Best of 2019 so far

Hi my name is Karen and it has been eleven months since my last post. And dang, it's hard to restart when you've been gone this long. Here's a highlights reel of what has been going on.

January
My sister came to visit. Solo.  I always squeeze family visits with as many people as possible that it's sometimes hard to get any quality one-on-one time. This visit was so fun and I can't wait to have seester time again in 2020.

The government shutdown directly affected us and it was a big fat pain in the ass. We had enough money saved up to make it through but the threat of a six month or longer shutdown over a ridiculous border wall was enough to cast a dark cloud over our household for the the entire duration. We stuck close to home, jumped on the bike everywhere fitness plan, and mastered the eat down the freezer and pantry meal plan. Thankfully we aren't scuba divers or like to jump out of airplanes for fun so we were able to carry on with our favorite hobbies without major tweaks.

February
IT SNOWED ON THE COAST! I will never get over how different the redwoods look under a blanket of snow.

Matt and I ran our favorite half marathon in southern Oregon. We both surprised ourselves and ran well for how early it was in the year. He ran sub-1:20 and I ran a 1:35.

Then we drove up into the mountains and parked ourselves under an amazing three day snowstorm. I finally figured out how to balance out our different fitness levels: have Matt break trail through two feet of fresh powder.

Then our fierce attack cat stopped a masked intruder.

March
By March, marathon training was in full swing. We switched to a new training plan for the Avenue marathon this year and it was both intimidating and exhilarating to take on and conquer big workouts. We took our training on the road, hitting one of two big peak weeks in Spokane, Washington. In addition to scoping the place out (decided we don't really want to move there, too big), we met a few friends from Alaska and jumped the border to get a run in Idaho.

Spokane's Garbage Goat

We basically ate our way through the city. Matt is convinced we should run 80 mile weeks every time we travel because he liked all our snack stops. We finished off the trip by pacing two of our friends in 100 mile races. I still have no desire to run one myself, but following sleepy Jeff around on his is pretty fun.

Badger Mountain 100

April 
April was spent eating, eating, running, and running a race. We returned to southern Oregon for the Pear Blossom 10 Mile. I should probably know by now not to sign up for races with any hint at allergens in the name, but this one went pretty well. PRs for both of us, even though I am not faster than the fifth grader who won the women's race. 60:05 for Matt, 1:11:17 for me.

Unfortunately, soon after this race, my allergies sent my energy into a tailspin. The long, wet winter held off allergy season until the week before my spring marathon.

May
Matt and I had two friends stay with us for the marathon. I was still falling asleep at every possible moment and as a result had a weaker race result that I had trained for. I did the best I could for the day and was still happy with my 3:21. Catching up with friends definitely was the silver lining of the weekend for me.

I would have considered trying again somewhere else, but after last summer's wildfire cancelled SOB, it was time to move on and hit the trails to get ready for that.

June
June was my favorite month of the year. I still direct a trail race at the beginning of the month. Nobody got lost and nobody needed rescuing and it never gets old when a new person tells me that it's their favorite event of the year.

After race directing, it was time to go have my own fun. Anytime Matt had a day off, we were in the mountains. When he had an extended weekend around our anniversary, we perfected the art of making roughing it feel luxurious. Somewhere amid the eleventy million feet of vert we accumulated this month, my left knee began to whine.

Canyon Creek Falls

Burney Mountain LO

Anniversary treats

Prospect Peak, Lassen NP

Granite Peak

July
The grumpy knee followed me around through the first half of the month and cast a dark shadow over my 50K goals. Somehow the problem all but went away for race day. It wasn't until the following days that it really made up for lost time. Matt ran a 4:34 and I finished 7th in 5:41.

Still a darn pretty race course. Zero regrets.

August
Time to squeeze a year's worth of family time into two short weeks! This year, we had everyone come to the same place and it was so much less stressful. A week at the island with each of our families was great.

After we returned home, I even managed to throw on a backpack for the first time this year. Then I was reminded why I prefer to go light and cover more ground, that pack is heavy!

Mt Elijah

September
For two people technically living in California, we have seen embarrassingly little of the Sierras. We scored a Mt Whitney permit on the first try so we built a trip around that. It was the most grueling hike I've ever done. Thirteen hours, 21 miles, and some 7000 feet of gain topping out at 14,494 ft, I don't think I've ever been so destroyed by exercise before.

Then we added another week or so of daily hikes as we worked our way back. My favorite part was as these trips always are: uninterrupted time with Matt.

Mt Hoffman, Yosemite NP

Tour of High Sierra Weather Stations. This one was near Mammoth Lakes.

Sierra Buttes LO

By the time I got home, I realized I had picked up an unwanted bacterial souvenir. If you're in need of a quick weight loss plan, that's it.

October
Marathon training came to a screeching halt when I got sick. I dropped ten pounds in less than a week and eventually recovered. Putting muscle back on took longer than I expected it to but I prioritized being patient with myself as best I could. I ran a half marathon in a slower time than the back half of the spring marathon (1:41). Meanwhile, Matt darn near PRd his time running well under 1:19.

I ran what I could and the season became more a game of Guess My Fitness Level Today and less about training consistently. Once my appetite came back, I was ravenous and was able to get back to my fighting weight and with that my speed gradually returned.

We even got in a couple of fun local adventures. Even road season needs some dirt.

Spirit animal

Punta Gorda beach bums

Favorite beach

November
It wasn't until recently that my running and health came together again. I had suspected that I was back to my old self but finishing an 8 mile race with a 45 second PR (58:11) was just the confidence boost I needed going into the final weeks of training for CIM.

Y. Kim, 6rrc photo

Prioritizing time on dirt to keep injuries away, we got a lot of time on the trails this month too. These two trips to my favorite redwood trails were among my favorite runs this year.

Now we're ten days away from the next marathon and our final race of 2019. Many races this year have fallen a little short, but the process sure is fun. And the way I see it, maybe a little race day luck is owed to me in December 8th?

What have you been up to? What has been your favorite adventure of 2019 so far? Any big ones coming up in these final weeks?

Granite Peak: A Snowy Summit

Over the years, Matt and I have formed a collection of mountain peaks we summit every year. Two are within our local coastal ranges, and two more are further inland. One such mountain is called Granite Peak. Located just a few forest service road miles off the highway, it's often accessible enough for us to attempt during all twelve months of the year. Topping out at just over 8,000 feet, it definitely spends much of the winter adorned with a snowy hat.

The time we had to start at the highway because the FS road isn't plowed.

I've attempted a winter summit two other times before, one on January 2 and once in mid-March, both on drought years. Would it be as the saying goes "third time's the charm"?

Matt and I woke early one weekday morning last week to give it a try. Our winter hadn't been especially wet yet, so we were hopeful that a little additional gear would make it a success.

As we meandered through the river canyon to the trail head, we crossed two summits. Snow levels appeared to be at 4,500 feet. On our final approach to the parking lot, we caught glimpses of our mountain. Gosh there was a lot of snow up there, well below tree line.

When we reached the trailhead, we were pleasantly surprised by the lack of snow. The air was crisp and frosty, but nary a sign of the white stuff. Matt and I bundled up and started our skyward trek.

In the summertime, this trail is humbling. Climbing 5,000 feet over five miles, it's an unrelenting grade that shows no mercy. We made our summertime summit in June this year and it took us two hours at a good effort to make it to the top.

June 2018

After just one mile, our hike went from following ribbon of trail along the ground to studying the sunken snow accumulation to find the trail. Some spots were easier to follow than others. There was one other set of footprints to follow, but they frequently veered off where the summertime trail was and we didn't trust them. Sometimes, they looped back to where we already had traveled.

We threw on our microspikes for added traction on the windswept icy patches and continued on. Having completed this trail a dozen times in the last eight years, we were able to piece together the route from memory.

The trail wandered through the forest for almost four miles before even the tiniest glimpse of the nearby mountains and lake came into view. When we reached that point, we were already sinking into snow two feet deep (or more in some places) and it was mid afternoon.

Photo op. We didn't hike through here.

Eating our snacks, we debated pushing on to the summit. Due to the late hour, we didn't think the remaining distance was doable before nightfall so we took some additional pictures at the intermediate viewpoint and called it a day.

Despite now being zero for three on a wintertime summit, it was still a fantastic day full of sunshine, light winds, and gorgeous views.

All smiles while getting our winter fix

I guess that means we will have to try again another time. D-A-R-N.

A Little Bit of Everything

The problem with a long absence is we never know where to begin again. Do we jump right in as if no time has passed? Or do we try to do a quick recap of the highlights to catch up?  Today I went for a hike with a friend I haven't seen in over a year. While our friendship felt familiar and comforting and everything it used to be when we ran together regularly, there was the odd undercurrent of not really knowing what her day to day has been. Returning to blogging feels just like that.

How about I compromise and offer a bit of both? A recap plus some day to day details?

The biggest thing to happen for me was that I didn't run a fall marathon. Basically, the whole season from September to November was a mess. I caught a cold the day we left for five days in the mountains in mid September. Summer fire season had finally died down and there was no way I was going to miss out on at least some time with the mountains. I doubled up on sleeping bags (probably sign of fever) and DayQuilled myself through the waking hours.

 

I don't know if that's what wrecked me, but I wasn't myself for the next three months. I was on antibiotics for a month for the lingering sinus infection. The fatigue lasted even longer. It was rough. (In fact, I'm still trying to unravel the mystery of my lingering symptoms.) When I pulled a muscle in my leg in mid-October, I decided to give up on any major distance goals for the rest of the year. Despite not having any concrete running goals, I spent a lot of time doing exactly what I wanted, when I wanted. And that alone was pretty awesome.

We managed an extended trip to Diamond Lake while I continued my torrid love affair with Oregon. Despite all its flaws (toasty warm summers and too much smoke), I'm convinced that somewhere within the interior areas of the PNW is where our next move needs to be. Bonus: Allergies be gone!

Matt got his nine hour shift rotation back and suddenly we were able to go away for up to a week without taking any vacation time. That happened just about the same time as South Lake Tahoe's fall colors peaked and hotel prices dropped.

We made a beeline for the Nevada border, stopping only to stock up on another year's worth of trail shoes at Merrell Outlet in Folsom (usually a CIM tradition on Sunday afternoon). Our first trip to Tahoe was in February of this year when it rained instead of snowed. This trip made up for it in every way.

I got my fall colors and two nice mountain summits. Running continued to be painful after just a mile or two, but hiking was no problem so we hiked ourselves silly, averaging almost twenty miles a day in steps, whether it was walking around town, exploring the trails, or leaf peeping.

We took a couple of short local trips, this time with Hazel in tow. The first one was a quick overnight to our favorite redwood park. We volunteered to repaint the mile markers for our club's fall marathon and broke the job up into two parts. We camped in the car and brought our furry friend. She really loved exploring the smells and sounds during the evening and then snuggling up with us at night. She's still not much of a snuggler, but it's encouraging to see that her trust in us has grown.

She wasn't a fan of going outside at the yurt on our second trip, but I think that was all the noise of the nearby interstate. She seems especially skittish with loud noises, even at home, so this didn't come as much of a surprise. We did learn that when she's left alone, she's content to cozy up and nap instead of meow, so that will be helpful if we ever need to hotel with her.

I took a gnarly crash while trail running on Veteran's Day. It didn't tear my skin up too badly or cause any internal injuries but I did come away with some significant bruising. Interestingly enough, as that healed, my quad/knee injury miraculously went away too.

By that time, I had already rediscovered my childhood love of rollerblading while looking like a weirdo so I kept on rollin'. I try to pretend that it will help me this winter when I suddenly force myself to ski ten miles in one go when we inevitably find some snow.

To continue on our tour of the seasons, we made a quick trip to Chicago for my brother-in-law's wedding.We arrived a few days early to hang out with the couple before the chaos began.

While there, we got to experience all of the best parts of winter: snow and 25 degrees and running on some nicely plowed streets.

Despite spending twenty-two years living in the upper midwest, I had never spent more than a few hours in Chicago. In our free moments between wedding festivities, Matt took me to see the sights. We found a Christmas market, the Bean, and of course the Lakefront Path.

Since then, I've been playing my saxophone a lot. Despite the lack of white Christmas, I've found that overloading myself with holiday music seems to bring me at least a little bit of yuletide spirit.

I'm not sure what's in store for 2019 just yet, but I've got some ideas. My only plan so far is to start the year off with a (hopefully) speedy 5K on my home speed work route. When I decided to skip CIM, I started doing what my leg could tolerate: shorter, faster runs. Since then I've done about two months of interval training and am ready to attempt a 5K PR. How fast I can run will be determined by how much I'm willing to make it hurt.

What have you been up to? When you haven't seen a friend in awhile, do you give a quick recap of the highlights or do you give some details too?