Stormed off...

Pain is inevitable, suffering optional. ~ Haruki Murakami

Well, my last two efforts have been less than stellar but that is just how it goes sometimes. I felt awesome for the first half of a 13-miler on Saturday but then hit the wall pretty hard. I didn't really eat well beforehand, which screwed me up. It was a fun run nonetheless. I headed down the Beav then up my super-secret cut-off trail that leads to the bottom of Raccoon Trail in GGCSP. I then ran (did the whole thing!) up up up to Panorama Point and over to Mule Deer. It rained on me pretty much the whole time then tapered off as I turned onto Coyote Trail. This is where I started bonking. Not cool. I struggled back up Elk then managed to run at a fairly decent pace back home. Not my best run ever but whatchagonnado? Running in the rain was a nice treat for sure.

Today, I headed up to do the Devil's Thumb/King Lake loop above Hessie. I really suffered on the way up (man, that trail is steep and technical) then storms rolled in. I didn't really feel like being above treeline in a thunderstorm so I headed back down after only about 4.5 miles or so. Not a big deal. Got in about 9.5 or 10 total so that was cool.

I am looking forward to getting a marathon running book that Caleb recommended. It should be here tomorrow. I am hoping to run a 3:30 at Las Vegas (this may be ambitious) and need to figure out how to best train for this accelerated speed. I know I can do the distance but really think that if I can nail down the fluidity and speed of a sub 4/sub 3:30 marathon, it will help me a lot for ultras. We'll see how that goes. Most programs I have looked at lately have one running daily with really short runs during the week and one longer effort on the weekend. A 3-mile run just seems silly to me at this point but I'm going to give it a shot.

Other than that, I have just been working and hanging with my special lady. She is the best. We are trying to figure out how to get tickets for Obama's speech at Mile High but apparently there have been 80,000 ticket requests from Colorado residents and only 75,000 seats. So I am guessing that is a no-go. Oh well.

We are also suffering a plague of humming birds right now. Seriously dozens at a time visiting our feeders which we have to fill twice a day. This happens every year but it is still amazing to watch. Rach likes to joke that our sugar bill is going to put us in the poor house. Guess we'll just have to start selling off the kitties.

Oh. I am now the proud former owner of a Yukon XL. Holmsey was finally sold today. Even got a decent price. Not what he was worth but as Rach's brother Brian says, "You can't give those things away right now." He will be missed. Lots of fun adventures were had in that truck. Hopefully the new owners will enjoy him just as much.

RIP Isaac, Bernie and Spencer.