Monday; April 4: A very slow trotter of 10 miles. I was just happy to get out the door and actually feel like running! Traysen bored with the whole slow effort but in support of Mom, he hung in there.
Tuesday; April 5: Back in business today! It was the first yearly outing for the Pikes Peak Road Runners group that meets in Garden of the Gods, at 6am. Dave Sorensen heads up this gathering and over the years, it has grown and served as a means to get people out of their wintry cocoons. Today about 100 of us showed up. As usual, we divided into groups according to trail or road and according to pace. I opted for the 8:00/9:00 min/mile group...which turned out to be an excellent choice. We buzzed around the flatter sections of the Garden for about 4-5 miles. A few laughs at my ability to cough and run at the same time! After departing company, I pressed on for another 6 miles to round out the day with a good solid 9 miles total. The run itself felt great...plenty of energy and the pace was just right.
Wednesday; April 6: Alright...who is the beanhead who is tossing cig. butts out the window and starting grass fires in Teller Co??!!!! Last night was the second one of these in the last two weeks! With very little snow and now no rain, we are dry hayfield up here.....keep your butts to yourself!!!!
Oh..as for running.....well, down to the gym for back, shoulders and abs and then out the door....since I opted to run at home today (instead of chase Paul from Team CRUD up Longs Ranch Rd), the warm up of 2.5 miles left me at a neighbor's driveway that goes up....way upppppp.....so, hill repeats it was! A total of 11 of those bad boys, a mixture of shorts and medium lengths that left the lungs screaming!!! At least, the coughing is not nearly as bad and we are on the mend! A cool down consisted of romping through the neighbor's 70 acres (cross country style) and then a quick loop around Old Alyce's land....a total of 8.0 miles.
Thursday; April 7: Out the door to run with the PPRR/Sunrise Strider group. A cool damp morning started the run and our run leader, JD, was in a wacky sadistic mood and took us on the "roller coasters" along the ridge in Garden of the Gods. Our first mile warm up (with lively conversation and one constantly barking dog) was quickly replaced with lung searing huffin' n puffin' up the switchbacks to the top and then a series of ups n downs along the ridge. JD at one point turned around and hollared, "why aren't you all jabbering any more?" I think one guy actually gave him the "finger." And so it went for about 4.5 miles....pushing the uphills and recovering on the downs....After parting company with our group, I didn't waste any time and headed right back out onto the trails for another ...much easier.....5.5 miles to round the day out with 10 total.
The ridge of hills in foreground (lightly covered in snow) was the scene of the crime induced by JD.
Friday; April 8: A very rare day off from running at home! These are real treats from the standpoint that I almost always take Traysen out for a walk in the woods...coffee cup in hand. Being a perfect spring morning (no wind yet), we strolled down the back side of the property in hopes of finding "squirrel" antlers since most of the bucks have shed their racks by now. Although we did not find any antlers, Traysen was able to find a treasure or two of old bones from ?
Sunrise behind the house, over looking Slater Creek Valley.
Saturday; April 9: The run via the Team CRUD folks was to leave Memorial Park in Manitou, run up Rampart Range Rd to Williams Canyon Trail, intersect Waldo Trail, around Waldo, across Hwy 24, and then back to Manitou via the Ute Pass Trail....whewwww....that is a bunch to type much less run! Honestly, only a 18 mile romp with plenty of up and down hill (although I think the route in reverse would yield more interesting climbs!). This run went quite well, with plenty of energy and the legs felt perfect. It was only off/on coughing that proved to be the greater challenge.....the whole bronchitis thing is better but still a nagging hack. After dumping some gloves and a shirt at my truck, it was back into Garden of the Gods, up to Balanced Rock, and up to the Siamese Twins and back to the truck, adding another 4 miles to the route. A total of 22 miles today, a bit short of what I was hoping for of 25 miles. The limiting factor today was definitely my clogged lungs. Just too much coughing....The highlight of the run was that I ran almost the entire distance, with a couple of very short (less than 1 minute) walking breaks on some really steep sections.....nothing fast, but a steady trot the whole way.
Williams Canyon Trail views.
Sunday; April 10: No sleeping in for this girl! Up n at 'em at 4am. Down to the basement for weight lifting for 45 minutes and then out the door with Traysen. Quite chilly and windy, we were bundled like it was February! A leisurely 9 miles with the ole boy, seeing an assortment of "squirrels" and then he was bored. After depositing him at the house, it was back out for 6 more miles, of which the last 3-4 sucked! Just tired, legs tired, lungs working too hard, and lots of miles under the legs. The good news is that it was the only "rough" segment of running this week.
Summary: An awesome week of running despite battling some chesty, breathing, wheezy, coughing thing going on. After doing some online research (all of which must be correct, right?), the conclusions are that we have a case of exercise induced asthma (EIA), maybe not chronic bronchitis. The differences are vague but in this case, it is a dry cough associated with cold, dry air (Colorado!), brought on by exercise (running!), and consists of the dry cough, wheezing, shortness of breath, and chest tightness.....From my readings, chronic bronchitis usually is NOT a dry cough (goop coming up...yuck!), fever, chills, as well as similar symptoms of EIA. The good news is that the treatments are very much the same....an inhaler with corticosteroids.....i.e. Advair, which I am already taking. The other piece of good news is that both "issues" are managed and should not be life style limiting....meaning I will continue to run and deal with it. Which brings me to the point: Sometimes we are dealt some "issues" that will frustrate us, discourage us, limit us, and do an assortment of other "negative" things to our heads/bodies, and sometimes the greater challenge is dealing with and making adjustments for these issues rather than give in to them and have our lives become something we don't want. Having a lung issue may limit my ability to run very fast, especially uphill at altitude (which is pretty much all of Colorado), but I will continue to run as best as I can and continue to try to improve.
Total miles for the week: 74.0
Total miles for 2011: 828.0; which is 158.0 miles more than last year at this time!
On a totally separate note: It is Master's Golf Tournament week in the Atlanta area. As a kid,the family used to go to the practice rounds and it was always a treat to see the beautiful course. Times have changed and so have the crowds at the tournaments.....getting tickets now is quite difficult, but my dad was able to go to a practice round this past Tuesday. Wished I could have gone with him....maybe next time?
Augusta National in Georgia. Wonder if they would ever let me run the course? HA! Yeah, for about 2 minutes before the police hauled my little behind away!
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