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December 13, 2006
Filling the Dreaded Blank Screen
I returned to my computer today after a bit of a hiatus to realize that my blog was sporting a blank front page. Normally I'm verbose enough that this doesn't occur, so I could hardly believe my eyes. I had some crazy work days, then some company, and then I went on a spontaneous 4-day trip, all which kept me from spending time on the computer (Aside from the crazy work, all of this was a happy diversion).
I had a great training week last week running-wise, and was only 15 minutes shy of my goal of running 10 hours. I let my cross-training endeavors break down a little bit in the face of being busy, which I'm slightly less excited about. According to the maps of where I ran, last week was over 60 miles of running. I consider this to be pretty good since 4 hours of this time was spent running on snowshoes, which slows one down in distance covered (but certainly not inputted effort). This week's training was supposed to be a down week by a bit, I think 8 1/2 hours of running. My spontaneous travels have cut my running training short so far this week, but I think I can still reach this week's time goal with ease.
A few notes:
1. I went on a 3-hour snowshoe run last weekend. This was an interesting and lovely experience. It feels pretty strange to be tired but to not feel like one's legs have been beat up, if that makes any sense. That is, my leg muscles were fatigued, but my joints didn't ache. Snowshoe running is an animal of a sport. We spent about half our time on a compacted snowshoe trail, and the other half of the time diving through untracked powder. Running through untracked powder was very, very challenging, but I loved the idea of being able to run anywhere, anytime (Okay, one must consider avalanche danger and all that.). On this run, we saw a cow and calf moose, which was also outstanding.
2. I went to visit 2 friends who just recently moved to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Now this is some open, barren, cold, but beautiful country. Winter was in full effect there; the wind blows bitterly through those badlands! I didn't do much running, but we did do some decent hiking, bundling up in 5 or 6 layers of clothing!
3. One could do some pretty cool trail running at Theodoore Roosevelt. There are a lot of trails, and the topography is such that one is continuously rolling up and down through badlands. The scenery is outstanding; there are fossils popping out of the ground everywhere; the trails are rarely flat. I got a tiny taste of it running on a trail called the Maah Daah Hey Trail. This trail is about 100 or so miles long, and it extends through the different units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I only ran it for an hour, but it left me entirely intrigued about the rest of it. It planted another little idea seed for a future visit to this area (I have a love/hate relationship with these little seeds of ideas these days. I lose sleep over them and then I dream about them when I finally fall asleep. They exhaust me and energize me to no end. However, this topic is worth a whole different blog entry.).
4. I'm going to write something later this week about the relationship between Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the nearby coal mines, oil rigs, and natural gas pipelines. All of this lives in pretty freaking close proximity, and this part of my first experience to this national park bothered me.
5. My life isn't going to slow down anytime soon, which I'm perfectly content with. I have 7 days here at Yellowstone, then I'm off to Mexico for Christmas. Since I need to run a lot while I'm there, I'm seeking advice for off-pavement running in the Playa del Carmen area down the coast from Cancun. Anyone out there run anything good in this area? Dirt roads, trails, beaches, anything?
That's all for now. Back to the regularly scheduled program, at least for a week.
Posted by Meghan at December 13, 2006 7:34 PM
Comments
Jack and I went to Tulum last December which is just about an hour further down from Playa del Carmen. You shouldn't have trouble finding places to run, but just be prepared for some pretty serious humidity. It's best to try and run very first thing in the morning.
Posted by: chelle at December 18, 2006 10:10 AM