sleeping

found this here

i have been sleeping "like a rock on sleeping pills" lately, but mountains appear to be moving while i'm awake. work is going in full force.  i am engaged in and enjoying what i am doing.  i have just finished peak mileage and am now tapering for a 50k next week, probably the last one i do for the year.  i was called as a leader for the young women at church.

last night in the car on the way to drop one of the young women off, i was asked to tell them something unique about myself.  i started generally describing what i do and the 8th grader sitting next to me turned sharply and said, you're a scientist?  i said yes and told her more about what i did.  we talked about running and dancing and karate.  and then she asked if i new much about astronomy.  i said no, but i know astronomers and could try to arrange for her to meet them.  she told me she wants to be an astronomer and dreams of being surrounded by scientists.  i told her being surrounded by scientists is an amazing thing and told her about a program she could do in high school that would surround her with scientists.  and then we arrived at her house.

as we were pulling away, the other leader in car turned to me and said, that was amazing.  apparently this young lady doesn't normally talk very much.  i believe i met a kindred spirit last night and i believe that she will move mountains.

happy trails and new projects

my feet flew like eagles

my heart knew no boundaries

my spirit dreamed that the trail would never end

~from an email signature of another runner on the trail running list

we survived the earthquake and the hurricane.  the weekend of the latter turned out to be an excellent time to get the sewing machine working, so many months after its arrival.  i turned a pair of women's size 24 calf-length linen pants into a skirt that fit me (many sizes smaller).  i need to pick up some backing to put a few embroidery touches on the front.

we also survived the baltimore grand prix...by escaping to shenandoah national park for a couple nights of camping.  it is beautiful there!  we hiked and ran, made smores, learned about the history of the park and even got to spend a few moments reading in the rocking chairs at one of the lodges.  we arrived home to only have to put up with 24 hours of indy cars racing past our street.  

on labor day, we labored.  we went through those bags and boxes that weren't unpacked and had all the random odds, ends and papers tossed in them.  we cleaned.  i mended, baked, read and stretched.  my next project is to make a braided rug for our living room.  hopefully i will be able to take pictures though as i lost my camera in colorado!

earthquakes and hurricanes, oh my!

earlier this week we had an earthquake and now we waiting to see whether or not a hurricane will hit us this weekend.  this is enough to leave one distracted and rather unproductive at work.  i find myself wanting instead to be helping prepare our home and our friends homes for anything that may come our way this weekend.

i reaching a certain concentration low, i decided that i needed to write down goals that i had for postdoc in the next two years.  this at least helped me re-gain my focus for a period and start delving into the medical literature to see what i could find out about how we control our gait.  it is amazing how much we learn not from studying healthy people but from studying people who have disordered movements.

my stomach was a little disordered last weekend.  i ended up struggling up hope pass again this year and missed the time cutoff at the 50-mile mark by 22 minutes.  this meant i had to stop running.  again, i don't think i'd had enough calories, but i had done a great well enough with my hydration.  i have been kind of bummed out this week, but i think that partially has to do with the fact that i'm recovering and not getting as much exercise as normal...so its probably withdrawal that's making me sad rather than the race itself.  i will finish eventually.

the plus side to this finish status, if you choose to look at it this way, was that eric and i found ourselves with a a free day in breckenridge that we had not been expecting.  we were able to go on a short hike in the mountains (that was all my recovering legs could take) and time to just enjoy being outside and in breck.  we are plotting ways to move there.  unfortunately, my camera seems to have been misplaced so i don't have pictures to share from the race or from breck.  hopefully i will find it soon!

from the mountains

we are in the mountains.  i love the profound stillness that exists here.  eric has quickly taken a liking to the mountains in colorado, much to my pleasure.

my race is on saturday.  i'm drinking water like there is no tomorrow and managing to stay somewhat hydrated.  we have to pick up a few things tomorrow and go to medical check-in in the morning (they measure our blood pressure, weight, oxygen saturation, etc, so they have a baseline for comparison if we need medical attention) followed by racer orientation.  after that i will commence making my ume musubis and finish the instructions for my crew and pacers.  the weather is perfect.

i am trying to embrace my nervousness.  i am getting lost in my own thoughts a lot staring at the mountains and visualizing the trails.  i am on familiar ground and excited yet scared that i will make mistakes like i did last time.  some of the cut off times have become more strict.  if i have a good day these won't be issues with this, but the reality of this race is that you don't know what you're going to have to deal with physiologically, environmentally, etc, until you start running on race morning.  that is part of what makes leadville such a great adventure though. 

i will try to post some pictures of the mountains here soon.

heat wave

we have been having a bit of a heat wave here on the east coast.  naturally, the air conditioning for half of our house broke at the end of last week, and lucky for us, our room is on the 3rd floor of the house.  temperatures in our room were in the 90s for most of the weekend.  we slept in the empty basement room (which was at least 20 degrees cooler) on saturday night because it was too hot.  last night though the new housemate had moved in and we were confronted with a night in our room again.  i opened the door that leads out onto our small patio just to remind myself that it was hotter outside than in, but what i discovered was a very nice breeze.  in fact, it felt cooler outside than in our room.  so last night we opened the three large windows in the front of the house and the door in the back (our room with its bathroom and closet takes up the whole 3rd floor), let the ceiling fan run and discovered that, though warm, it was actually quite pleasant in our room.  the breeze and fresh air were lovely.

we move into our new (permanent) place on wednesday.  it will be nice to have everything out of storage and not be living out of a suitcase.  i am excited to play the piano (keyboard) and not have to fight for space in the refrigerator.  and the timing of the move is perfect to find anything i think i might use for leadville next month and take it with me this weekend.

saturday will be my last long training run before leadville--50 miles.  i hope to test some more nutrition ideas.  we had to fill out medical forms this weekend for the race which is bringing home how soon it really is.  i was perusing the leadville 100 website and discovered why i should be glad i did not go out for training camp this year...snow.  there was so much of it that it was not safe to run part of the course and on another section they had to "make" trail through the snow to be able to run it.  i am wondering what this bodes, if anything, for next month.  i wonder how high the water will be in the stream crossings, how cold the air temperature will be and if it will snow.  racing in the cold is a different animal from racing in the heat, so i know that no matter how much i train, there will probably still be some things i am learning or experimenting with while i'm racing.  i suspect this is why so many people tell me that "life" is training for these races--doing things when you're hungry, tired, cold, hot and sore while doing your best to keep your attitude positive and your body in forward motion.  i am excited though to say the least.

movement

"The body was designed to move and movement is the great elixir of life. Where there is lack of movement life becomes stagnant and stale. Human life is a mind/body event. Simply put, what you think affects your body and what you do with your body affects your thinking. So if you wish to improve or change the output of this continuum you are best served by addressing both."

~Author Unknown

I thought this was beautiful. Movement is a very powerful thing.

bonjour!

i decided that at least one of my pictures should have me in it to prove that i am in fact here in belgium and taking these pictures. we had a "light" day at the conference. i went to one of the keynote lectures and then, set off in search of food that didn't involve french fries, mussels or mayonaise (i wonder if belgians really do eat them all together as we're told or if they just tell the tourists they do and then laugh when said tourists are not looking).

no, i wanted something less heavy and something that my body was more used to digesting...so i went in search of belgian vegan food. about a block from the lovely arch above sits the little restaurant and store pictured below.

i grabbed a to-go lunch full of all sorts of different veggies with all sorts of spice combinations i had never had before. most were winners but i wasn't a fan of whatever was on the artichoke. i ate in the sun on a lovely little bench in the park on the other side of the arch.

when i finished lunching, i continued on my self-guided tour of brussels and happened upon this:

brussels is the captial of europe. i wandered around the streets checking out all the e.u. headquarters buildings. outside of one of them was the following story:

aside from the gender confusion, i think we need more teachers like him/her. that teacher makes me want to learn too.

that and my experiences reading the other signs about the history of the e.u. brought home needing to learn a bit more about world history (exercised my freedom of choice and elected to not take that course in high school!).

my tour then led me through the rain to central station and then to the grand place for a tasty late afternoon waffle break. i saw the palais, a church that appeared to be on the palais compound and then did a lot of window shopping as i wound my way back to my hotel.

i am happily sitting down now.