This has got to stop already!!! >:-(

OK, after about a week of winds now I am starting to think that this might actually impair my marathon preparations. Last night was probably the "windiest" night so far this year (with only two days remaining, tight squeeze, ha) as we had gusts over 80mph and wind ripping apart my screen doors and windows. I was awake most of the night, pretending to be sailing in a ship (thanks to B's imagination) with the shinook (cute word, huh) winds hitting my house being the waves hitting the boat... I actually felt my bed sway back and forth at times, no joke. It was supposed to let up this morning I thought, but my run about an hour ago was the most pathetic thing ever. Not only did I have no oomph, the gusts would literally stop me in my tracks, and it took at least twice as much energy to move forward. The top gust at 10.30 A.M. was 73mph or something. Nice. Branches and parts of trees were strewn all over roads and trails, trash was scattered everywhere, and some construction site lost a good ton of styrofoam, as it decorated most of my neighborhood this morning. Big cleanup is on the way...

I am trying to find some info on the benefits of running in such a crazy circumstance; there has got to be something good about it. I am spent like I did a track workout after these runs and my hamstrings take days to recover, because apparently my knee lift goes beserk when I go into these headwinds. This must be the winter of wind, instead of snow. I am not sure which I prefer more...

Last Long Run and Chlorine

I did my last loooong run before the marathon today in rather frosty conditions, but am happy that I got it done, because with the weather here, you never know what's coming next and it could always be worse! I didn't think it would be as freezing as it was, but thanks to some fierce winds the real feel air temp was hovering right around 10 degrees. My gloves stayed on the whole time. I divided my run into three parts: run the first 80 mins by myself around my neighborhoods, then meet up with Brandon at his house and run for an hour from there with him (which ended up being the creek path) and then run back to my house and add on if needed.

The hour with Brandon was pretty easy so that I had enough left in the tank to pick it up a bit on the way home, despite nearly freezing my face off. All the ponds and lakes are frozen; people are using them to play ice hockey on (hopefully the ice is thick enough for that) and even my gel I brought along felt like I took it straight out of a freezer when I opened it. But hey, what doesn't kill you, will only make you stronger.

I finished the 3-hr run on a high note and then cooled the legs off in the pool for 30 mins, realizing once again that swimming is my least favorite of the three sports. I mean come on, what is enjoyable about forcing yourself out in temps hovering around 0, while your bathing suit is hardening up from the water (joking) freezing on it, and doing it all in complete darkness with the entire pool to just yourself. My thoughts seem to wander when I do these swims, and I usually end up getting some dumb song stuck in my head, repeating it over and over again, even though I can't stand it.

While we certainly have gotten our share of the frigid, nasty weather lately, the Pacific Northwest seems to have been hit a little harder, whilst less prepared. Apparently, most roads are iced over like skating rinks, with only major highways cleared and accidents just waiting to happen. My family is flying to Germany for the holidays tomorrow and left their house today to be able to make their flight out of SeaTac tomorrow. Hopefully it all goes without incident.

If you're a member of a health club with a locker room, you will probably know what I am talking about when I say locker room gossip. And I mean the kind women talk about. Lets just say that you hear the MOST interesting things come out of people's mouths, it almost feels like confession in there sometimes. Today I "accidentally" (it was loud enough for all to hear) eavesdropped on a woman complaining about the fact that she won't swim because of the chlorine in the pool and of how dry her skin gets afterwards. Ok lady, two things: sorry but you need chlorine in a public pool, otherwise you will not leave healthy after swimming, and second, there is lotion for that dry skin. It's funny how triathletes (and swimmers I guess) actually talk about how much they love the smell of chlorine on theirs and other bodies; and I must confess, smelling of chlorine after a swim is somewhat satisfying, almost like a deep cleanse, or a mark of achievement. I guess this comes to show just how freaky we ueber- endurance athletes appear to the general population.

Yes, it's freezing

note- picture of Antarctica, not Colorado, we don't have penguins here, although right now I think they'd love it.

Just to let the world know that Boulder has not frozen over yet, here is a post. After weeks of unseasonably mild (60s and even 70s) weather, I knew we were doomed for some major changes. Well those arrived this weekend, during Brad and Pete's annual holiday party (more on that in a sec) where it started to snow ever so slightly, increasing to a full-blown storm overnight. We awoke yesterday to temps that hovered around 0-5 degrees F in the morning and warmed up to about 10 maybe? Running in that was bearable, although not recommended for the weak of heart, as it took awhile to warm up. Due to the company I was running with however, opting out was not in the cards. It ended up being a snowy and uncertain adventure out towards the res via Wonderland Lake and Eagle Trail.

Today however was a whole different ball game. I set out for a run at 9 a.m., with my usual cold weather running attire, which really doesn't differ that much from temps ranging in the 30s to teens. I added gloves (fleece lined) and my headband (in hindsight I should have worn a hat on top of it, I know better..) and headed out. It was literally BITTER cold. The always trusty weather.com said at least 5 degrees so it seemed that would be similar to yesterday. 20 mins in my left hand got really cold, as in bitter cold, as in it wouldn't warm up. I tried all the tricks: blowing in my glove(dumb as it just turns the evaporated air to ice), putting my hand into a ball in the glove and covering it with my sleeve. Nothing worked and I just got colder. It started to really bite. I came to my last resort- taking my hand completely out of the glove and shoving it down my pants for a few seconds. That did nothing. Neither did the armpit. My only option was to book it back home. The catch in that however was that when you run harder, more blood rushes FROM your extremities, such as your hands. When I finally got back to my place, both my hands were frozen; I had to run water over them and then wait for the thawing to begin. Scary to say the least. Fortunately I came away unscathed, but refused to go outside the rest of the day. Later on the news I found out that we broke 2 records in less than 12 hours. Yesterday's low and this morning's low, which was freaking 19 below 0, and that's Fahrenheit! So I am going to take a wild guess and say that the temps during my run were around -10 maybe? I passed a guy who was also running, who had a snow mustache. Tomorrow sounds balmy as we are supposed to climb back up in the teens and 20s, woot!

Now back to Saturday night. I ended up yapping away in German for a good part of the ever-entertaining white elephant gift exchange with a certain double Kona winner from Germany. After doing several double takes, I came to the conclusion that it really was him and asked him what he was doing here in Boulder. Seemingly happy that he was able to speak in his native tongue, we talked about our Kona experiences this year (from not enough salt tabs to too many) and accepted white elephant gifts, one a little more risque than the other. After being talked into meeting up the following morning for an "easy" run (it's not that hard to convince me) I called it a night and went home, only to wake up to antarctic-like weather conditions. But I couldn't cancel, from one German to another, when we say to meet, we don't back out. And I did not want to come across a wimp. I survived the run better than expected and apparently even impressed the Norminator with my running "speed". ha. Fun times.