When we made the commitment to float The Grand Canyon in a dory this fall, I could not have anticipated the change it would make in me.  It's so much more than simply floating down a river.  Yes, there are rapids, scary and exhilarating, but there is so much more.  Water, life, death captured in rock for billions of years, stars that fall and seem to go on forever above the deep canyons, artifacts, petroglyphs, and pictographs of ancient people who were born of the water and canyon walls.

 

We are so small in comparison, not just our stature but in our minds, in our lives.  Billions of years the rock has been there and it's ever changing, always morphing through what man throws to it, morphing with the water, wind, sun, rain, snow, heat and cold.

 

It's a spiritual place.  Not only because those before us consider it sacred, but because it truly is a spiritual place.  Colors you cannot recreate with an artist’s canvas, emotions buried deep pulled out by the nature we all crave, that we all need.  The solace, the quiet, the soft sound of water building to the volume of a rapid, it's something we cannot know until we go there, a place that is so sacred and natural that it takes all of you in its arms so that you can take it with you when it's time to go.

 

We cannot let this go, this canyon, and all the land we call public, we cannot let it fall to the whims of those who will never experience it's magic.  We must fight for the connection we were meant to have.

Good morning!  It's been years since I've written and thanks to a friend who asked me about my old blog I've decided to pick it up again.  So watch out world!

My approach going forward will be different.  I've now run 9 marathons in my quest to get to 10. My goal is to do a trail ultra at some point for number 10, just not sure when.

We moved to Colorado in 2016 and with that comes a whole other level of activity well beyond just running.  We were accepted to San Juan Search and Rescue where we continue to train to help those who get lost or hurt in our mountains.  You will be reading some about that as time goes on.

We do a LOT of fly fishing as Terry is now a fly fishing guide for Williams Creek Anglers.  I love it more and more and would like to think that in time I can join him as a guide, but we will see.  It's going to take a lot of work to get up to that point.

Backpacking has come back into our lives, as well as just good ole hikes up in the mountains.

So as you see there is going to be a lot more to this blog than just running.

To get started we've signed up for the Moab Trail Half Marathon in November.  You will likely hear a lot about that training.  Moving here our running has moved to trail, which is amazing and so much better than road running.  More on that later.

Okay back to work, but be on the lookout for more to come!

Training Begins Again

Good morning world!  This week we started training for the Tucson Marathon.  This will be my 8th marathon.  Believe it or not Terry has decided to run a full marathon and this will be his first!  I am thrilled to be able to share this experience with him. 

In between we will be running the Ragnar trail relay, 120 miles between 8 runners, 15 miles each with a 3ish mile loop, a 5ish mile look and a 7ish mile loop.  Camping at the central point with the team so it's really a big party with a 15 mile run in 24 hours built in.  Good team, lots of fun.  And lots of beer.

This morning we ran our first 5 mile moderate run, hot and humid, but we made it happen.  The sunrise was amazing, several colors of pink and orange between the puffy clouds, it's always inspiring to see a sunrise of beautiful colors as you run toward it in the morning.

The Place

We never expected to live in Texas for 33 years, it just sort of snuck up on us.  We thought we would move back to the mountains where we could enjoy the seasons of outdoor activities with our children.  That wasn't in the plan and here we have been for some time. 

Abilene was a great place to raise children and we loved it there, have great memories from our time there.  However, we always knew we would leave, go back to the mountains when the kids were gone.  And then we came to Granbury instead.

Granbury is a pretty little town with hills and trees, a nice lake, and wonderful people.  We've made good friends in Granbury, we enjoy going to the winery, or Music on the Square, hanging out at Revolver (our local Brewery) or heading over to Fort Worth for unique experiences.  But it's not the mountains.  We thought we would be here three years, maybe five, it's been six.

In all this time we've looked, more often and deliberately in the past six years, for "the place" we would like to make our home for the next chapter of our lives.  We used a website titled Pick your Spot.  It gave us the top 25 places that fit our criteria and we began to visit those places, mostly in Colorado.

We created a spreadsheet of all of the things we would like in a place where we live so that we can compare, including distance from family and activities we enjoy.

We visited Salida, Gunnison, Westcliffe, Fort Collins, Northern New Mexico, and then a few weeks ago Pagosa Springs CO.  Pagosa Springs met every criteria and more, we love it there, it's so much like Ruidoso (or home town) and yet so much more of those things we enjoy.

And so the decision has been made.  We will be moving to Pagosa Springs in the Spring or Summer of 2016.  Possibly sooner if we happen to find a home and can get everything here wrapped up.

Trail running will become the new thing in my blog so stay tuned.

In the meantime training has begun.  Ragnar trail relay in October and the Tucson Marathon in December, there is so much to write I will try to keep up!

It's July in Texas

There really is no need to say anything more, the title says it all if you are a runner in Texas, however, I feel like lamenting.

It's JULY in TEXAS and it is HOT!  We have reached the 100's and I fell like a gooey melted puddle of sweat.

We have been faithful, getting up and getting our run in during the cool temperatures of the early morning, about 80 and 75% humidity.  It isn't easy.  Runs feel sluggish, off pace, frustrating, and yet it's been proven by our training in the past that running in the heat will make us better and faster when the weather shifts to nice cool breezes.

Question is do we really care if we have to run in the heat?  Is it really worth it?  Are we crazy? Do other people do this?

Yes, we care, but we do it anyway.  Yes it's worth it.  Yes we are crazy but we like being crazy. Yes most runners do this and feel the same way.

All that to say 6 miles today, hot hot, but we made it through! YAY.

10 on Saturday YIKES, maybe it will cool down to 78!

Saying Goodbye

As I start over with my blog today, it's hard not to go back and try to catch up on everything that has happened in the last few years.  Instead I am going to start with the last few months so that my frame of mind is evident as I put my thoughts on paper, so to speak.

Thanksgiving 2014 my mother treated us all to a visit to Tucson to spend Thanksgiving with her.  She put us up in a very nice resort just down from her beautiful home.  It was a wonderful visit with all of our children and their spouses, my brother and of course Terry and I.  We told stories, played music, sat by her pool, had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at one of the many "clubs" where they live. 

Mother had the my daugher, my daughter-in-law, and me go through the jewelry and pick out what we might want, and we talked a lot about the future, their plans as young people and of course death.  Because you see, my mother had emphysema, and we all knew it was a matter of time and the disease would take her. 

Thankgiving would be the last time we were all together and I thank God that we were all able to spend that time together, it was in reality, her goodbye to my children.

Time went on and she continued to get weaker and I began to go and visit more often, and then in February she fell and that took a toll on her.  However, she improved, but not to the point where she could get in the pool and swim or even go out with her friends.  Slowly the months took her strength and she slept most of the day but fitully at night.  She no longer was able to play cards with her partner and her friends, so her time was spent reading and watching television.  At this point Hospice became our source of comfort.

She was no longer the active woman we all knew.  As the months dragged by more "spells" as she called them came and went and finally her partner and my brother and I could no longer take care of her.  She could no longer do those things we all feel are private necessities.

We were forced, for her own safety, to admit her to a facility in Hospice care.  It is a very nice facility but it was not her home.

In May as we were visiting our son and daughter-in-law in South Carolina my brother called, she had left us for a place of peace and health.

We held a Celebration of Life in Ruidoso where we are from.  There were so many people we have not seen in years, it was lovely and if I dare say, fun.  And then we spread some of her ashes between our grandparent's grave.  I say some because we had other plans as well, plans that really came together at the end.

We drove up the road to the ski area, Ski Apachie, where our parents were one of the first to ski on the slopes as it openend in the early 60's, we hiked just past Windy Point to a lone tree with wild flowers growing round.  The view of the entire valley below is stunning.

And that is where we spread the ashes of the free spirited woman we called Mother.

Back to the Blog

Hello!

Interesting, it's been years, and I mean YEARS since my last post.  It's easy to get out of the habit.  From looking at my posts the last I really wrote about was the predictive run my husband put together for our family when my father in law turned 90.

My father in law passed away later that next year, in May.  What a blessing that we were able to be together as a family the September before.

In 2012, after running the Missoula Marathon in 2011, we decided to run the Portland OR marathon in October.  We went with some friends and had a wonderful time.

The race was not as easy as I thought it would be, quite hilly actually but it was a good race and I did pretty well.  Enjoyed the time with friends and of course Portland is an adventure all on it's own merit!

Unfortunately I had the same issue after this race that I had in Missoula where I threw up about half an hour after the race.  I have not yet figured out why this is happening.

So that was our 2012, of course we did all of the usual smaller races as well.

In 2013 we decided to do 13, 13's in 2013.  That is 13 half marathons in 2013.  That was a lot of fun but also pretty taxing on the body.  In addition I ran the Oklahoma City Marathon, and had a pretty tough time, I just wasn't into that race at all and had the same issue with getting sick about half an hour after the race.

Our plan was to do the Crazy Horse Half in October of 2013 but there was a huge snow storm and the race was canceled.  We were pretty bummed.

We did some races for our 13, but because of the expense we also ran half marathon courses but not during the race, as long as it was 13.1 we counted that as a race.  Here were our races/runs and no Terry would not allow me to use OKC as one of my runs as it was a full not a half!

1/13/2013 - Red River Train Half - Shreveport, LA
1//26/2013 - Lake Benbrook Half - Benbrook, TX
2/16/2013 - Moe's Worst Half  - San Marcos, TX
2/24/2013 - Cow Town Half - Fort Worth, TX (and the last of my 5 year commitment on this one)
3/30/2013 - Lt. Governors Cup - Coumbia, SC
5/25/2013 - Memorial Day Half Marathon - Granbury, Tx
7/28/2013 - The Half at the Links - Ruidoso, NM
8/24/2013 - Olympic Discover Trail Half - Port Angeles, WA
9/8/2013 - Rails to Trails Half - Garner, TX
9/22/2013 - Woodshed Half - Trinity Trails, Fort Worth, Tx
10/12/2013 - Reuel Little Classic - Madill, OK
10/27/2013 - Monster Dash Half Marathon - Fort Worth Tx.
12/25/2013 - Christmas Day Half - Granbury, Tx

2014 our family runners logged how many miles run in 2014 and we ended up running over 5000 miles as a family.  Tanner, our son, is a GIS guy so he mapped our runs and sent us this really cool map.  It was pretty interesting to see all of the places our family ran or rode bikes.

http://freewheelmaps.com/projects/runners/index.html

Terry and I also ran the Crazy Horse Half in South Dakota in October.  That was an epic race and it warrants it's own post, so stay tuned.

The current year 2015 has been uneventful.  We've run the typical races and done well and are now in the summer and it's in the 100's so we are struggling with the heat which we always do!  We've also been a part of working to start a running club here in Granbuary and are enjoying meeting new friends with a common goal.

From a running perspective you are now caught up!

Read on...