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May 14, 2007
Boot Camp Check-In
Oh yes, this was a great weekend of boot camping.
First things first, skip this paragraph if you don't care to read about other people's vomiting experiences. Let it be known that I hurled on Saturday's long run. This is the first time I've vomited while running since a track workout in high school that occured too soon after eating a bowl of cereal (Though I did swallow back puke a couple times during one day of The Coastal Challenge in February.). On Saturday, I vomited in the middle of a long climb out of a dry canyon on a hot afternoon. I coughed, then puked the fluid and gel I had sucked down a few minutes before that, then kept on running. When I crested the pass out of the canyon and began the descent into the next, my outputted effort dropped appropriately, and I felt fine. I'm confident that it was the hard effort in hot weather that initiated the emptying of my stomach cavity. Hopefully, once I am again acclimated to these variables, I won't puke anymore.
And now, moving on to slightly more appropriate blog topics. We spent Saturday running in the Bridger Mountains, a mountain range just north of Bozeman, MT. My sweetie and I are running a few races in these mountains this summer, so what better place to train? The trails were gobs busy with people, which I'm not used to. If I see another person out on my local trails, I find myself feeling almost shocked. That is changing since summer is arriving to Yellowstone, but my trails here will never be as occupied as the Bridger Mountains trails on a beautiful Saturday. There were hikers, runners, mountain bikers, and even some random people sitting in the bushes along the trail. It was nice to have some company out there!
Saturday's run was both humbling and energizing. I got schooled on the multi-thousand foot climbs in the heat (Hence, the aforementioned vomiting episode.), but I felt really strong being out there for 4+ hours. I even finished the day with the last 1.5 miles hard, while splashing through ankle deep creeks and jumping over rocks on a gnarly mountain trail. This type of run teaches me that my fitness is just beginning to come around, but that I need to keep working hard and have patience.
After Saturday's run, we each inhaled a quantity of pizza roughly equal to our respective body weights and sat in some hot springs. I'm not sure if this is the best way to recover physically, but it hit the spot mentally!
On Sunday, we went on a hike in the morning and a run in the afternoon. In comparison with Saturday's adventure, Sunday was quite tame, terrain-wise. I was happy with that, as I could feel Saturday's elevation in my quads and glutes.
Sunday afternoon's run was truly surreal from several different standpoints. I cannot begin to describe the number of obstacles we encountered on the run with appropriate detail. While driving to the trailhead, we saw a grizzly bear. About 200 meters from the trailhead, we enountered our first bear footprint. The bear footprints continued for the entire length of the trail. There were dry footprints, wet footprints, big foot prints, little foot prints, 1 black bear footprint, and many, many, many grizzly footprints. I haven't seen so many footprints over such a long distance before; it was as if we humans were traveling on a bear trail. We also saw mountain lion, wolf, and coyote tracks on the same trail! We never saw any of the accompanying wildlife; perhaps my loud singing and shouting and generally announcing our passing presence scared them all away!
The next obstacle was downed trees. I scaled over, around, and under so many trees on this run that I felt like I was in my own steeplechase event. Next, mud and water. Snowmelt season is in full effect, and the trail was basically serving as a riverbed for the runoff. We were sopping wet to our knees instantly, but mostly we embraced it and stomped around like children in mud puddles. Then, we took a wrong turn at a trail junction that was missing its sign. We went about a mile out of our way before we realized we had gone too far. We went back and found the said trail junction, as well as the sign for it, which had fallen over into tall grass. And finally, there was snow. We had planned to climb to a small peak that topped out at about 9500 feet. We were turned around by snow at about 9000 feet when the trail disappeared into impassable drifts. In order to return to the trailhead, we successfully ran the gauntlet of obstacles again! All in all, this run goes right up there on the list of truly crazy runs I've been on. Fun, really fun, but crazy.
Today will be a nice recovery day, as I'm sore and fatigued from this weekend. Then more boot camping to follow, I hope!
Posted by Meghan at May 14, 2007 9:58 AM
Comments
Wow! THAT'S cross-training and running at the same time!
Reminds me of the time my friends and went up Pikes Peak's Barr trail the first time that Spring and there were way more tree-falls across the trail than ever before. Between the trees and the snow, we were scrambling around using every muscle in our bodies.
Hey, I never had you pegged as a hurl-gurl!
I know I'll get my turn one of these days.
Chow! err, I mean, seeya!
Posted by: JeffO at May 14, 2007 2:27 PM
Hey, Meghan, I really got a lot out of your last three posts - especially the fence analogy. I am envious of your on/off work schedule although the "on" part is probably tough. Whoa re the wildlife - funny to see so many paw prints and then none of the actual paws. It's great to see you're swinging back into shape. The first vomiting workrate is a good benchmark to get out of the way. :) Take care out there in bear country!
Posted by: kendra borgintransition at May 14, 2007 3:31 PM
Just out tiptoeing through the carnivores eh? Nice climb and puke experience. Makes me feel full of anticipation when I go to the WS training runs during Memorial Day weekend. Got's to run in the heat sometime!
Sounds like a wonderful trip! My brother-in-law lives in Bozeman. He owns the Montana Furniture Factory. They have a retail store in town as well. They manufacture fine oak furniture. It's really nice stuff but even with the family discount I have only purchased a few pieces.
Run Happy!
Posted by: Eric at May 14, 2007 3:43 PM
Hi Meghan! Sounds like you had an incredible weekend of training. I love all of the observations of wild life footprints! I hope you continue to have a great week. It sounds like you are getting into terrific shape. Keep up the great work and have fun! I hope it is relaxing for you!
Posted by: Mary at May 14, 2007 5:04 PM
This sounds like such a fun run! Er, except the puking part. :) But wow! Wildlife tracks, steeplechase obstacles, puddles and snow, this trail sounds terrific!
btw, I sent a reply to your e-mail addy, did it get thru? it wasn't anything big but I thought I'd test to see if it was still going to junk... :)
Posted by: anne at May 18, 2007 7:04 PM