Big Goal

So I decided that I need a phsical goal to keep me motivated to get back ijn and stay in shape. I may have commited myself a little more than what I can realistically handle. But then again, I like to dream big.

My dad is an ultra marathon runner and has been accepted to the roster for the Hard Rock 100. You should check it out, it is a pretty amazing race. Anyway, he has invited me to pace him on one of the legs and will pay for my ticket out of here, if I train. The portion of the race goes from Ouray to Telluride over Virginius Pass at 13100 feet elevation. I fmy math is correct, that is 5420 feet of UP and 4350 feet of DOWN in 16.1 miles. The race is mostly cross country... so basically, the trail is unmarked and sketchy. To make things more interesting, Dad will be about 1/2 way through the race at 4am the second day when I start this thing! I think he wants to average 2 miles / hr, so I figure that we are looking at a really hard 8-10 hour day. (for a detailed description of this leg of the race go to pages 8-14 here.)

Here is my basic plan of action to prepare for this monster:

Work my way from running 3 flat miles / day to 6 flat miles
1 hour / day of stairmaster working my way up to 45 lbs of aditional resistance
Weight Train 3 days / week, increasing resistance for muscle tone and fat loss
Religiously stick to my high-protein, well-balanced eating program

I figure that it will require 2 -2.5 hours of training six days a week to minimize the ammount of pain this is going to cause, and another week at elevation to acclimitize so I can breathe up there. Right now I am scheduled to leave here on July 7th, so that gives me exactly 8 weeks to get my stuff together. Wish me luck!

PS
I will be in Montrose, CO for a day or so and would love to see anyone close to there. Maybe we could work in a dinner the night of the 7th or something on the 16th after the race. There has to be a good place we can meet. Let me know!

Gratitude Sunday: Amazing Hubby

Of all the people in all the world, (at least all the ones that are of my sexual preference) I chose Ben. It was about this time 5 years ago that I made that decision, and I have never regreted it. I am proud of him every day for being the man that he is. Sure he can grate on my nerves when he is sick, or hungry, or even way too playful when I am not at all up for games, but he has always been the right guy for the job when it comes to the big things in our life and marriage.

He has sacrificed a lot of himself to provide for our family and is out there on the gravely frozen streets of Barrow just tryin' to keep us (and the community) safe. It can be pretty difficult and the 12-hour shifts definitely take their toll on him. I am just amazed at how strong and resiliant and determined he is to do the right thing and be the hero.

He is my superman, and I am thrilled that he is my best friend, my adventure buddy and my partner forever! I just wish that everyone could have this kind of superpower in their own relationships. Maybe many do, but with the divorce rate pushing 80%, I tend to think that I am one of the really lucky ones.

Thank you Ben for being the best you and helping me to be the best me. I love you and miss you like crazy when you are away.

It Always Depends on the Weather

Here in the Arctic, everything depends on the weather. The funny thing is that it is ALWAYS cold and windy. It is a complete mystery to me how the locals distinguish between cold, really cold and too cold. Maybe everyone has their own thermostat and it is different for everyone; but, like I said, it is a mystery to me.

Hubby just bought 2 used snowmobiles from a guy in town so that we could go have some form of outdoor recreation to do as a family. The first time out, we thought that it would be good to leave Kaia with a sitter and have a Play Date in the powder. Well, turns out that the powder is patchy and the rest is just crusty ice. Anyway, yesterday, we figured we would go run some errands around town and take Kaia with us.

We bundled her up in fleece, hat, boots, wool socks, snowsuit and stuck her in between us on the snowmobile. Her snowsuit sleeves are long enough to cover up her hands and we figured we would make sure no baby parts would be exposed, so we decided NOT to bind her up in gloves that would probably fall off between anywhere and nowhere.

The temperature was reading 5 with wind chill of -15, but I know it was colder than that when we cruised head-on into the blowing wind. Kaia seemed to be okay, and we checked her every stop to make sure that fingers, cheeks and body temp were still within acceptable range. Apparently, my hands were too cold to tell how cold her hands were. When we got home, she started screaming and holding her fingers out like they had just given her the worst offence she had ever received.

I can only imagine what it is like to experience the thaw process for the first time. The aching and stinging and needle like tingling that happens when feeling finally returns to frozen fingers is miserable even for adults who know what is going on. The good news is that there was no permanent damage done. I was pretty scared for about 5 minutes though, and kept checking for the rest of the day to make sure that her fingers still had good color, feeling and mobility.

It was one of those “Mommy of the Year” moments when I realized how dumb it was to bring baby out in such harsh conditions. Comparatively, we thought it was quite nice. It was no where near the -50 we experienced this winter and the wind was calm enough not to pummel us with ice shards. I guess that they don’t make good baby gear for extreme weather conditions and we didn’t have enough layers on to accommodate that fact. Anyway, I learned my lesson and will be a LOT more careful in the future.

What else can I do? It is not good for us to stay in the house all day. We have to get out sometime, and the temperatures are better now than we have ever experienced here. Though the learning experience was tramatic, we are not detered. Kaia and I have plans to go out with a few friends this afternoon for some sledding. There is a gravel pit not too far from here, where there might be some good snow piles for little plastic sleds. I don’t know how long they all plan to be out, but I do know that there will be a warm vehicle there for Kaia to escape the cold. We will NOT be repeating the trauma of yesterday.

I know now that my thermostat for what is “too cold” is not set nearly as high as my little Kaia’s. I just figured that we had her bundled enough to accommodate the difference. Even though the poor thing couldn’t put her arms down with all the bundle of snowsuit she had on, it wasn’t enough. I wish that she came with an owners manual that stated the temperature range for safe and happy operation. Or, at the very least, I wish she could talk and let me know when she was getting uncomfortable.

I’ll post up pix of the planned snow adventures for today, and let you know how the bundeling thing goes tomorrow. For now I will sit here and contemplate mysteries of which clothing items to ‘don first, how best to check for frozen baby syndrome and why the hell the wind always comes from the direction I want to go. Make it a good one and enjoy the beautiful weather wherever you are.