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Weekend Report 1/12-13/2013

1/14/2013

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This weekend was less an adventure in adrenaline-pumping activity than a smorgasbord of activities both solo and with others. Starting Friday night, the weather played a big role in the weekend, as the temperature dropped into the single digits Fahrenheit and promised to stay below freezing for the duration.

Saturday was originally going to be a race morning for me. I had signed up for a race series of which my second event was to be Saturday. I don’t know what came over me (OK, I do, but don’t want to talk about it), but the thought of racing didn’t appeal. Instead of running with a bunch of others, I headed out for a solo jaunt out east at the Iron Mountain area. If you’re keeping geographic track, I started here.

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The run was really rather good overall. Cold (started at -17° C) but sunny, so the thermometer wasn’t a factor, really, especially as there was no wind and the dew point was low. The only creature I saw spotted me first and kept his distance. He was probably wondering "WTF are you doing out here, moron? At least I have a thick fur coat!"

I hit the low energy wall at 12 K, but I finished up the planned 16 K distance, and headed home both as victor and DFL in my own personal race. 

I tried another short 5 K jaunt on Sunday closer to home. It was a tricky footing challenge with lumpy ground and ice covered over with a 4 cm skin of snow. The wind was up a bit, as well as the humidity, making it feel a LOT colder than Saturday, even though the temperature was higher.

The definite highlight was watching the two golden eagles soaring and stooping overhead. Awesome.

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Subaru
The rest of the weekend was taken up with playing with Subaru (the Guide Dog puppy we are raising) and forcing exercise on my son, who seems to play online games 20 hours a day. I know the games are very social (and that’s good) but they do nothing for him physically. I made him a deal though: he now has to crank out 50 push-ups and 100 sit-ups before playing.

I am going to amend that to be on a per-time basis, though. Each set of exercises will buy him a few hours of game time. To keep playing, he needs to crank out another set. He’ll be less pleased, but stronger in the long run. Just wait until I start tossing in the cardio as well. :-)

Did some kitchen time as well, whipping up a batch of no-cook protein bars and enough Green Chile for the week’s lunches. I altered the chile recipe a bit to make it with beef instead of pork. I was tagged as having low ferritin levels a month or so ago (< 8), and have been working to get it back up. I figured substituting beef for pork in a recipe would be an easy assist. Oh, and if anyone wants either recipe, let me know. If I can accomplish it, you know it's easy. 

Between cooking, monitoring exercise, dog play and my jaunts, I did get a bit of reading in. I was able to finish Pat Conroy's South of Broad. I enjoyed it and gave it 4 of 5 stars on goodreads.com.

Oh, and my nephew was on the television during the Broncos vs. Ravens football game. I didn't do the capture, but that's the goofball in the sunglasses and dork-hat on the TV.

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Weekend report complete. Carry on with your week.
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Forever In Slow Genes

3/4/2012

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Genetics talks,
It makes you sing and dance, and it makes you walk,
If I go alone, I say, I'm almost OK,
Forever in slow genes.

Biking's sweet, but it ain't nothing next to running's treat,
So pardon me, I've got to say, 

If alone, I'm OK, 
Forever in slow genes.
With apologies to Neil Diamond's "Forever in Blue Jeans."

This weekend I made a huge mistake hurling myself against Iron Mountain on Saturday. Not that it is an especially difficult trail (nice single track and modest elevations and gradients). Not that it was under especially difficult conditions (crisp blue skies, temps in the upper 40s to start, 50s at the finish). No, the mistake was going in the first place. You see, Spencer had his first-ever wrestling match, and I stupidly, selfishly missed it. And he even won. Double stupid, and double the you're-a-bad-dad feeling. M

Maybe that contributed to the overall SuckoMeter™ reading of 50. 

The first portion of the run was actually pretty good, with a SuckoMeter reading of about 2. Doesn't get better than that. I wasn't fast, I wasn't in great shape, but the run was fun; just me and a Golden Eagle. Not even a vulture circling yet. I should have stopped. I don't listen to myself.
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Yikes! Scary to meet on the trail!
The second part of the run, my body insisted that I listen. Both freakin' knees started to hurt to the point of no more running. The vultures appeared. The nagging voices in my head showed up.  Aaaannd, I ended up doing the Loser's Walk of Shame to the car. That sucked. As a result, the SuckoMeter™ for the second portion was a respectable 80, resulting in a weighted overall score of 50.

My main camera battery died as I turned it on to snap the eagle, so pardon the shots, they came from my phone cam.

Despite the rain and snow for a couple of days during the week, the trail conditions were excellent. That is probably due to its distance to the east from the main spine of the Sierra. I would be willing to wager the area didn't experience much more than a dampening event. My only complaint about the trail is that since the last time I was out there, motorcycle morons have found it and, as is their wont, dug up some curves and had a hard time actually staying on the trail. 

I don't understand the mentality of the people who do this. There are miles and miles and miles of 4x4 roads and motorcycle tracks. They find a track that is obviously solely intended for foot/bicycle/horse traffic, and feel the need to abuse it with a motorcycle. 

As I said, both knees are hurting at the end of runs, and I'm not sure if it is a case of dual IT band issues, or just getting old. I'm almost convinced of the latter, though either way it slows me down even further than my genetics predispose me to. Sigh.

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Exploring again

11/11/2011

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I was fortunate enough to get Veteran's Day as a day of work-hooky, so I took advantage of the opportunity to seek out new trails and to boldly "run" where no slang has "run" before.  (Yes the word is in quotes. If you saw how I move, you'd put it in quotes, too.) For this journey, I headed east from Carson City, through Dayton out to the burgeoning megalopolis of Stagecoach, NV. Out there is a trail or two I dimly recalled from a mountain bike escapade many years ago, where I tagged and toiled along with Jeff Potter (who created the trail) and some other serious mountain cyclists. 
I've always liked running a "Potter Bike Trail." Why? Because he makes such damn good trails. I also don't mind running a typical bike trail as the tires tend to smooth it out and when it's soft, I get to mash down bike corduroy. Works out for all, as far as I'm concerned.
To find the location, I sneaked a peek at a mountain bike website to get an image of the trail, printed it and used it as a map. I had to do some sleuthing on The Goog to determine the start location. Having the "map" worked out pretty well, as I only missed a few turns and added only about 1/2 mile overall. After cleaning the mistaken turns and mapping it cleanly, it shows a 8.97 mile route. I'll call it 9. Any arguments? I didn't think so. 
(As an aside, there is a discrepancy on Google Earth for a route when the distance is shown using "Get Info" and when the distance is shown on the Elevation Profile. I don't know why, but on this particular journey, GI =8.97, and EP= 8.82.)
Below is a GE screen shot showing the route and elevation profile. The Lat/Long displayed is the start location, if you want to give the route a go yourself.
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The day was cloudy and cool, with a slight breeze - just enough to get the snot flowing and the sweat chilling as the four of us traveled along (I was alone, though the usual companions I run with were in attendance: Bad Form, Constant Pain and Fear of Failure). I didn't see another living creature the entire 2 hours. No squirrels, snakes or insects. Nary a bird - not even a circling vulture or two for effect. And the gray skies increased the overall mood of isolation and aloneness. It was awesome! 
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This part of the trail was heavily forested (relatively). I just had to hope my Garmin would continue to receive a signal through the heavy canopy.
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    Just a guy out exploring the world. Former world-class never-was endurance runner.

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