Sad End to 2021

Well, 2021 is going out, much like it came in, sucking big time! This year stunk on so many levels. Yes, things did look up for a while there: at points in the summer and fall it looked like it might go back to some resemblance of normal. But that was just a teaser, were still as fucked as ever! Right now, my entire family has COVID or at least some nasty flu like disease. We all got tested and just awaiting the bad news!

At least there were some races in 2021. Many tris were canceled, but I eked out one race, Lake Zurich. It sucked! No bike. Yes, that's right, no bike. WTF, right?  

The Chicago Marathon was good though. I felt unsure going into the race, but ended up talking to a lot of runners around me and actually had fun and a good race. My time was slow, but so was everyone's due to warm conditions. 

Now on to 2022 with great trepidation! I have a busy race schedule if, and only if, all goes precisely as planned. Fingers crossed! Damn COVID!  

Chicago Marathon 2021

Had a pretty good Chi Marathon this year. It was very strange to NOT have L & M out there cheering me on, but it was also great that Diana came down and found me at some key spots on the course!  After 27 years, she is still my main fan!  Thanks Hun!!!  

Too warm for a good clock time, but I placed 3rd in my age group so that was exciting.  I talked to quite a few people during the race and that made the whole experience so much better!  Good luck to my new friend, Charles, who I ran with from mile 13-23!  

This may be my last Chicago Marathon for a while becuse I want to race the Pittsburg Marathon with Lance in May 2022 and the Twin Cities Marathon (which goes by Michaely's dorm) just a week before Chicago in 2022. I'm not one of those people who can race back to back!  A long term goal is to race the Ironman in 2023, the same day as the Chicago Marathon that year, so it may be at least 3 years before I get back here.  But I will be back, with any luck!  

Thank you Chicago for a great run of runs!  

Grand Canyon

Wow, its been an emotional two weeks since getting back from the GC. It all seems like a blur now, but visiting the GC was amazing. Hard to believe we covered 52 miles of trail while there and yet were only actually at the place for < 36 hours. I just wish I had more time to sit on the rim and take it all in!  That's my one regret.  

But since getting home my babies graduated! I'm so proud of them. They did amazing, both graduating at the top of their class and both turning out to be such nice and caring people. That's the best part, they are good people! 

Then we had our graduation here at MWU. As always, the students were also so nice. Every year it gets harder to say good bye to so many of them! These two students, Kashia and Austin were two of the nicest and two who will be amazing therapists in the years to come.

Its all too much!  

Video of trip: https://youtu.be/onI_bOkhffs

Rim-to-rim-to-rim run, 2021

The R3 run was a huge success!  Really challenging, but also really fun. We finally made it back at about 1:05 AM, after starting out at 4:45 AM the previous day. a total of 52 miles, 20+ hours of running, over 100,000 steps, and close to 12,000 feet of elevation gain. The views and sights were incredible. Also, one of the big highlights was all of the friendly hikers and runners on the trails. So great to share this with RB (Rich H), one of my closest friends and someone who truely appreciates connecting with nature. It also helps that RB has an amazing sense of humor and adventure. It was his idea to plunge into the CO river!  Also, all of the runners and hikers took the time to say hi, ask how you were doing or just to chat. It definitely felt like a lot of camaraderie out there. Here are a few photos and videos. 

Grand Canyon is just 48 hours away!

Counting down the days till RB and I get to the GC.  I'm totally psyched to see that massive hole in the ground!  My best workout buddy, RawBone is going to go, so I know its going to be fun. I'm a little nervous too. Not sure how this will compare to other super challenging events like ironman. For one thing,, we will at least have time to stop and checkout the sighhts.  

10 days and then hello GC!!!  Very excited to see and tour the Grand Canyon in just 10 more days. Hopeffully my knee holds out.  After a 20 mile hilly run on Saturday I had some knee pain for a couple of days. Now back to status quo and feeling good. Stair w/o with Rich tomorrow and then taper-time!  

Training for R-2-R-2-R- 3 weeks out

With only 3 weeks to go I need to start doing more hill and stair repeats. I bounced back fairly quick after last week's half-marathon, but I also had rough few days after receiving my 2nd Moderna COIVD shot and felt like I actually had Covid for 48 hours.  That quickly subsided after 48 hours and now back to 90%. 😀

Today I ran 17 miles with a few hills feeling "ok", but not great. 

Hopefully will continue to feel strong going into next week when I need to run at least a long 20 miler to feel confident for the GC run!  

Virtual Sly Fox Half-marathon on Saturday 4/16. Ran a half on the Batavia-Geneva river loop course.

Time:  1:25:46. Felt great. Perfect day out: started in 40s and only got up to the 50s by the end. Little sore but overall feel good. 

Now on to the Rim-to-rim-to-rim run!  SHould be epic!  

 

XC skiing at the Morton Arb right after a foot of SNOW!  Nice!!!

Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim Grand Canyon trail run

Made plans to run the Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim Grand Canyon trail run with Dr. R. Hammerton on May 15/16. Should be really fun!  I'm totally psyched. Russ has done this 7 times previously so I'm feeling much more confident about this than if I was doing this solo.  Plus it will be really nice to hang out with him. 

Let the training begin!  

2021 Training- Getting back into shape!

 

This was my best week of training in quite a while. I totaled 11 hrs, 27 min and most of that was actual swimming, biking and running. Its Sunday night and I'm pretty tired, but excited to run in an indoor tri next weekend. Hopefully it actually happens! I've been here before, a week out from a race during Covid thinking it was going to go off, and then you get the email that its cancelled. It's really disappointing.  

Motivation

I think I've hit a new low in motivation. Its February 3rd 2021 and we are coming up on the one year anniversary of the start of COVID quarantine. Yes, the positivity rate is going down and there is a vaccine that is now available, but that good news seems like its still a million miles away.  All I can see on the horizon is more quarantine and this strange abnormal life we're all living. All of the things I love, racing and training with others, meeting friends for coffee, going out and actually being part of a group at social events, etc... are largely still not possible.  Yes, there are zoom workouts, but really, those suck!  It feels like one of those Spring seasons when its early March and all you want to do is get out and ride your bike outside. You know its going to be another month or even longer before there is any consistent decent weather!  But with COVID you're really not sure if there will ever be normality again. 

Got to get back my mojo but just not sure how...