Halloween Treats!!

so, the last two runs have been, um, challenging for me. Spectacular and fun, yes, because the scenery and the atmosphere was so cool, but challenging in that I felt like I was slogging through mud up in Boulder. So today, I decided to run a quick three miler so that I'd meet at least three runs this week (we'll talk about the October Challenge later) and took off for the park loop.

This loop is nearly 3 miles (2.9907 by GMaps Pedometer), leaving from my house up the street to the path at the trail to the water fountain then back. It's always my goal to negative-split it, but sometimes, that no work out so good. Usually, I actually end up almost exactly the same for the out part and the back part, just because I tend to be so consistent. Today, the out part was done in 15:04, and the back part in 14:46. So, not only did I negative-split it, but I also came in at UNDER 10:00 MILES!! I'll have to check the running logs to find out how long it's been since I hit that. So, yeah, Happy Halloween indeed! I got my treat!!

And then I saw a fox

yeah, I'm loving this place. Because the weather was so nice, the team decided to leave the office early (which means a little more time working tonight, but sooo worth it!) and go to an outdoor patio cafe for dinner. I had not made the time to join the team yet, since I was fried on Monday and ran yesterday, so I really wanted to go. Half the fun (OK, probably 75% of the fun) of being on a project is getting to know all your colleagues, and I wanted to go, but I also wanted to run. So, brilliant people that we are we figured out how to have cake and eat it too, or rather, how to have my run and join the team. I ran out to meet them, then hung out while they ate and then ran back to the hotel. All told, I ran 4 miles, with a little bit of a break to chill (literally -- once the sun went down it got cold!!!) and get to know everyone. I also realized how close the shopping/eating areas are to the project offices and hotel, so I don't have to fret about hot having a car.

Oh, yeah, on the way back, while I was passing these railroad tracks, I looked down off the footbridge and saw a fox. I stopped to try to get his picture on my phone, but it was too dark. He stopped what he was doing and looked at me, then ran away. It was so cool! Like I said, I'm loving this place!!

ORN: 4 miles, 41:54 minutes. Pretty hilly course, with amazing trees and bridges and a FOX!

Mountain run

wow. I love this town. We're not even talking about the fact that there is a Noodle Company and a Wahoo Fish Taco within two miles of our office (but, hee-hee! I LOVE this place). We're not talking about the shower in the office because so many people ride their bikes in, or run or ride at lunch. We're not even talking about the Whole Foods on every freakin' corner.

We're talking about the bike paths and trails everywhere here. You see people out and about, being active and healthy. The weather has been great here (cold-ass night at the airport when I was wearing shorts off the plane from Tx notwithstanding), and it's just got a great outdoorsy vibe. So enticing - it makes me want to eat well, to go for a run, to rent or borrow a bicycle. It's great. The only problem, at least for a mildly out of shape wanna-be triathlete from sea level like me, is the lack of oxygen. Man, I thought I was going to die out there. But I know it will get easier the longer I'm out here and the more I acclimate to the altitude. But for today, I ran a route along Boulder Creek out from the hotel. 3.3 miles and I never once had to cross a street or dodge a car like I do at home. Glorious, I tell you! And although sections of it were secluded, it was so crowded with joggers, cyclists, walkers and rollerbladers that I didn't feel isolated at all.

So, yeah, I wish I could have kept working from home through the end of the year. I wish I could have been home for our birthdays yesterday. But if I have to be traveling, I gotta say, here is the place to be.

Boulder

so I'm here in Boulder, for the next few weeks. I got in really, really, really late last night, and this morning came really soon, so I haven't run today. And I won't. Instead I ordered room service and am just hanging out. I need to unwind a little after a whirlwind weekend. Too many activities and not enough down time. Not a good recipe for the long haul, especially now that I'm back on the road again. And especially now that I have a bona fide marathon training plan in place. So, a little more work here in a bit, some administrivia, and then bedtime. So that's it for me now. Gotta blast.

5 miler training run

so I went out in the dark and ran with my training group this morning. I joined the 11-minute group instead of the 10-minute group, even though my pace run last week ended up at 10:15. I decided I'd rather go a bit slower and have a good time than bust a$$ and die at every run trying to keep up. But, even though we are the 11:00 group, our leader took us out a little faster, so we ended up at about 10:30 pace. I felt great and was able to chat and stay at the front of the pack.

There was a killer hill we had to get past to get back to the starting area, and it was tough go. I was able to keep up with the group but we all pretty much had to walk the last third of it. But, from then on it was smooth sailing. I also picked up my group training shirt (that was distributed the first meeting that I missed since I was driving aimlessly around). I didn't get to stay for the guest speaker, but I did get a few snacks and chat with my pace group for a while afterward. So I know what they look like now, not just what they sounded like when we first said our names in the dark!

Busy weekend in store, with scout activities, a Halloween party, a birthday party for TDP DinoBoy, and a 9:00 PM flight to Colorado tomorrow. Oh, yeah, and somewhere in there, I've got to do laundry and vote. And maybe, hopefully, sleep. Just a little.

Autumn Run

So, we don't really have seasons in North Texas. We have summer, one perfect day in mid-October (which apparently I missed this week) and then mid-50s from then until about March, at which time it becomes summer again. We might get a two-day snap in which we get rain and sleet and generally cold blickiness, but nothing close to true seasons. Imagine how much in love I am with Boston this week, then, with these amazing trees in a billion shades between yellow and burgundy. And we're not even going to talk about the 200-year-old churches and town halls and the amazing architecture of these homes with huge front porches and expansive yards with brilliant green grass under the carpets of multi-colored leaves. Amazing. Yes, it was colder than a witch's teat yesterday, especially for me coming from 80+ degrees in Texas earlier this week, but today? Absolutely perfect.

So of course I had to ditch the hotel treadmill and hit the streets for a run after work today. We got done and I got back to the room just in time to catch the sun going down, so the out part of my run was in twilight, with the sun hitting the treetops just enough to seem to set them on fire. Once I turned around and headed back, it wasn't hard to imagine next week's trick-or-treaters bounding down the wide sidewalks in their costumes, bundled up with jackets and gloves, their breath rising like smoke from their lips. It was so storybook and vibrant, I was just enthralled. It's times like this that I am so glad to be a runner, to be able to experience the neighborhoods in the towns that I visit up close and personal, to be able to wave to the women on their evening walk, smile at the kids in their strollers and feel, if only for a while, like a part of the community. Way cool.

Gotta blast. A project pal is picking me up for dinner at some English pub in Framingham, then i've got a ridickerous early flight tomorrow AM. Peace out, folks!!

Brrr, it's cold outside!

yep, it's a tad chilly here in Boston. Kept me inside for my run yesterday morning, and then last night, we spent too much time at the hotel bar (no drinks for me, just lots of great conversation) for me to wake up on time this morning. And tonight, a late night and a late dinner means no run tonight, either. Bah.

The plan is set for tomorrow night, though. I'm meeting a friend for dinner after the day's sessions are done, but not until 7:30 or 8:00, which means I have a good hour and a half to go for a run beforehand. It will be nice, and hopefully a bit warmer. That is all!

3 mile timed run

Today was my first run with the Cowtown training group, and on the schedule was a 3-mile timed run. They said to go at an easy pace, but pick it up on the back end. So that's what I did, and ended up with 15:28 on the out segment, and 15:20 on the back end. So I did technically negative split it, but it still amazes me sometimes how consistent I can be, even when I'm not trying! It's like my body picks a pace for that day and holds me to it, no matter what.

We did decide, though, that I needed to be in the 11:00 pace group (that's why we timed today, to find our natural pace) for my training runs. It just doesn't make sense to try to get me to speed up for longer runs, so an 11:00 pace will be a better fit for me, especially as we get into more mileage.

I met a couple of nice people, including a crew who is doing the Komen 3-Day in a few weeks. It was fun to share walk stories with them. They've definitely got an advantage since they will be training together during the week, too. All in all, it was a good experience and I'm really looking forward to the next four months!

Now, I'm off to breakfast, if I can get Hub and Elder Child up out of their warm beds. Later!!

Streak: FAIL

I missed last night's run, too. See, that's why I have to do the challenge. Now that it had been broken, I didn't feel too bad (at the time) about delaying the run to fight with AT&T tech support over the high-speed installation for the house (NOTE: that was FAIL, too). I was on the phone with them for over an hour, then spent another half hour finishing the install, only to be greeted at the end with FAIL. grrr. by then it was nearly 11:30, and wayyy too late to run outside, and too late to run on the TM since it's against the wall next to the boy's bed. And, honestly, I was way tired.

But this morning, I felt dismal that I'd let another day slip by. Once the streak was gone, 30 for 31 didn't have the same drive behind it. And that sucks, because it had been going really well. Sigh. No matter. Streak or no streak, I'm back on track. I've also determined I have to do my running in the morning again, so I'm getting back to that routine. It's better that way -- I feel more energized, I feel stronger, and I make better choices about my food.

ORN: 3.6 miles; 37:31 time; 10:25 pace

Watch out, Trump!

 

So for some reason, the boys decided we needed to play Monopoly last night, and we dragged out the gameboard from the playroom closet. They didn't understand at first why we had two sets of everything, until Hub and I remembered that we'd combined two sets back in graduate school, the better to finance our 7-hour marathon games. Halfway through the game, I looked under the second board and found the little ziplock bag full of "maverick" cards and the blow-by-blow analysis of a couple of said eternal games. Most of them punished the player most ostentatious in his braggadocio about amassing large fortunes at the expense of others; some of them were designed explicitly to remove property from the most-organized among us (ahem, that would have been ME, with all multi-colored cash lined up facing the same direction and in neatly aligned rows). Digging through the "maverick" cards (really just scraps of paper with scribbles on them) and remembering all the inside jokes in them, I forgot the game at hand and was transported back to my tiny graduate apartment, where we holed up for hours at a time, all of us twenty-something wanna-be academians, and played the hell out that game. At the time, the most REAL money we ever had was when we deposited the semesterly financial aid check and went hog-wild at Snuffer's before having to pay for books and rent. And the houses we coveted were tiny little plastic boxes thaat could easily be swiped once someone had too much rum & coke and quit paying attention to the board. Life was pretty simple then, I gotta say!

ORN 10/15: 2.3 miles around the neighborhood after the Monopoly game; total time: 24:02, nearly a minute less than the same route two nights earlier. Running streak was broken Tuesday, but we're still gonna aim for 30/31