14 Miles

I decided to run from my house to the Palmer Post Office and back on this beautiful day.  I took water with me but no food.  I think it was a little too far to not have something to eat.  At mile 12, I tripped and fell hard onto the pavement and sat up with blood everywhere.  Big laceration above my eyebrow and on my lip and both hands.  A nice man in a pickup truck saw it happen and stopped to help.  He gave me some napkins and the bleeding stopped.  I sort of ran and sort of walked the rest of the way home.  That was  slow 2 miles.  I really wanted one last fairly long run before the Yukon Trail Marathon next Sunday.  I hope my wounds are healed by then!

Biking Eklutna Lakeside Trail

Today's workout was on the Eklutna Lakeside Trail.  I went with the Walkabouts group, Richard, Marti, Lyn, Cary and me.  We biked to the airstrip at the far end of the lake.  About 10 miles each way.  I had forgotten how rough and rocky that trail is.  A true mountain bike trail.  I managed to fall off my bike when I got too close to the edge trying to stop for some bikers coming the other way. But no serious damage to me or the bike.  Today's ride was a good complement to yesterday's Pioneer Ridge hike.  Of course the view and scenery were wonderful as usual, even though the clouds were quickly moving in.  Rain is on the way.

Bold Creek as it enters Eklutna Lake

Eklutna Lake reflecting the gray clouds

Cross training to be ready for

Kilimanjaro to fight cancer!

Pioneer Ridge

Wonderful hike up Pioneer Ridge today.  That was a really good workout, especially the top part.  We didn't have time to go to the summit of Pioneer Peak but the view was amazing.  I need to get lots of steep hikes in to prepare for Kilimanjaro in February.  Most will likely be ski hikes this winter since there is too much snow here in winter for hiking. 

What a view!



Walt Disney World Marathon

It's official.  I am now signed up to run the Walt Disney World Marathon with Team In Training in January of 2013.  In addition to the marathon itself, I am also planning to climb Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa as my primary endurance event.  The website address will be the same as before http://www.race4cancer.org/ but I just set up the URL forwarding tonight and at the moment it is still going to my Madrid website.  I hope to have that fixed soon.

I love to travel and I love to run in these events, but they mean so much more to me if while I am training for them, I am working towards something much bigger than myself.  The goal of finding that cure for cancer means a lot more than improving my race time or reaching the summit of the next mountain.

So it will be me against the mountain along with a lot of Disney characters for the next few months!

Alaska Men's Run

Pouring rain today!  I beat my goal of doing the 5 miles in less than one hour.  55 minutes and 59 seconds.  I think we can call that 56 minutes!  2nd in my age group too.  I felt pretty good but still much slower than I want.  I really need to get back to my old 10 minute mile.  I'm working on it.

I was sure feeling the sore ribs from my big fall on Monday though.  Great run for a great cause - kick cancer!

Twin Peaks

I'm not getting in the hiking I had hoped for this summer.  Mostly due to bad weather, household chores, and lack of friends to hike with.  I don't like going on fairly remote hikes alone.  But today I decided to hike the Twin Peaks Trail.  When I got to the end of the improved trail I went all the way to the top then took the long narrow steep trail back down to the first overlook.  I had forgotten how steep and treacherous that trail was.  But as long as I went slowly and took care not to fall, it was still pretty nice.  It started to rain while I was heading down and I worried about my camera because I didn't plan on rain.  I took the lens off and managed to stuff both parts into my hydration pack.  It was not raining hard so the camera survived the trip.  I need to keep the possibility of rain always in my mind when I have my camera along.

It was gorgeous in spite of the overcast conditions.  My sore ribs were very sore when I got down though.  I don't know if running and hiking are helping or making that problem worse.

I took some photos of the trail along the way.

The Lupine were in full bloom everywhere.

I hope I am able to do the Alaska Men's Run in the morning with the sore ribs! 



5 Miles

I've had to take a couple of days off because I had a really bad fall and injured my right ribs.  I hope I don't have a fracture but it feels a lot like I probably do.  Very difficult to take a deep breath.  I am planning to do the Alaska Men's Run for Cancer on Saturday so decided to see if I could run at all.  I did run 5 miles from my house and really had no problems.  It did hurt but after a mile or two I felt pretty good.  I hope this has cleared up by the time I head to Canada for the two marathons there.

Short 3 Miles

I'm still pretty stiff from the Hatcher Pass Marathon Saturday, but wanted to do something.  It felt pretty good to get out there and just do a 3 miler along the road, getting in a couple of good hills.  I can tell I am still a bit tired though.  I went up to Hatcher Pass planning to run on the trails up there but it was raining pretty hard so I decided to just come on home and run here.  I think I got enough of rain and mud on Saturday!

Hatcher Pass Marathon

I did it, I made it the whole way, actually more like 26.5 miles because they had to extend it a little because of traffic.  25 miles of uphill with a 4000 foot elevation gain, followed by one and a half miles of steep downhill on rough road, in the pouring rain with mud and small rivers running in the road.  I loved that part and was flying down and managed not to fall on my face.  It started to pour rain at mile 17 so by the time I got to Summit Lake I was probably already hypothermic.  Last year I struggled through it with my arm in a sling and a broken collarbone.  This year I improved my time by about one hour and 15 minutes.  That is not official time but the time my iPhone recorded via Nike +.  It did seem to be right on with the mileage too.  It was fun but totally exhausting, especially miles 23-25 which are the steepest hills.  I ended up walking on most of that part but I noticed everyone else was doing the same.

Friends took some ridiculous photos of me.  I am not very photogenic!

at mile 8

in the rain

Next year I hope to move at least an hour faster.  But this was by far the most difficult marathon I have done, even tougher than Equinox in Fairbanks because it is really almost all uphill.  The coordinators did an amazing job and provided lots of good stuff at the aid stations.



14 Miles Today

Finally home from the slope and caught up on my sleep.  I ran 7 miles to the Alaska Club and did my weight workout then ran the 7 miles back.  The Nike+ GPS app is totally screwing up today and telling me I ran 10 miles each way.  Wow, according to it I was really smoking.  But I really only ran 14 total.  But it was a great workout with the advantage of the long hills running back up to my house.  I need a lot more of those because it is totally flat there in Deadhorse.  I guess I will get my chance to do hills when I run the Hatcher Pass Marathon on Saturday that is all uphill.

It's nice to be home.  Had a nice non-stop drive home through the night from Deadhorse.