MCAT Studying

I love this. Here is some of the advice from my MCAT study guides...

Try to have fun with the test.

Bellydancers really do rock!

So ever since this crap has happened, I've barely had time to think. I've had finals to take and give and grade, plus final reports and presentations. I've had to close accounts and file credit fraud claims. Probably the worst thing thing that these people stole from me is TIME! Holy crap this stuff is time consuming.

The major upside is that my dance community is absolutely amazing and has given me so much support. Not that any of them will read it here, but I wanted to thank the girls & guys who have really gone out of their way to help me; Courtney for the awesome sword, James & Sheridan for the delicious sounding zills, Pamela for covering my dance shift, Cynthia for the use of a beautiful costume. You are all amazing. There are still other offers of love and help that I haven't mentioned, but it's all so wonderful. So although this beautiful costume is gone, I know I'll get to enjoy a whole new set of pretties! THANK YOU!!

People Rock.

My car was broken into on Thursday night. They smashed out 3 windows... I guess they couldn't figure out how to unlock the doors. I had two tires in the back seat of the car, because I'd just bought winter tires and was going to put the summer tires in my storage unit the next day. I guess that was just too tempting for these people. So the busted into my car, stole my tires from the back seat as well as the other two in the trunk. They also emptied my center console which had some chargers and my blue tooth in it. They took my school bag, with calculators and a couple of electronics I need for classes. They stole ALL of my professional bellydance gear. Music, costumes, sword, fire, veils, etc... Aside from costing a ton of money, that stuff is so hard to replace! They also took my $45 coffee mug that comes with a year's worth of free coffee (so basically they stole 10 1/2 months of coffee from me).

I'm not sure what's going to happen with it all, yet. My car is getting new windows today. It spent the night at the garage so that it wouldn't snow and ruin the interior of my car.

Random bit of funniness: they stole 4 tires & belly dance gear, but they left behind several text books. Obviously these geniuses are not college grads or they'd know that they could get more money for the books than for the tires.

Things that were not stolen: stereo, black diamond head lamp (they left that on the seat), an ammo can, my text books, my school parking permit, and fortunately all of my students' labs that I have to grade.

Skiing tomorrow!

First day of the season... it's about time. I just got my ski/winter stuff out of storage. I wouldn't have bothered if I didn't need to get my skis. Because I had to get them, I pulled all my holiday decorations out. I spent all evening decorating my house. Don't know why, but I just love the way holiday lights shine.

8.13

I finally managed to get out and complete a longer run. My knee has been disagreeing with me lately, so I'm excited that I actually got it done. Of course, it was painfully slow, but such is life. Tomorrow is Incline Thursday. I'll have to do that early in the day so that I can enjoy my turkey.

Getting back into it

And it's about time, too. So I think that I've finally figured out my next two major goals. Both of them will be incredibly time consuming, but good for me. My MCAT is on Jan 31. And I think I'm going to run the Austin Marathon on Feb 15. If I complete the Marathon in under 5:30, I can qualify for the Pikes Peak Marathon.

It's funny. I'm not sure which of these things is going to be harder. Both will certainly take a lot of training and time. I like the combination of physical and mental challenge. Hopefully, my RA agrees with my goals and lets me keep working toward them. I can only play it by ear. I'm planning out my workout & study schedule tomorrow. That will be a challenge in itself.

Biomechanics of Running

I'm working on a presentation about the biomechanics of running and searching for great running photos. If you have any, please post them for me! While digging for good photos to put in my ppt slides, I came across this one. I just like it.


Start of the 2008 Pikes Peak Marathon

Senior Seminar

I'm giving a presentation as part of my degree requirements for this seminar class. I picked this Tuesday as my date to present, because I had no exams scheduled. So what does my prof do? He schedules an additional one for Monday. So now, instead of prepping for this presentation, I get to spend my weekend studying crap-tons of material as well! Woohoo! I guess things are back to normal.

So much, so little.

So much has been happening in my life and yet there is so little that I want to talk about. Hopefully that will change this weekend. I need a good run or go ski or something. Off to P-Chem. Again, not something interesting to talk about.

Ooooh, I did finally sign up for the MCAT again. Jan 31. That's scary, but exciting. Of course, the fact that I spend half my time listening to MCAT audio study cds is quite boring.

It's so strange...

I don't have any papers to grade or any exams to prep for. I feel... lost. I don't know what to do with myself... I KNOW! I'll study physics! YEAH.

Awww, yeah...

Got my exams back from last week... 100% in Physical Chemistry and 99% in Anatomy. All I can say is... Fuck Yeah!

Holy crap...

Is this ever going to slow down... I feel like I can't keep up with myself. Past few weeks in a nutshell:
-still making good grades
-school is kicking my butt, i have so little free time
-Grand Guignol (the play I'm in) opened on the 10th. We sell out every night.
-grading organic chemistry takes way too many hours
-broke the middle toe of my left foot (distal phalanx of my third digit) this past saturday
-had to shove my swollen, broken toe into shoes that were half a size too small for my play on sat and sun nights
-the toe kept me from running the bear creek 5 mile (2nd race of the fall series) because i couldn't fit it into my sneakers
-bought a $45 coffee cup... it comes with a year of free coffee
-the swelling has finally gone down enough to cram my foot into sneakers again
-i have decided that i'm not teaching any labs next semester... otherwise i might drop dead from overworking myself
-just renewed my ski pass
-still love crossfit
-damn, there's still more... but like always, I'm out of time... off to anatomy class.

Won't hear from me for a while...

... not that it matters that much. I'm too busy and no one wants to hear whining about that. So screw you, Brownie for making fun of me (I know you will) and we'll pick this up some time when I feel like I have anything worth writing about. Later peeps.

love my cross fit

It's 7am, I've been awake since 5:30 and I feel good. I hate getting up early, but I love how I feel when I work out first thing in the morning. It's been a challenge to get my butt moving again. But now that I've got a class to make, I have an easier time getting up early.

My absolute favorite part about this is that it's like having a personal trainer 3 times a week. I like having someone to teach me new exercises each time I go in. It's good to have someone make sure that my technique is correct (and safe). Plus, he's good at suggesting alternative exercises that may work better for my broken bits.

Now if I can just convince myself to get up an extra 15 minutes early so that I can bike or run to the facility...

naked man

As I was pulling out from theatre after rehearsal tonight, I nearly hit a naked man with my car. He was running across the street and into the parking lot. I hit the brakes to avoid running him over and actually had to stop to do a double-take. My thoughts went something like this... Oh, crap. What's this guy doing in the middle of the street at this time of night!? Wait, was that guy naked. (Stop the car & look through the rear window). Yup, that guy's naked. Hmmm. There isn't a hash on Tuesday nights!

Every once in a while...

it really is good to be me.

Gurney

I just lined up an actual gurney for our upcoming play! So sweet!

CrossFit

So I started training with a CrossFit facility here in town yesterday. I'm pretty excited about it, because Kurt introduced this stuff to me back in Jan or Feb. I loved it then and I have missed having someone to workout with. Getting started with a group is going to be a blast. If you don't know what CrossFit is you can find info on crossfit.com. The best part is that it looks like they are willing to work around my schedule so that I can keep my normal run days and work out at the crossfit gym on the days between.

Oh, and JT, thanks for pointing out that I'm so pathetic I can't even pick up guys online. I appreciate that.

5.3 miles

So I promised myself that I would take at least one week off from running... I made 5 days before I started to feel like I'd go nuts if I didn't get out for a run. I took a nice, easy 5 mile loop along the Santa Fe trail. I feel better already. Now I get to wash the sweat and the nasty anatomy lab smell off of me. Then it's back to studying for anatomy. I need a new volunteer to help me study. Anyone want to be my living study tool?

Imogene Pass Pics

"Caution! Children Playing"


Imogene Finishers


We look like zombies coming up the trail.


PBR up top!


Heading down the other side.

CO Invy pictures

After the ball buster trail.

Thursday Night MOPP Invy Pre-lube at Kinfolks.

On the "beagle" trail.

Flabongo!

Friday night's pub crawl.

Mountain races rock!

So my month of running crazy mountain races has finally come to an end. I'm relieved, exhausted, and sad. These have been more challenging than I originally imagined. My training was lacking because of flare-ups of my RA. I really thought I would do incredibly poor on the runs. Instead, although I didn't do as well as I would have liked, I did much better than expected.

The Pikes Peak Ascent was the first of my major runs of the late summer. The Ascent is a 13.32 mile climb/run of Pikes Peak along Barr Trail. The start is in Manitou Springs at 6,300' and the finish is at 14,115'. However, this year was the exception to that. Instead of running just to the top, the race was canceled part way through due to insane weather (rain --> sleet --> hail --> snow with lighting and strong winds the whole time). Because of this, most of the runners made it up to the A Frame (10.2 miles up the course at 11,950') and were turned around. I like to call this year's Ascent "America's toughest 20 mile half marathon." It sucked having to turn around, but I felt amazing going the 20 miles instead of 13.

Imogene Pass Run was my next piece of lunacy. 17.1 miles of stunningly beautiful Colorado mountain trails and passes. Although the elevation gain/loss was not as much as is experienced on Barr Trail, the trail itself was much tougher to negotiate. This may be simply because I am familiar with Barr Trail and had no idea what to expect with Imogene. But I think it is also simply the poorer quality of footing along the Imogene run trails. This run was made much more fun because of the people I ran with! I got to the top at about the same time as $100 F*ck and Nacheaux Ass. The three of us drank a couple of PBRs at the top, and then took our time coming back down the other side of the pass. Sure, our times weren't as good as they could have been, but we had a great time! Love those girls!

Colorado Relay (aka Outward Bound Relay) was the last of my insane mountain running adventures. This is a 174 mile, 10-person relay race that runs from Georgetown, CO to Carbondale, CO. My team, known as "Start Stout, Ended Ale'n," was made up of all hashers and a couple of new hash recruits. Each person runs 3 legs of varying lengths. Because I'd run Imogene the week before, I requested the shortest legs possible. My first leg was a 6.2 mile trail run, with a 4 mile uphill stretch (900' elevation gain), a 2 mile downhill stretch (700' elevation loss) and a couple of creek/pond crossings. My next two legs were on pavement. The second was ~3miles and mostly flat. The third was 1.5 miles with some fair elevation changes (up and down).

We ended up placing 27th out of the 145 teams that ran. When I signed up to be part of this team, I was worried about being the weakest link. I still may be, but apparently I'm not that crappy! I passed 2 people on my first leg during the uphill & creek crossing sections. I passed one other person during my second leg. And in my third leg kept my pace under a 9min mile. I was cruising along that last leg at a sub 8 min pace until I hit the REALLY steep uphill section and the steady uphill section after that. Still, it's pretty good for me. :) I can't wait for next year!!

CO Invy

Holy crap. I'm surprised that I lived through this last weekend. I feel like I'm still recovering and it's already Thursday. Sheesh. I didn't bring a camera, so I'm waiting for other hashers to post pictures so I can steal some of them. I definitely don't feel ready for Imogene. Is it really this Saturday!? I need a break from my play-time activities.

This semester

So I've managed to do it again. I've overloaded my schedule with entirely too many classes and activities. So things are back to the way I like them. I'm taking a full class load: Advanced Human Anatomy w/ Cadaver lab, Statistics, Biology Seminar, Physical Chemistry, and an Audition Workshop. To top that off, I'm teaching belly dance class on Monday's, doing research in biochemistry, grading organic chemistry, and teaching general chemistry lab. I also have auditions for a play tonight. I'm probably overdoing it a bit, but I'm so excited to be back in school again. I love college. Whee!

More runs...

One major thing that has happened as a result of this years "Ascent" is that I'm incredibly excited for Imogene. I'm not in nearly as bad shape as I thought. Although I'm nowhere near as fit as I should be, I'm better off than I expected. I hope I can at least maintain that through Imogene on Sept. 6 and the Colorado Relay on Sept 12-13.

Pikes Peak Ascent 2008: America's Toughest 20-Mile Half Marathon

So the decision was made that the 20 mile round trip that most of the Ascent participants did qualified for a finisher's shirt and medal. I'm definitely happy that they decided our extra efforts were worthy of recognition. I gotta say, I love these shirts. This is one of those races that will never be forgotten. Here's some photos from Marathon day.

Me & Jen at the Marathon finish line

Me, Kerry, Paul, and Karen

Me & Ryan

Knees Up!

I know it's cheesy to do, but Matt's a good source of motivation and has been very free with sharing useful input for this race. This is after his 9th Marathon win.

The Pikes Peak 20 miler

So the Ascent was today.... sorta. I met up with my friends from Jack Quinn Running Club that were in the second wave with me. We all took off together at the start, being silly and having fun. There were so many people that it was impossible to run fast. That was fine with me. It was one of the only times my friends were forced to run slow enough for me to get to run with them. I wasn't going for any records today, I just wanted to finish in under 6.5hrs.

When I reached the bottom of the big hill on Ruxton in 15min, I was surprised. I seemed to be doing fairly well. I guess all that early-spring training actually made a difference. My times...

Top of the Ws 53:03
No Name Creek 1:20:17
Barr Camp 2:20:45
A-Frame 3:32:52

Notice that there's no finish time...? That's because of the lightning and sleet (that turned to ice when it hit the ground). Only ~700 out of over 2000 people finished. The majority of the first wave made it, but vast majority of the second wave and some from the first were turned back at the A-Frame. Talk about your major disappointments. I was doing surprisingly well; my A-Frame time was almost an hour faster than I hoped it would be. Having been exposed on the Peak during storms, I completely respect the race directors decision to turn us back. But I have to admit that I'm horribly disappointed. I was expecting to barely be able to make the cut-off and instead was looking at about a 5 hour finish!

There's worse yet to come. No shirts. No medals. At least so far. I talked to Matt Carpenter and asked what was happening about that and he said they hadn't decided what to do yet. On one hand it makes sense. Only finishers should have finisher shirts. But this is such an extreme case. Less than half the racers actually finished! More than anything, though, I'm disappointed about my Triple Crown medal. I worked so hard, for months. I was 3 f'ing miles from the top and kicking ass. I feel a bit cheated. I know its not their fault, but that doesn't make it suck any less. Plus, I had a victory beer waiting for me on the top that went un-drunk. It's a crime.

On the up-side, I got great training in today for Imogene. I have been working my up-hills so much more than my downs. I need to be able to go 10 miles up and then 7 miles down. Today was a 10.2 miles up and about 9 miles back down. So, errr, good training!

Pre-Ascent

I can't wait for tomorrow. I hope I can sleep! :)

Stupid RA

Leave it to me to have a nice little flare-up of my RA the day before the Ascent. Sheesh. The worst part is that I know it's because of stress. Annoying that I would have so much crap happen the two days before one of my biggest races of the year. Not that this bs is going to stop me from running! I'm too excited. Now to get this final paper done for my chem class....

Environmental Analytical Chemistry

I can't believe that my first reaction to those words is... "awesome!" This has been an incredibly difficult class, but interesting in more ways than one. First, we're working a lot more with how chemistry relates to the environment and the policies that protect it. It's fun to see how the nerd stuff I do in school can relate to the rest of the world. Plus, it is tying in quite well with the Conservation Biology class I took earlier in the summer. The second thing I like is that I'm working with more instrumentation and learning new techniques. This has me interested in taking an instrumental analysis course that I hadn't planned on taking. Hell, maybe I will stick around another year for the B.S. in Chemistry instead of just the double B.A.

The work load has been a bit brutal, but it'll be over in just a few more days. All we have left is two more field collections of soil samples, one more soil digestion and analysis, a final exam, a lab notebook check, and a scientific journal-style lab report. Whee. The best part is that I might actually get done early on Friday so that I'll have time to hang out at the Ascent Expo in Manitou.

Ascent Buzz.

I'm finally starting to get anxious! The Ascent is this weekend. I don't feel remotely ready for it, but I'm still excited to get out there. Went up to the peak again on Saturday and did a short run down to the 2 mile point and then hiked/ran back up. It felt pretty good considering my legs were jello from the gym on Thursday. Matt Carpenter passed me at the very top and that helped inspire a little bit more effort out of me right at the end. I'll just have to keep that picture in my head on Sat. Well, that and the cold beer waiting for me at the summit.

It's kind of interesting... the medical office that my mom works for will be working both the Ascent and the Marathon. I just found out that my mom will be one of the doctors at the top of the Peak on Ascent day. Hope I don't need her attention! :)

Updating my "crappy blog"

Pictures from my first trip up Barr Trail two weeks ago. This past Tuesday I climbed it again and cut my time down to 6:45 including my stop at Barr Camp to pick up a shirt and filter water. I'm a lot more hopeful that I'll be able to actually complete the Ascent in the time allotted. So, in keeping with these hopes I'm on my way to the top of the peak today to run a 3-2-1 from the top. On out.

Starting out

16 Golden Stairs

Made it!

Up top with Al

Taking it in

Boredom.

I can't wait for school to start again. After last semester I didn't think I'd be looking forward to school again. But I'm getting bored not learning anything. I've kept very busy and it's been nice to have some time off from classes, but I think I'm ready to get back into school mode. I'm started in 2 weeks. It's a short, summer course on Environmental Analytical Chemistry. Should be really tough. But it sounds neat. I think we're doing chemical analysis of soil samples. All new techniques for me. Whee. :)

Pikes Peak

First ascent of Barr Trail yesterday. Kicked my ass, but it was fun. I have a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks to make up for training time lost to RA in the past two months. The last three miles really whooped my ass. So this weekend I'm going back up to the top to run a 3-2-1, starting at the top and running down & back first 3 miles, then 2 miles, then 1 mile. That should help get me more familiar with those killer last three miles. Whee!

RA sucks.

I missed the BTMR because of a crappy flair up on Sunday. I woke up hardly able to walk. I didn't figure I'd get very far up the trail that way. Took drugs and went back to bed. The worst part of it was that most of the pain and inflammation had gone down by about 2:30 pm. So if we could just have started the race then I would have been able to play. I hate RA. Hopefully I'll feel better about missing the run tomorrow when I hike the peak.

12k Summer Round Up

When I started car shopping yesterday, I never imagined that I would be at it for over 15 hours and that it would keep me up until after midnight. Coughing like crazy kept me awake most of the night. I dragged my sorry carcass out of bed at 6:00 this morning thinking that the race started at 7:30. At 6:34 I decided to check the website, just to make sure. Good thing I did. The race began at 7am. Oops. Grabbed my crap, couldn't find my Garmin, and ran out the door. I made it to the start with 3 whole minutes to spare. :) I don't think I've ever felt so unprepared for a run in my life. I don't think I'll try that routine again.

So with my knee still slightly swollen (at least it's no longer the size and consistency of a grapefruit) and 3 hours of sleep I ran my crappiest race of the summer so far. I hate walking during races, but I promised myself that no matter what I was finishing this run. I did. I think my time was 1:34ish. SLOW. But, hopefully the run helped stretch out my knee and work through some of the soreness. We'll see. BTMR next week! Woo hoo!

All in all, a good morning! My only real worry is that I didn't see my Angela out there. I hope she made it. :(

New Car

Well, I started shopping at 7:30 am yesterday, only had one break for Sushi with Angela (aka Nibbles 'N' Tits), and didn't finish until 11:45 pm. I could have curled up and gone to sleep on the desk at the car sale. On the upside, I did finally get a car. Not the Highlander that I want, those are a bit too pricey for me as of yet. I got a 2001 Toyota Camry that has less than 33k miles on it. Pretty car with a big enough trunk to haul some gear. Now all I need is a roof rack for skis, kayaks, etc and a trunk rack for bikes and I'll be set. Another plus, much easier on the pocket book at the gas pump. All in all, I'm fairly pleased with how things turned out.

Big Water!

Good grief I needed that! What a great day on the Ark. High water, closed Gorge, double Parkdale. I love this river. I've yet to see it at a level that we can't find some fun on it, from 250-3600. Today, on the high end of that range, I got to see a whole new river. Rocks that we've stood on in the past to do throw-bag training, with the river several feet below us, were completely under water. In some spots, the water was even getting close to the road. Beautiful! We had two great runs. Highlights: new guy passed his check ride even though he made his guide swim, swimmers at Three Rocks that got beat up and actually enjoyed it, great customers, some sweet pictures and videos taken by a friend (will post when I get them), and just a gorgeous day on the river.


For Chris: Have you ever seen the river at 3600? I rode with Pat today, while Duane gave a new guy his check ride. On his check ride, Joel dumps Duane in Puppy's Tail. There's a gnarly hole in there at this level. If Duane hadn't come out, that boat was probably gonna flip. On his second run down, Joel took the boat sideways over the meat of Three Rocks, right down the center. Ooops. Dumped half his boat. They recovered everyone fairly quickly and somehow our crew managed to recover all of their paddles plus an extra one from PT. I love when you have customers that swim something crappy like Three Rocks and come out asking for more. There are some seriously wicked holes in PD at this level! In Shark's Tooth, there's this awesome wave that if you punch it just right you're nearly airborne. It just sent us flying! The whole raft, not just the crew. I can't wait to get those pictures from Rick. He took photos the second run and kayaked the first run. He's nuts. There's no way I'd get in that river in a 'yak at this level! Of course, he's also a lot better than I am. Remember our nighttime 'yak run? Fun stuff. I have missed the river so much. More than anything, I miss my river family... There will never be another year quite like my first one. Oh! We got a message from Vanessa, Xanthe went rafting today. :)

So glad to be in Colorado

I procrastinated with my run today and gave myself a nice reminder of why I run early in the morning or late in the evening. I went out for a nice, easy 4 miles at about a 10 min/mile pace and ended up bathed in sweat. It's only 74 degrees out there and I feel like I'm cooking. I can't imagine living in a place where it's regularly over 90 degrees. I'd never survive.

Sunshine Falls

There's a groovy picture from Sunshine Falls on the Colorado Whitewater Photography website.

Mandatory Downtime

My stupid RA started flaring up again last night. It's a doozy this time. To top it off I've got a cold that has me so stopped up I can barely breathe. I guess that maybe I should have listened to my body on Friday when I started to feel a bit cruddy and taken a day or two off. Instead, I went out and ran the Incline on Friday and went boating all day yesterday. Ooops.

I had planned on going back on the river again today, but my body is finally demanding the downtime that I seem unable to force myself to take. So today is a day in, with pain killers and ice backs, and planning the upcoming week's adventures. Running and river running seem to be the focus of my summer. I love it.

River Running

I'm so glad to finally be back out on the river again. It has been a rough semester for me and it's good to be back to a place I feel completely at home. I ran with USAFA yesterday, a full day Parkdale & Royal Gorge trip. The weather was unbelievably beautiful and the water was kicking. We were running in 16' NRS boats yesterday. They're like barges on our smallish river, the Cadillac of boats. We were hitting holes sideways and rolling right over 'em. In smaller boats we would have been toppled so many times. But with the big boats, we were just playing around.

It was a spectacular morning and start to the afternoon. But at the bottom of Sunshine Falls one of our boats had a couple of swimmers. Two customers fell out. Both managed to get to shore at the concrete slab below Sunshine, but one slipped on the concrete and fell back in. She ended up swimming all of Graveyard before being pulled out. Unfortunately, because of her rough swim, she was unable to complete the day in the Gorge. So, like the good, responsible guide I am, I walked her out using the trail that photographers use and got us a ride to Pink House. I was so bummed to miss out on the rest of the day in the Gorge. We had an awesome crew in the boat and were having so much fun. But the upside is that there is always more time on the river for me. I can't wait to get back out there again.

Which marathon?

I have quite a few crazy goals with running this year. My favorite runs that I already have planned are the Pikes Peak Ascent, Imogene Pass, and the Colorado Relay. In addition, I want to do my first marathon this year. I'm just not sure which one I should shoot for. I'm considering some of the ones my friends are running and some that just sound awesome:

4 Oct - Crazy Horse Marathon (Brownie is running this one)
4 Oct - Big Sur Marathon (Beautiful run at sea level!)
2 Nov - New York City Marathon (Family in New York)
16 Nov - Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio Marathon (Several friends running this)
7 Dec - Tucson Marathon (Several friends running this)

The Ascent is in mid August, Imogene is in early September, and the relay is the weekend after. So I'm leaning more toward the Nov or Dec runs. A little bit of recovery time seems like a good idea for me.

Where did the weeks go?

So finals whooped my ass. Then I went straight into summer classes. They are finally over! Hurray! The past few weeks have kept me incredibly busy. My summer classes were fun, but they were incredibly stressful because there was a lot of information condensed in a short time period. To top it off, I had yet another flare up of my RA and now I'm getting a cold. I f'ing love my immune system. Blah. Because of this I haven't been running nearly as much as I would like. I've had a grand total of 5 runs in the past four weeks (two of which were races). The crappy stuff aside, here's the past few weeks in a nut shell...

13-19 May - Finals. Bleh.

20-27 May - Summer school: Art & Politics. I wrote a lot of papers for this one!

24 May - Kimchi Hash-O-Limpdicks: I don't know how I survived this one! I earned all three of my tabs in one go: Retard for my sexy granny panties; Special Olympics for the beer mile; and Tard Linguist for five tongue twisters five times fast with a beer between each rhyme. I only vaguely remember playing beer pong and tippy cup later.

25 May - Up in Boulder to party with Ryan and friends until way too late in the evening. Err... more like 1:30 in the morning.

26 May - Bolder Boulder 10k. Hung over, I still had a decent run. I even hit every "beer check" along the course.
Time: 1:01:30. Pace: 9:53.

30 May - 7 Jun - Summer school: Conservation Biology (Go Green!)

1 Jun - Registered for Imogene Pass Run

8 Jun - Garden of the Gods 10 Mile Run. Again, I somehow pulled off a respectable time. Time: 1:47:13. Pace: 10:35. Plus, I'm so sexy that I ended up on the front of the Sports page for the Gazette.




9 Jun - DIM Hash

10 Jun - Jack Quinn's Running Club 2nd Anniversary

11 Jun - Writing my resume! I want a summer job doing something fun that involves little brain work. :) I had forgotten how much fun it isn't to write a resume. Whee!

Finals Suck!

Yup, that about sums it up.

IC Sundays

Made my first trip up to Barr Camp today and dragged my Jen along. I wasn't quite as ready for it as I thought. Between the incline on Friday and the 5 mies I did yesterday, my legs were pretty damn tired before I even got up Ruxton. I'm sure the bottle of wine I had last night didn't help either. Regardless, we decided to take it fairly easy today and not beat ourselves up too much. Total time was silly long, but that's mostly because we were just enjoying the hike down. Our time up is what made me happy.

Location: Barr Trail (from Memorial Park to Barr Camp)
Distance: 7.6 miles (to Barr Camp)
Time to base of Hydro St. ~15min
Time to top of W's: 52:30
Time to No Name Creek: 1:19
Time to 7.8 mile Sign: 1:48
Time to Barr Camp: 2:22

The up side: Taking out the ~15 min to Hydro St, that's faster than my time up to Barr Camp on race day of BTMR last year.
The down side: I have 2 enormous new blisters and the front of my toe is still bruised. Oh, and must eat before trail next time.

It's amazing. My muscles can hurt like hell andI can force them to keep going and going, but a couple of sissy little blisters can slow me down. How annoying.

Brownie in 30 years

Incline Friday

Midnight sent out the invite to join her on the incline today and it was the perfect way to end a stressful week. There are few ways that are as efficient for beating yourself up. I felt pretty good going up. I thought I was taking it slow, but it turns out that I beat my fastest incline time by about 4 minutes and was cruising on the way down. :)

Location: Manitou Incline
Time to top: 40:57
Round trip: 1:15:07

Colorado Marathon 10k

I like this picture. :)

Ft. Collins run

So as I sit here updating a couple of items on my blog, I realized something kinda funny. Although I felt like my 10k time yesterday was fairly slow, I actually shaved 9 minutes off my last 10k time from only a few months ago. Neat.

The new bed...

No review of it yet. As I curled up in a hotel in Ft. Collins last night, I lay there thinking longingly of my brand new bed. Dani helped me get it home yesterday, then I didn't even get to sleep in it! But, oh, it's time now! Mmmmmm.... thank you, Dani.

BTMR

Signed up for Barr Trail Mountain Race at the broke college student price.... now it's back off to bed!

Colorado 1/2 Marathon & 10k

I didn't get to sign up for the half marathon, because I didn't know I would be able to come up for it until it was too late. The half and the full had already been capped. I signed up for the 10k so that I could come up with my friends Jen & Chris who were running the the half. I'm stoked. Not only did they do fairly well, Jen is going to register for the PP Ascent! I guess some spots opened up from people who didn't register correctly when they singed up for the PPA, so now I get another buddy running with me. :)

My goal for the day was to run the 10k in under 1 hour, shooting for a 9:30 pace. I had a rough start to the run. At first, I was stuck behind a HUGE crowd of people that were barely crawling along. I leave weaving through slow people. Then, only about 3/4 of mile in, I turned my ankle. I came down on it hard and it slowed me down considerably until I could run it off. I had a moment of fleeting panic that I had just ruined my summer of running by aggravating an old injury. But, there was no way a stupid road 10k was going to take me out from BTMR or PPA or Imogene. It still aches now, but I think running on it instead of stopping probably helped.

What: Colorado Marathon 10k
Time: 59:20
Pace: 9:35

She's a beast!

Greenland 25k

For the hell of it

So I decided to total up the number of miles that I've logged this year to date. I know that there are a few runs in the beginning of the year that I didn't get written down, so those don't count (seeing as I have record for them). It's not that much, but it looks like a ton to me! I can't wait to make this number grow.

Miles to date: 230.92

How did it happen?

I'm not sure when it happened, but I think my buddy Tim is right. I'm turning into a runner. So strange. I would never have guessed it. I had an 18 mile day yesterday, there's a bruise on my toe where my nail has been ripped half off, and I just got back from a short 4 miler in the Garden of the Gods (with dinner at the Pita Pit, mmmm) and feel fantastic. After yesterday, I didn't think that I would be able to move today. What I've realized is that I may actually have been able to push myself harder during the race yesterday. I didn't think there was any way I could have done more than I did, but either I recover amazingly fast or I could have gone harder. Since yesterday was the first time I'd ever done a run that long, I really was figuring out what I was capable of. Part of it, I think the wind got to me mentally more than I realized. It's retarded, but I feel like I've learned a lot from it. It'll be interesting to see how I can apply it to future runs.

Location: GoG
Distance: 3.92
Time: 41:23

Yep, definitely nuts.

Had a horrible and wonderful run this morning. I wasn't entirely prepared for it and I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to finish. But I couldn't let that f'ing trail win. 25k is long. The trail was hiller than I expected and the wind practically pushed me backwards. It sucked... and I loved it. Other than the wind, it was a beautiful day. I have to admit that I'm really glad I went out to this run. To top it off, I followed the 25k race up with the Pikes Peak hash. All in all, a good day.

Location: Greenland Trail
Distance: 25k (15.5 mi)
Time: 3:11 (really f'ing slow, but finished)

Back from the dead...

... I think. This morning my spirit is up a bit, mostly because my stomach isn't. I wasn't sure if I'd make myself sick again by going out for a a training run last night. Hell, I'm not even sure why I let myself be talked into it. I guess I just feel crappy when I miss a run day. Who would have thought that could happen. At any rate, things are looking up today. I have an appetite, I can drink water, and even take my vitamins. So at least I get to rebound back from malnutrition and dehydration. With any luck, I'll feel well enough to try that 25k tomorrow. If not, I guess I'll have to settle for the 8 mile course.

Dying.

Well, not really, I just feel like I am. My stomach just has a demon in it that must be purged! I hate being sick. I'm such a sissy when I'm sick!! I did run on Tuesday despite my feeling crappy, but I think it made it worse. I've been in bed almost all day today.

I love the Peak

Ok, so Sunday's run sucked. I felt like shit the whole way, but apparently it didn't hurt my time too much. I just thought I was going to die most of the time. I guess one brownie's favorite sayings was appropriate, "I love it when it sucks." I have to admit that I'm fairly pleased with the results overall. I had to go incredibly slow on the return trip because my knee was throbbing and I didn't want to eff it up on a downhill run. Though my total time was slower than my last Barr Trail run, I was surprised to see that my time to No Name Creek was actually 2 minutes faster than last time.

Location: Barr Trail
Distance: 8.63 mi
Time: 2:10:02

Time to top of Ws: 51:24
Time to No Name Creek: 1:18:20

Tortoise and Hare 5k

So this is my first 5k of the year. Last year about this time I ran the Bash the Bluffs 5k at a pace of 11:30ish. According to my gps, today's run was a bit short of the 5k mark.

Location: Santa Fe Trail (downtown)
Distance: 3.04 mi
Time: 27:33
Pace: 9:04

This is the first time I've maintained a 9 minute pace for more than a mile since I was in the Army. :) I nearly puked at the end, but it felt like such a good finish that it would have been worth it.

Hmmm... boring week.

It's time I start really cracking down on my studying, so my already lame blog will be even more so. Once I'm done with my MCAT, I can start to have a life again.

The Brownie Special

So I woke up this morning after my first full night of sleep in two weeks. I still feel tired, but I was just excited to have slept solidly through the night. Yay! So I climb out of bed, undress, and head to the bathroom. When I step on the scale it puts me in a good mood. Back down to 154.4, which is right around my Army weight.

I dress, strap on my nerd watch, and head out for a run. About 6.5 miles into a 9 mile run I suddenly have to poop so bad that my stomach is cramping and it gets worse with every step. With no bathroom in sight and no TP with me, I decide to suck it up until I get home. Those were the most uncomfortable miles I've ever run in my life.

The end result... after nine miles of running and one poop, I stepped on the scale again: 151 lbs. Woohoo!
Fastest way to loose 3.4 pounds? Run + poop.

GoG 1

Made it out for my first Garden of the Gods training run this morning. I haven't been awake this early in a few months. My knee has been hurting a lot in the past few days. I was worried that I would get out there, run half a mile, and end up limping and sniveling back to the car. Fortunately this did not happen. I hate to feel like a pansy.

I went with the slow group for two reasons: 1) because of my stupid knee, and 2) to gauge my current running state compared to last year. The results were encouraging!! Last year at this time, I was barely making it up those hills in the Garden, even walking some of them. I was usually somewhere around the middle to back of the pack. I always felt like I was sucking wind, but it seemed to help me improve. Today, even though I took it a bit easy, I was at the front of the pack, circling around to pick up runners/walkers at every hill. Last year it was me that was being picked up, even after doing the training runs for a while. This year, I'm starting off so much better it's ridiculous. It must by the Incline Club runs. After trying to run up Pike's Peak, even in shorter walk/run spurts, running in the Garden just doesn't seem so tough!

As usual, sunrise in the Garden is beautiful.

Location: Garden of the Gods
Distance: 4.51 miles
Time: 47:01
Pace: 10:26

Theatre rocks!

In my Intro to Theatre class this past Monday we had a makeup artist come in. Most of my class is made up of freshmen who are not theatre people. Well, you know me... I'm game for just about anything. So he shot me in the head and gave me a black eye. The fun part: I was stuck like this for the next two classes, because there wasn't enough time to get cleaned up!

Bleh...

Monday and Tuesday were really rough for me. I barely made it out of bed for lecture, then crawled back in as soon as I could. Rough days. Feeling a bit better today. Hopefully, I'll be up for the run in the morning tomorrow.

Hoooooray!!

Not sure how it happened, but Angela managed to talk herself into signing up for the Triple Crown. That means, not only is she coming out for the Bolder Boulder, but I get my running buddy back for certain three more times during the summer. Of course, now I have to figure out how to help her train for the Peak while living in Nebraska. The biggest hill I saw there was a speed bump. I'll have to get her a copy of the Peak training guide for her as soon as they are out. At any rate, I'm just stoked she's coming back to CO a bunch.

IC Sundays

Not sure how I managed to crawl out of bed this Sunday, but I did. Beautiful day on the trail, if a bit cool. I can't believe that I'm actually looking forward to the snow melting off. I feel like such a non-skier right now. It's terrible. I had decided that I was going for a shorter run because of the distance I did on Saturday. Instead I ended up going longer than planned, but at a somewhat slower pace on the down-hill.

Location: Barr Trail
Total Distance: 9.00 miles
Time: 2:16:19
Time to No Name Creek (4.42 miles): 1:20:30
Turn Around (4.5 miles): 1:23:01

Holy crap!

It's been a long time since I've felt this worn out. Non-stop, from morning to night. I had my longish run this morning, followed by a Hash this afternoon in which we all got lost on trail, and then 2 hours of bellydancing at the Caspian. I'm crawling in right now... Food, shower, sleep. Mmmmmm.. :)

Just like I thought...

Always better afterwards. I took it nice and easy. I'd planned on 10 miles, but I felt so good that I kept going. :)

Location: Santa Fe Trail
Distance: 20k (12.4 mi)
Time: 2:15:05
Pace: 10:54

Rough start.

Blah. I just don't feel like running today. I know I'll feel a thousand times better afterwards, but I'm having a hell of a time getting out the door this morning. I miss Angela. She was an awesome running buddy. Even when neither of us wanted to run, we managed to motivate each other. Not quite as easy to do on your own. Well, here I go....

Dancing tonight!

Woohoo! Dr Maya, a dance instructor who is only in Colorado Springs for a year, is starting an eight week technique intensive. So I'm back in classes for the next eight Mondays. I'm stoked to be able to take some more lessons. I've been fairly limited in my growth as a dancer ever since I stopped taking classes with Izzy. I wish I could keep taking classes with her, because she's so f'ing amazing. But Pueblo is a long drive to make on a weekly basis for a college student who can't afford the time or the gas money. Finding Dr Maya is such a fantastic bit of good fortune! The best part of this is that I don't have to change my schedule at all. The girls I normally rehearse with on Monday nights are all taking the class with her, too. :)

www.drmaya.com

IC Sundays

After scraping 4-5 inches of snow off my car and locating my Yak Trax at 7:30 this morning, I rushed over to get to the incline club knowing that I was going to be plowing my way up Barr Trail through fresh snow. It was a beautiful morning and the Peak is simply gorgeous with new snow. Of course, the snow turned my "run" into more of a plod, hike, and slip up the trail. Down is always easier for me, but today it was an exercise in not falling on my ass.

Location: Memorial Park to No Name Creek and back
Distance: 8.77 miles
Time: 2:19:45
Time to No Name: 1:29 (so slooooow)

P2H4 - middle of f'ing nowhere hash

The further east we went, the greater were my doubts about the location of the trail. As it turned out, AFT's backyard was perfect. It was a nice, medium length trail through terrain a lot like Palmer Park. Thanks to NIPS we know the trail was either 4.5 miles at the beer check or a total of 4.2 miles.

I hate moving.

It's good of Dani to remind me how much it sucks to move. I hate packing, moving everything, unpacking, reorganizing everything. Of course, since I have to do it next year, that gives me one year to get rid of as much stuff as possible. Already sold my dining room table and chairs. Woohoo!!

CKH3 Green Dress 08

So I missed most of the hash, but I managed to find the end. That's what I get for playing with non-hashing friends instead of showing up extra early to the on-before.

Tits on the Ritz
Late-comer downdown w/straight Jamo
Snared hare!

In rare form..

St. Patty's Day always brings out some craziness. This year it brought my TK out again. I love this chick. She's completely nuts and so much fun to play with. Somehow, we managed to survive the night of Car Bombs and Long Islands. We even dragged a couple of my other friends down with us. It was a blast. Now, hopefully I can get her to skip work more often.

Me & TK
Car Bomb #1 with AL
Downdown #1
Car Bomb #2
And the night keeps rollin'....

Incline Club

These guys rock. I've only been twice, but I love it. Tough trails, amazing runners, and encouragement for us newbie trail runners.

http://www.inclineclub.com/

Trail: Out & Back (Soda Springs Park to Hwy 24) via Ute Pass Trail
Distance: ~8 miles?
Time: No idea!

This morning...

Yesterday I felt like complete crap. I barely managed a single mile before I gave it up. To make up for it, I got up early today and ran a 10k before I went to run the 5k. I actually feel pretty good about it.

Distance: 10k
Location: Santa Fe Trail
Time: 1:03:45
Pace: 10:17

Now it's time to go get my green dress on and get ready for the 5k!

Imogene Pass

The moment I think I've signed up for the craziest run I'll ever try, Brownie finds something else for me. Check out this 17.1 mile run from Ouray to Telluride: http://www.imogenerun.com/

A picture from last year's run.

That I'm even considering it shows exactly how nuts I've become. But the wanker's got a point. It's only 3 weeks after the Ascent. If I'm in shape for the first one, I should be able to pull off the second one...

I'm in!!

Well, barring any disaster with the registration process, I am running the TCR this year!! I'm so excited! :)

Nerve wracking

Waiting for 8am is really annoying. I should be studying for the Biochem exam I have later this morning, but instead all I can do is watch the clock. This is the morning that I get to register for the Triple Crown of Running. The TCR includes 3 awesome runs: Garden of the Gods 10 miler, the Summer 12K Roundup, and the Pikes Peak Ascent. The biggest problem is that if you wait even 5 minutes too long once registration opens, you won't get signed up for the Ascent (very limited spaces). So I'm sitting here watching the minutes go by...

Web site

Coolest website for someone putting new workout routines together: www.crossfit.com

Colorado Runner Magazine (Online)

I got my ugly (sweaty) mug in the March 2008 edition of the Colorado Runner's online magazine. It was even in the email they sent out. Woohoo! The picture is from the 3rd race of the Winter Series.

"Susan Mopper of Colorado Springs shows off her Jack Quinn's Running Club shirt. Jack Quinn's Running Club is one of two running clubs that meets at an Irish Pub. The other is the Irish Snugg Running Club in Denver."

I'm sure there's a down-down in my future for this. :)

A calorie is a calorie??

To quote from a healthy diet forum...

"I TOTALLY agree with this post! a calorie is a calorie...it really doesn't matter what it comes from."

Crap like that kills me. Some foods (especially the overly processed kinds) are much harder for your body to use. So how can people think that it doesn't matter if they are eating garbage as long as they don't eat more than their "daily calorie allowance?" I wonder if people like that bother to figure out what a good daily allowance is for them specifically or if they just go with the USDA standards.

Aside from that, I feel like I'm living proof that they are wrong. Lately I've been paying a lot more attention to the crap that I've been putting into my body. Just having improved the quality of what I eat, I dropped ~12lbs in 2 weeks without any major lifestyle changes and I feel a thousand times better. Though I've always kept an eye on how much I ate, watching what I eat has made a larger difference than I would have thought.

Of course, Brownie will say I'm full of shit. He's on the beer and bacon cheeseburger diet and I'm sure he'll say it works well for him. If I tried that, I would drop dead of a heart attack.

MCAT!

For real this time!

As if I didn't have enough to do before, I now have my MCAT date scheduled! May 10th! I will be a big loser (even bigger than normal) as I study and prepare for this exam. But you wait, on May 10th there will be much drinking starting that afternoon and carrying on well into the night (or until I pass out)!

My blog sucks....

... who has time for this shit!?