna + Apple
PM - Burger + Sweet Potato Fries + Beer (Oskar Blues)!

Saturday: 3523 vert ft on the day (skiing + running)
3.0 Miles @ 2030 vertical feet - Telemark Skiing (AM)
I decided to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park for some skiing with friends rather than try my luck at the Skyline Traverse. The weather forecast wasn't stellar, and I don't think my legs are ready for a proper go at it. I want to be able to actually run this and feel good doing so.

My friend Micah and I met up with 4 other folks in Lyons at the Barking Dog. After a blueberry muffin and a coffee to go, we headed up Hwy 36. It's interesting how different the skiing experience was today compared to last weekend, yet it was just as enjoyable. Last weekend was a more focused effort, while today was considerably more laid back. It's nice to head up to the mountains without an agenda or timetable. Sometimes it's good just to go with the flow, stop, look around at the scenery, take a deep breath, and just be.

We decided to stay below treeline, as the wind seemed to be blowing fairly hard and we wanted to enjoy our day as much as possible. We made 2 loops on the same run, getting fresh tracks through the small fur trees that have grown in the old ski runs at Hidden Valley. There was plenty of new snow and you couldn't help but smile after each turn. There was good conversation, no end to the sarcasm, and plenty of high-fives to go around. It was good day!

11.07 Miles in 1:44:41 @ 1493 vertical feet - Picture Rock (PM)
After stopping at the house for a quick drink of water and a change of clothes, I headed out the door again for a different snow sport. Donning my recently purchased MT101's, and Microspikes, I headed up the trail to log a few more miles on the day. Immediately I could feel the morning of skiing in my legs and soon a glance at my watch confirmed what I had suspected! It wasn't going to be a PR day. Despite my snails pace up and down the hill, I was captured by the beauty of the falling snow and the solitude of the trail. I finished up the run just before sunset. As I drove back home, I felt that I had truly made the most of this day, spending it all in the midst of mountains!

AM - Blueberry muffin + Coffee x 2
Late AM - Banana
Lunch - Tortilla with Nutella + Chips & salsa + Coffee
PM - Burrito with beef, rice & salsa + Christine's homemade chocolate chip cookies

Sunday: 6.11 Miles in 1:32:00 @ 2626 vertical feet - Green Mountain
If I were heading to Green Mountain to gain confidence in my fitness, I picked the wrong day. If I were heading there to strengthen my mental fortitude, then I picked the right day. Let's not live in the past!

With a coat of fresh snow (Boulder has about 6 inches and I'm guessing the upper stretches of Green had even more), I headed up Gregory. Besides feeling some stiffness from the previous days effort, I initially didn't feel too bad. I could tell my time was drastically reduced due to the snow conditions, but I didn't realize how much at first. When I arrived at the Ranger Station, I checked my watch at 22 minutes from the Gregory Trailhead. That's basically when my mind began drifting between one of the following thoughts: "this deep snow is making me work for every step and I'm still struggling!" to "could my fitness be that much worse than the last time I ran this mountain?"

After I passed the junction of Greenman, things got dramatically worse. The trail was even less traveled and the snow seemed to be getting deeper. It was basically as if I took one step forward and a half step back. The additional effort and difficult footing forced me to hike a few sections which I was upset about. I would assume run slower than hike, but my body just couldn't hold on. Despite the intersperced hikes, I continued up and finally reached the summit in 52 minutes.

It wasn't the day for a personal best, but it was a great day to challenge the mind. I truly enjoyed the views from the top and the achievement of just getting there. Then it was on the fun part....the descent! I'm not sure I've run that amount of vertical in the amount of fresh snow before, but for a while, I turned off my running brain and turned on my skiing brain. What fun it was to run down the mountain! It was very much like being 7 years old again!

Weekly Totals: 42.15 Miles in 6:56:06 @ 4390 vertical feet