Today I enter the world of blogging. I've been late to most online forums - why should this be different? Ha. Thank you, Kyle, for inviting me to share my trials and tribulations as I train for the Bolder Boulder.
A disclaimer - I do not run with Genius, as much as I'd like to. I run mainly on trails, and I'm afraid of a coyote sneaking up on me. While it may sound irrational, there are signs posted about coyotes in the area, and I've even run into one on the trail. Completely freaked me out!
I live in Boulder, Colorado and am ashamed to say I have never run the BB (one of the largest 10Ks in the country) in the 4 years I have lived here. I always plan to do it, but then get distracted and before you know it, it's 2 weeks away and I've done nothing to train. So this year, I registered as soon as it opened in order to take that excuse away. We've had a fairly cold winter so the snow didn't fully melt until a few weeks ago. I've just recently come out of hibernation to start my runs, and I am not very fast nor doing a lot of distance yet.
Luckily, I work from home so it's pretty easy to work runs in. Right now, it's too dark in the morning to get much of a run in, so I'm running at lunch. I just put my running clothes on in the morning, and as soon as my last morning call finishes I am out the door. I'm using a modified program for marathon training, and I run a specific time during the week rather than worrying about distance. I do run/walk combos for an hour and each week I am increasing the time of the run portion before walking. I focus on distance on the weekend. More on that on a weekend post. As I said, I'm recently out of hibernation, so runs are 15 min and walks are 2 min.
Today was a great day! It was a perfect temperature - 55 degrees, shorts and t-shirt weather for me - and the trails were dry enough (snow last week kept me on the roads). Call me crazy, but I think I do better at altitude. I was at my sister's in Waco, TX earlier this week and ran while I was there. Not sure if it was the 20 degree diff (75+) or the awful concrete streets, but I was suffering! I thought I was going to sail through it with all those extra red blood cells from Colorado. Not so much ... But today I felt fantastic. I had to hold myself back! No coyotes, but tons of people out with their dogs, bikes, babies, etc. I love Boulder - everyone is outside doing things all the time.
Tonight it's supposed to rain/snow. I hope I can get out tomorrow!
Welcome, Patti! Thanks for posting, and I look forward to your posts while you train for the BB.
ReplyDeleteI have run in Waco, too, and you do have to watch the heat. The good thing is that it is relatively flat (at least for me being in Atlanta and Greenville for the past 9 years).
I'd run without music if I had the scenery you have -- and do here on occasion. In fact, that is happening more and more. I usually use the iPod on runs around the neighborhood.