Boldly running where I've never gone before

My previous post almost 10 months ago caught up a lovely summer of racing in 2019 — actually the last lovely summer of racing since then, which I had no way of knowing at the time. The fall of that year brought another 2-state destination race jaunt when I visited Oklahoma and Kansas for a 5k Saturday and half-marathon Sunday weekend.

Having already done a few “5k then half-marathon” outings, I had originally been planning to stretch the endurance envelope with a 5k Warrior Dash OCR on Saturday followed by the half on Sunday but the folks at Warrior Dash filed for bankruptcy and I had to change plans at the last minute.

So I headed off to Stillwater, OK for Eskimo Joe’s Juke Joint Jog instead of an obstacle course to start off the weekend’s events. It was sunny but quite surprisingly cold when the day began. It quickly warmed up as race time drew near, and ended up being comfortable enjoyment instead of a shivery slog, and a great start for my trip. The 33rd annual race put on by the local college watering hole, Eskimo Joe’s Juke Joint, featured a course which wound around and through the Oklahoma State University campus. Apparently both the bar and race are well-attended local favorites which are famous for an annual street party as well as the 5k that raised $12,000 in 2019 for the United Way charities.

After the race, I drove north to Wichita KS for the Prairie Fire Fall Half Marathon — a redemption race for me. I had tried to run there once before, maybe 7 or 8 years ago, only to be felled by a sudden flare up of chronic right Achilles tendonitis which has come and gone many times over the course of my running life. I made it all the way to Wichita on that occasion but was in too much pain to run, even after I downgraded to the 5k, when I awoke to find I could barely walk across the hotel room without wincing. So this was going to be “my year” to run in Kansas and cross that state off my bucket list once and for all.

I attended packet pickup but skipped the pasta dinner and settled in at the hotel with my usual race-eve light dinner and 2 beers. I had plenty of energy chews and bottled water on hand so I got all my gear together and readied myself for the next morning’s competition. The usual night of fitful pre-race sleep followed and soon I made my way to the race site still under cover of the night sky and milled around with everyone else as we waited for the festivities to begin. Looking back at the obligatory race morning selfie I seemed pretty happy at the time, even if a bit sleep deprived.

Oddly enough, I don’t remember a lot of the details of the actual race itself beyond the customary loping along and enjoying the scenery. At one point, my son texted me (he has an unusual talent for messaging me during races) and I sent my standard reply of “I’m running.” We have a standing joke about people on TV who are always smiling as they run, so he must have answered back something like “are you doing The Happy Run?” because I found this photo I sent him showing me doing just that. Judging by my change of clothes, it must have warmed up quite a bit at the point too.

Towards the end when I was tired and a little bored, I started to notice the signs and began to photograph them. As much anyone loves racing, there always come those moments when you say to yourself, “HOW MUCH longer do I have to go?!” in wondrous amusement at why you keep thinking this is such a great idea.

Had I known The Redemption Race of Wichita in 2019 would be my last half marathon for over a year, I certainly would have committed more of it to memory. It was the 46th state of all 50 in which I had pledged to race some ten years before when I was a fledgling runner caught up in the excitement of destination racing. But by 2019, although still a beloved pastime and hobby, this trip was also merely more of “what I do” and not the childlike thrill of those early days — obviously, since I’m just now writing about it 16 months later. However, one of the many lessons I learned from the Great Void of Covid-19 was not to take anything for granted ever again because little things, big things, and even silly mundane things can be snatched away in the blink of an eye or the invisible spray of a cough. Cherishing each race, every trip, and all the memories plus committing them to paper while still fresh is something I will not neglect again.

The weekend stats from Athlinks are shown below as is the photo I published on Instagram upon returning home.

Next up: 2020.

SUMMER 2019:

Now that I’ve been destination racing for over 10 years, it has become more of a habit and less of a noteworthy circumstance, as has the whole training, racing and running scene.  This is probably the main reason I sort of lost interest in blogging every step of the journey.  Blogging in the first place is like keeping a diary memorializing days and events of your life which may be lost to history otherwise.  Publishing your blog assumes others will be as fascinated by your doings as you are.  I guess writing about it became much less urgent to me since there were social media posts and photographs somewhere in cyberspace which could serve as reminders should the need arise someday to look back.  In other words, it was just too commonplace to bother with any more.

Now here it is in the almost-summer of 2020 with practically no races to be had, and with the quest to run one in all 50 states by the end of this year in imminent danger of not being completed, that a new inspiration to envelop myself in all-things-running has arisen.  They say you don’t miss something until it’s gone.  I’d have to agree.  Anyway, here’s one of two catch-up posts to close out 2019 because I’m feeling the need to savor, and thus document, every precious step again and I can’t leave a blank between then and now.

July 19, 2019 brought a “3 states in 3 days trip” to New England where I ran most of the evening’s all-female 5k Luna Run at the Spring Hill Lodge in Maine.  It was an event which I added on to the Friday night of my weekend as a spur-of-the-last-minute decision.  I didn’t realize it was a trail race to be run up and down some grassy hills in the pitch dark with the path delineated by ropes and posts.  I saw an opportunity to add on an extra state, so I signed up.  Unfortunately, my night vision is pretty bad and I ended up stopping after the second one-mile loop due to the darkness and uneven terrain, plus the 135 mile drive I had ahead of me to my next destination and another race in Warwick, Rhode Island the following morning.  But it was a fun evening regardless and the area was quite beautiful to run two grassy miles in.  I didn’t get a medal but I had a good time, and the post-race taco and dessert bar was wonderful.  I skipped the margaritas due to the late night and the drive, but the ladies seemed to be enjoying those too.

On Saturday, July 20, the Rising Above Cancer 5k was held on an incredibly hot and sunny morning.  The mercury would eventually rise to 93F on that sweltering July day but it already felt “too hot to run” by the time we all assembled at Warwick City Park for the 9:00 am race.  This particular 5k is held every year to benefit the Malloy Strong Patient Support Fund which is a cancer institute linked resource for patients who need help with costs of medication or other necessities associated with their diagnosis of cancer.  It is named after a police officer, Ed Malloy, currently battling liver cancer and supported by hundreds of people, many attending and wearing Malloy Strong/Never Give Up green t-shirts, who advocate for his cause.  Seeing them trudging along through the heat definitely made me sure to “never give up” despite the fact that I was sweaty and tired before we even started.  This is one attribute of the running community that I have come to love since I laced on that first pair of shoes in 2008: the inexhaustible drive to push past the point when others might give up, not only to prove something to their own selves, but to do so again and again (some almost every weekend of the summer) to send a little money toward people who need help.  The day was crazy hot!  And I really did need to shove myself forward one foot at a time but I finished and, albeit with a slow and embarrassing time, was glad to have spent the morning in the company of these warrior humanitarians.  Oh and then when I got done, I had THE BEST lobster roll I’ve had in a long long time!

Then it was on to my next and final stop but not before I enjoyed some history, because I decided early on that I wasn’t going to be one of those people who flew into a state for a race and didn’t stop to explore the surroundings.  After all the point of this whole venture was not only to race in all 50 states but to actually “see” all 50, so I try to do something a little touristy/educational in each one.  In this case, I visited the Mark Twain House and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center as well as the Ancient Burying Ground, a cemetery dating back to pre-revolutionary war America.  Those alone could be an entire blog entry but this is a catch-up post, so I’ll leave it here.

Sunday, July 21, brought the Hartford CT Achilles Hope and Possibility 5k which was a race featuring and benefiting a fund for disabled athletes. The weather was a bit cooler and wonderfully overcast for much of the race so it was a more pleasant, though no less inspiring, occasion.  Afterwards I had to head to the airport pretty quickly, another few hours of driving time, and then back home before bedtime since I had an 8:00 am shift at the hospital the next day.

3 states – 3 days – 3 more off the bucket list.  Done!  Finished smiling and with no regrets.

August 4, 2019
The Naperville Duathlon — my second one ever in life — was next on the agenda about 2 weeks later.  I’ve aspired to, and been afraid of, multi-sport activities ever since my early days as a runner.  Even though I am among the unlikely athletes — having started older, slower and heavier than most at the age of 52 when I first did Couch to 5k and ran my intial race — I have always wanted to go the extra distance and take on the next more difficult challenge.  I don’t swim and never will; I just don’t like it.  But duathlon racing was something that was “still out there” for me even after I ran my first marathon the year I turned 60.  I tackled Batavia in 2018 and got a 60-64 age group award but I always rationalized that it was mainly due to the crappy thunder storm filled day and none of the other old ladies showing up.  But the Naperville Sprint Duathlon this year was pretty much perfect, and the 1 mile run, 13.7 mile bike ride, then 3.1 mile run had plenty of competitors charging along the roads on a beautiful mid summer day.

I had driven the course once with my bike in the back of my SUV.  I had actually wanted to bicycle that day but soon figured out there weren’t enough sidewalks to do so safely, and the busy streets of Naperville were too forbidding for me to take a chance in daytime traffic.  So I tracked it with my Garmin watch as I drove, as if I’d been riding it on my bike, then figured out all the elevations later at home and made sure I rode similar but steeper ones around my house so I could be assured of being able to give it my all with no surprises.  Because the bike leg seemed more daunting, Silly Me didn’t RUN those same routes (“note to self” taken for the next outing), and the uphill runs were a tougher than expected but I was SO HAPPY to complete the race with energy to spare.  I was the oldest female in the duathlon (at age 63) but not the slowest, and that was all I’d been wishing for.   I wanted to finish in less than two hours and I made it by 51 seconds.  It was an utterly wonderful occasion, even though the line to pick up our bikes afterward took like an hour to get through.  I left the venue with plans for the following year’s event already clicking through the cogs in my brain and a major feeling of accomplishment swirling around me like an aura.  I was finally, definitely, after two successful outings a real Duathlete, a true multisport athlete, on my way to conquer even more territory in whatever outdoorsy terrain lay before me.  It was great.

What a nice summer!  Power to the Slowbees! 🙂

Next up, fall and winter.

2018 started with me having run a race in 37 of the 50 states (plus Washington DC) over a period of nine years.  When I first hatched the crazy idea that I was going to race in every state, I gave myself a time limit of “before I turn 65 years old” in December of 2020.

This has meant taking trips specifically to do a race as well as finding one in a state I happened to be traveling for another reason (like a work conference or family vacation), and over the last few years has included multiple states in the same visit to save time and money.

The first destination race of 2018 was a February 5k in Scottsdale AZ where I happened to be attending an education seminar related to my job.  The Stride for Sight was a nice run on a warm day when it was very cold at home, and I was happy to be out running in the sunshine instead.  As usual, I wasn’t very fast but I had a good time.

Next up was the 5k portion of the Rock-n-Roll Nashville marathon series in April.  I had originally planned to do a half-marathon but my Achilles tendonitis flared up and I ended up dropping down to the shorter segment instead.  The trip was a joyous one because I got a chance to meet a cousin I hadn’t known about until we were matched through the Ancestry DNA test.  We’re now pretty much BFFs who chat on Facebook every day and it was great to spend some time with her as well as run the streets of Nashville.

Following that came another trip in June which was a two-races-in-two-states-in-one-weekend trip to the Washington DC area.  First came the Mechanicsville, Maryland, Spartan Sprint which I talked about in the previous post.  Even though I hated the mud, I mostly liked that race.  Like I said before, I’m a beast when it comes to carrying heavy stuff.  I’ve been a weight-lifter for decades and I have a disabled dog who weighs 70 pounds that I’ve lifted in and out of the SUV for years, so the heavy-lifting obstacles were not a big challenge for me.  I cannot pull up my body weight so I didn’t even try the rope climb or swinging from various rings and rods, and I skipped the spear throw because of my bad right shoulder.  But I rolled under the barbed wire, scrambled over a bunch of walls (a couple of times with help), slogged through endless mud pits, and scaled ladders plus cargo nets, along with running or walking between obstacles for a total of something over 4 miles.  I knocked out dozens of penalty Burpees but that was okay; everyone seemed pretty casual about form and count and nothing that day had to be perfect.   2:45 minutes after scrambling over the first wall at the starting gate, I finished.

Then I draped towels around the open car doors of my rental for cover and gave myself a water bath with a gallon of water bought from a 7-11 before changing clothes right there in the parking lot.  I threw away everything but my gloves (a nice way to get rid of old clothing) and headed off to the next location — Fairfax, Virginia — with every intention of checking into the hotel and having a well-earned burger and beer before hitting the shower and falling into bed.

About halfway there however, I was cruising down a one lane country road in the middle of nowhere when a deer suddenly jumped across the road from the right and bounced off the hood of my car then landed somewhere to the left.  My first thought was “oh shit!” then looking at the windshield that was exactly what I saw:  deer hair and deer poop and a wrecked hood on the car that didn’t belong to me.

There was no lane to pull over, a rear-view mirror check showed a line of cars all behind me so I couldn’t stop in the middle of the road, and a glance at my cell phone showed no bars in the upper left corner.  So I said a silent prayer and kept driving.  I shut off the air conditioning in case the radiator was damaged because I didn’t want to overheat the car, rolled down the window and drove on, listening for untoward sounds with each rotation of the wheels.  Fortunately, the damage seemed to be cosmetic rather than functional because nothing worse happened.  Eventually I made it to a town where I pulled into a gas station and called Hertz.  After a long conversation with the customer service rep, we decided that the car was still driveable and it would be okay for me to keep it another day rather than try to exchange it at Ronald Reagan airport right then.  What an adventure!  It’s one I’d rather not repeat.

The following morning, Father’s Day actually,  I drove the raggedy car to the Run with Dad 5k where I had originally planned to mostly-walk the race because I expected to be worn out from the Spartan.  But once I got going I ended up doing a lot more running because it was a cool and cloudy day in a woodsy venue which inspired my tired legs to move, so I finished at my usual snail’s pace rather than even slower and had a good time doing it.

After the 5k and a hearty breakfast, I had some time before my flight so I drove back into Washington DC to pay my respects and visit the monument dedicated to the hero of my childhood — Martin Luther King Jr.  It was a beautiful day for a lovely walk, and  I have to say that when I rounded the corner to find him standing there, like a colossus of ancient times hewn from granite, my heart swelled and my eyes filled with tears.  How I loved him  –fiercely and secretly — when I was a mixed race child living with a white family during the Civil Rights Era!  He wasn’t popular with the people around me but he was the only one to tell me I was worthy back then, and it was the best lesson I could have had.  And I love him still.

The final running trip of 2018 took me to Boise, Idaho, for the Freakin’ Fast Half Marathon on July 21 which is another “run down a mountain” race like I’ve done once a year for the last few summers.  It was a fun event but the race wasn’t particularly freaky and I sure wasn’t fast.  But I did find it amusing to tell myself at one point “I guess it’s time to hit the dusty trail” when I saw that street sign.

That was probably the last half marathon I’ll ever do that gets me bused up a mountain before daybreak and there is something so bittersweet about those, I know I’ll miss it.  The race always seems like a fine idea when I sign up, until waking at 3:00 am to drive to the pick up point finds me grumbling about why I’m doing it.  Milling around in the predawn chill, trying to stay warm, shoving food in my mouth that I’m not hungry for yet but know damn well I’d better eat — these are the vignettes that live in my memory as “least favorite.”  But there is something both humbling and breathtaking about watching the sun rise above the trees to enfold the earth and us, its animals, with the life-giving warmth we can’t live without.  Then to stampede down the mountain surrounded by a pack of kindred souls — its a rare form of blissful lunacy that your crazy fellow runners understand and your family shake their heads at.

So that’s pretty much the summary of 2018.  Five more states off the bucket list brought me up to a total of 41 plus DC having been run and only nine left to go.  I’m pretty sure I’ve written about all of them here over the last 10 years.  After that, it will be time to branch out into the other continents but that’s another blog post for another day.

In this Runner’s World article, they present some recommended resolutions for runners like “set a PR” (done), “do your first triathlon” (done – sort of, a duathlon because I don’t swim), “get into yoga (um…being doing it since 1978).

https://www.runnersworld.com/training/g20840944/12-new-years-running-resolutions/

But there’s one not shown which I really need to enlist my best efforts to accomplish:

START WRITING YOUR DANG BLOG AGAIN!

So I will.  I know, I’ve made that promise before and then disappeared for months on end.  But I will do better.  I’ve been at this for more than 10 years now.  It’s time I did better.

The second half of 2017 was a weird time.  I ran too many long slow endurance races and didn’t focus enough on speed.  Social and political unrest in the States made for a lot of unhappy complainers everywhere.  The weather was relentlessly hot, in fact the third-hottest year on record according to NOAA.  And all of those things were just a prelude to the worst flu season I’ve ever encountered in my 16 years of working in health care.  To say it simply, 2017 ended up pretty much sucking for a lot of different reasons.  My final half-marathon of the year was no exception.

I ran the Crazy Horse half marathon in Hill City SD on a blustery cold day in a summer town that was closed for the winter.  The entirety of the experience was one of disappointment.  It started with my booking at the host hotel, The Lodge at Palmer Gulch, which is advertised as a tourist haven with barbecue and steak and beer and all sorts of entertainment for the whole family.  Silly me, I should have checked to see when they closed for the season!  After a summer of reading and planning and thinking about all the fun I was going to have and meals I was going to eat and ice cold pints of beer I was going to drink, I arrived to find the place deserted and barren.  Yes, it was the host hotel for the race but that is absolutely all it was.  No food.  No drinks. No fun.  They had closed down everything but the rooms the week before.  And if you look at the screenshot from my phone, you also see “No Service” — which means no GPS directions anywhere either.  Fortunately, they did have a breakfast buffet and there was a biker bar/grill nearby so I never starved to death (nor died of thirst since the attached convenience store sold water, beer and juice).  The herds of deer that took over the parking lot and playground at the lodge were actually quite beautiful as well.  So as much as I was let down, I was also sort of amused by the Twilight Zone-ish ambiance of the place.

Race day was frigid and windy and my iPod died.  It played half of one song and then ground to a halt despite having a full charge.  Silly me again, I didn’t download music to my phone as a backup!  And with no signal, I was not able to do so.  Therefore, I ran the race (doing a lot more walking than usual) with no music to spur me on when I was tired but the never-ending conversation of the two chicks closely trailing me to keep me annoyed.

The Crazy Horse Monument itself is beautiful.  Large and imposing, it represents a grandiose dream with its continuing fulfillment as well as being a symbol of recognition and respect for The People who were here before my people were here (both sides, the Africans and the Europeans).

The snow that fell for much of the race eventually turned to rain as the temperature climbed to about 44 degrees, and well over three hours later I finished a soggy, tired and disheartened mess.  I headed back to the lodge and cleaned myself up enough to take the obligatory “happy medal photo” that is every runner’s post race tradition.  Then I headed back toward home after a ride past Mount Rushmore to see the famous faces carved upon it (because you have to pay to get any closer than the highway or the parking lot).  Dare I say that was a little disappointing too, or is this theme becoming too redundant?

The rest of the year proceeded in similar fashion, both in life and athletics.  Flu season started early and lasted long.  Work shifts were torture fests of stress and overwork for six months.  We were short-staffed, too busy and it was awful.

FORTE 5k, Channahon IL

Running was equally off-kilter.  My usual “fast 5k,” the Forte 5k, was not fast this year for some odd reason, and my debut year of running the Canal Connection 10k with my running club was a cold rainy slog through too much mud on the I&M Canal.   But honestly, a major highlight of that race was finding a porta potty with my name on it!  That was a first.

I ran the 4 mile Poultry and Pie Predictor with my club (not my fastest performance either) and then got gloriously drunk with family and friends afterwards on Thanksgiving day after eating at a restaurant.  It was actually quite a fun day and the end of my 2017 fall running season.

Soon enough, it was 2018 and the season of lackluster running was over.  The new year ushered in big changes with new events, a better frame of mind and different goals.  Unlike the four faces on Mount Rushmore, nothing in life is set in stone.  One crappy race or even an entire season of uninspiring performance does not predict anything about the future, except that better things are sure to follow if you learn the lessons your disappointments offer.

NEXT UP:
Winter-into-Spring 2018

Nope.  Just not really enthused enough to write anything.

Last year’s running season ended on a blah note.  My last half-marathon of the year was disappointing.  The weather got cold.  I got injured.  Winter took away my outdoor sports, and the worst flu season I can remember took away most of my free time because I had to work a lot more.

But six months have passed and spring is technically here although it actually snowed this morning.  However, I’ve recovered from both injuries and am looking forward to getting back outdoors more frequently to live the life I enjoy.

I’ll catch up on my races and get back to writing.

Next post will finish out 2017:
the Crazy Horse Half Marathon, a few local races, and my winter challenge of 6.2 miles once a week for 6.2 weeks to celebrate turning 62 last December.

Cheers!

On September 16 and 17, I ran my 19th half-marathon and completed states number 36 and 37 in the quest to race (any distance) in all 50.  Overall, the experience was okay.  It wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad either.  The races would have been more fun if the temperature was cooler, and the experience would have been more enjoyable if travel back and forth had been easier as well as parking in Philly cheaper.  But I’m glad I did it, and will always remember the weekend.

I flew into Philadelphia and went straight to packet pickup on Friday, got my stuff and then headed towards North New Brunswick NJ after eating an absolutely excellent grass-fed burger at the BurgerFi across from the convention center.  The 60 mile drive in the dark that followed was an adventure in construction, poor signage, unyielding fellow drivers and wrong turns, but eventually I picked up my 5k packet and then found the hotel.

Opening my packets, I found the 5k goody bag to be among the best I have ever received because it contained mostly dog and cat products.  The Fetch & Pounce race is held to benefit the Karma Cat and Zen Dog Rescue Society, and since all of my animals are rescues I was definitely happy to support them.  The race started near a dog park and circled a lovely local nature preserve a couple of times before finishing near the field house.  I had told myself I was going to walk, but then once I got started and it was so hot and sunny out I went ahead and jogged it.  I didn’t want to run all out because I hoped to be preserving my energy for the half marathon the following day.  So my stats are unimpressive but my dogs and cats were happy to see me when I got home with gifts.

Back in Philly, I wanted to get a cheese steak and go to see the Liberty Bell after checking in to that hotel but parking was expensive everywhere downtown and when I decided to go ahead and walk, it started raining.  So I ended up eating Chinese dim sum by the hotel instead and got to bed early.

Like all Rock ‘n’ Roll events, the Philadelphia half marathon was crowded as well as star-studded.  Galen Rupp was running and I happened to see him streak past me as I was shuffling to the start line in my corral.  Of course, I didn’t get my phone out of my sports bra in time to take a picture but at least I laid eyes on someone who is about to be very famous in the world of running.  And, like when I did the same race once as Deena Kastor, I can tell people forever “I ran with Galen Rupp once.”

In researching everything I could about this race as we often do when we’re excitedly getting ready to run, I found the words “fast and flat” on the event’s website in no less than five different places.  So in my mind’s eye, I was envisioning myself streaking along towards the horizon leaving my past finishing times in the dust.  Um, it wasn’t really flat though.  Some of it was definitely uphill and some pitched definitely downward but a lot of the time as I was slogging along in the 82 degree heat hoping to find something easier about my journey, I kept finding the road rising ahead of me instead of seeming level.  After the race, I looked up the actual course elevation:

I’m aware the elevation change was not much in terms of feet, but it wasn’t exactly flat either.  Anyway, that’s really my only gripe about the race itself.  It was hot out (but thankfully overcast) and my hope of flatness was continuously dashed step after step after sweaty plodding step.  Course entertainment was great, as always. The course was pleasantly scenic as we wound through various neighborhoods, past the infamously haunted Eastern State Penitentiary and along the Schuylkill River in Fairmount Park.  And the motivational signs were inspiring.

Eventually I crossed the finish line in front of the Rocky Steps, not with the PR from a “fast and flat” course I’d been hoping for, but happy to be done nonetheless.

So I grabbed a medal, had water and some snacks, then began my walk back to the hotel just as as Big Head Todd and the Monsters were finishing their show as headliners for this race.

This was my third “5k then a half on consecutive days” weekend, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it.  The first time, the 5k was at night and I got to bed late.  The second time was this past summer at high altitude, and I know that slowed me down.  And this time there was the heat.  I guess I’ll keep trying until I get it right because it’s certainly an efficient way to race in two states and only pay for one trip.

Here are the not-so-great numbers that illustrate how I slowed down as I went:

But that’s the usual story of life at the back of the pack anyway.  I’m always slow, sometimes not-so slow and some times slower than others.  One of these days I’ll surprise everyone and come in under 3 hours in a race that’s not completely downhill.  One of these days for sure.

I can’t say I did much the past couple of weeks prior to this weekend. Labor Day came and went, and the weather turned chilly.  The first red leaves began to show on the trees as the realization slowly dawned that summer is fairly well over.  I rarely welcome this time of year because it signals the end of everything I love: blue skies and greenery, a garden full of vegetables, and endless roads stretching into the distance beckoning me to come and run them.  Here in Northern Illinois the cold months can be quite brutal so at the first hint of winter’s return, a bit of heaviness descends on my mood and I need to make a mental adjustment.

That’s pretty much what happened the last two weeks.  I kept up with running, stretching and cardio but had to do more yoga to keep myself peaceful, and thus neglected the weight training I should have done.  My right shoulder is still in healing mode anyway, although it is about 95% better now, so it was probably the right thing to do.

Not quite able to get the heart rate up that day.  Still bummed and too tired.

The week of September 10 was also taper time for my first fall half, which I will fully report about next time, the Rock’n’Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon.  I’m waiting for all the stats and pictures to show up since it just happened yesterday, and they’re not available yet.

Foggy morning last Wednesday!

My mood is getting better because I’ve begun meditating in the morning with the Headspace app, and I have also started preparing for my winter training project.  Last year, I did a 5 month muscle building program from November to April and got really strong.  This year, I went a little crazy and signed up for a Spartan Sprint in March which I will be training for starting in November.  It is going to require a lot of work because I have never done about half the stuff they will expect of me, so I’m really in over my head again.  But that’s okay.  Planning something new, exciting and slightly scary will help chase away the winter blues by giving me a new goal to strive for instead of moping around and eating while we’re all snowbound for months up here.

And that’s about the latest from these parts at this moment.  I’ll come back with race reports for the Fetch & Pounce 5k in New Jersey on Saturday as well as the Rock’n’Roll Philadelphia half-marathon on Sunday of this past weekend after all the photos are available.

In the meantime, Live Long and Prosper.