The Leaves are a'Changing

At this very moment, I am sitting outside with yellow fall leaves crunching across the cement patio, billowed about by the wind, drinking a hot chai tea and wearing jeans, a light sweater, and boots. So what you say? Well, I'm not sweating my butt off and I'm not freezing cold. I'm going to go ahead and declare this as the Perfect Weather. I might not get a tan (who needs skin cancer anyways??), but I don't want to go inside. And this evening when I go for a run, I'll probably still wear a tank top and shorts. I might finish with a chill on my arms from a light wind and falling temps, but I call that perfection.

Monmouth Coffee Company: some of the only gooooddddd coffee I found in London

The rainy, angry transition to Autumn that Colorado has been having these past few weeks brings me back to the two Autumn seasons I experienced living in London. It's the only time of the year that I ever feel at all nostalgic for the dreary grey city that I was exiled (er...transferred for work) to for a brief blip in my life. This weather, though, makes me crave lazy Saturday mornings wandering through Borough Market to buy overpriced groceries for gourmet cook-a-thons in the kitchen while drinking hot spiced wine or lattes from Monmouth Coffee Company and scouring the craft beer stall for delicious American micros for later indulgence. And it really makes me dream of running through and around Hampstead Heath - the closest thing to a real forest I ever found in London.

I spent many a weekend afternoon meandering around Hampstead Heath - when I could work up the energy to drag myself out into the drear

I'm sure, though, that in a few days I'll snap out of this phase of waxing poetic about a place where I actually really hated living. Not that I'd ever turn down a trip to run on some of the moors and heaths around England, nor a meal at VitaO... 

Apple & Pumpkin Season!

Even as the weather continues to hover in the 90s in Fort Collins, the growing season ticks on. Peaches are ripening, the transition from summer squashes to fall squashes is in full swing, and pumpkin beers are dominating the shelves at beer stores. Fall is tangibly working itself into the air - I couldn't be more excited for chilly nights, frost-tipped grass to run through in the mornings, hoodies, hot tea, fleecy blankets, and good books. Most importantly though, pumpkin spice lattes have hit the coffee bars at Starbucks all over the country.

Although I spend a lot of my time running, food and nutrition pretty much top the lists of my other passions. Fall foods are hands down my favorites too.

The pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks is my favorite guilty indulgence. But since I'm still not running much in my post-Leadville recovery, I'm delaying my first PSL of the season. To quell my cravings though, I opened a can of pumpkin puree the other day to make my own (slightly healthier) version of a pumpkin spice latte. Combine 1/2 C almond milk (or whatever your milk of choice is), 1 tsp of sugar, and 1.5 TBSP pumpkin puree in a 16 oz coffee mug, heat it up, and top it off with 10 oz of dark roast coffee. A sprinkle of pumpkin pie spices to top it off, and you basically have heaven in a (ceramic) glass.

Then last night I had dinner with a friend. I had a pound of pork loin in the freezer, and couldn't decide what to make with it. So I went to trusty ol' Google for some answers and found, and slightly modified, a recipe for Pork & Apple Curry with Coconut Rice. I don't love coconut, or coconut milk, in general but coconut rice is one of my favorite ways to cook rice. The coconut flavoring is just subtle and creamy enough that I can totally get on board. Prepare yourself for some pure awesome.

Pork & Apple Curry (serves 4)

• 1 pound boneless pork loin
• 1 apple, peeled and diced
• 1/4 C OJ
• 1/4 C chicken stock
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3/4 small onion, chopped
• 1 TBSP curry powder
• 1/2 tsp ginger powder
• 1/2 tsp  cinnamon powder
• optional post-cooking addition: toasted coconut flakes

Throw it all in the slow-cooker on low for 5-6 hours. Prep time of roughly 5 minutes - so easy!

Coconut Rice

• 2 C rice
• 1 3/4 C water
• 1 C coconut milk

Either mix all in a rice cooker (easiest way!) or bring water to a boil in a small pot, then add the rice and coconut milk, cover, and let cook approximately 20 minutes, or until all liquid has evaporated and the rice is tender. 

I ended up with extra pumpkin (though my pup has been enjoying a spoonful in her chow every morning this week) and extra coconut milk. I decided to make a really simple pudding-like dish for dessert this evening. I combined 3/4 C coconut milk, 1 C pumpkin puree, 1 TBSP sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder, & 1/4 tsp nutmeg (serves 2). Boil until it thickened, and enjoy! This might be my new fave fall dessert. 

Hooray for Fall!

Leadville Trail 100

bring it on Pb100!

I've sat down no less than 5 times to write a recap on this race - and actually came pretty close before accidentally deleting the entire thing. It's kind of hard to wrap up 29+ hours of action, not to mention nearly a year of training and preparation, into a blog post. This run was what I will describe as semi-rad - 29:25:56 (I can even list the milliseconds if so requested, thanks to Leadville providing us with finisher sweatshirts, name and time stamped on the sleeve) isn't a particularly impressive finishing time, but I did what I set out to do. I ran 100 miles. And I kept it pretty easy throughout. Now that's not to say I didn't have some bad spots and fall into some dark places or hurt like hell - I did all of those things. Multiple times. But I also didn't really push to breaking, or run my hardest. I just sort of let the run play out in front of me, let my legs slowly unwind until the finish line was in sight, and enjoy the experience as much as I could.

Leadville Trail 100 starts at the ungodly hour of 4am. 2:30am my alarm blared at me, and I awoke feeling sort of hazy. You know that feeling on Christmas morning, back when you were a kid? You'd awake knowing you should be feeling all kinds of excited and antsy, but it would take a few seconds to remember why exactly you were feeling that way. That's what waking up on the morning of the Pb100 felt like - if Christmas was one of those whiffle ball bats ready to bash your legs and back and shoulders and arms and head repeatedly for nearly 30 hours.

breakfasting at 3am

about to head to the start line

Breakfast was bacon, eggs, toast, fruit, and lots of delicious coffee with Kristel's and my crew. After stuffing our faces for a while, we made our way out the door and down to the cluster-fuck that is the start line. But seriously - the starting area was gated off from the crowds, with 900 runners lined up en masse. It felt kind of like a bunch of cattle being herded through the shoot. Kristel and I snuck in to the crowds and 5 minutes later, the race was off to an anticlimactic start and we were clipping off pretty pedestrian miles down 6th street, before turning onto a dirt road on our way to Turquoise Lake and AS#1 - May Queen. I immediately, unfortunately, fell in line with a dark shadow that would haunt me for the better part of the first 40 miles. It didn't matter how much I sped up or slowed down - she was there. The perkiest girl alive. This chick was chattering away at 4am, with anyone who would listen, telling her whole life story and narrating every move of her run.

TL outbound, dreaming of a time
when I wasn't running

I rolled into May Queen at 6:30am or so, right on the slower end of my schedule, but also really grumpy from having to listen to that girl chatter away for the first 2.5 hours of my day. I handed over a light jacket, my headlamp, and arm warmers to my crew and swapped out my gel flask for a full one. May Queen seemed to be the only AS of the race that I was able to get in and out of with any level of rapidity. Out to Twin Lakes (outbound), I pretty much ran a lot, walked a bit, volleyed back and forth with Alan Smith for a while, and trudged up the climb out of Half Pipe that continued on most of the way to the Mt Elbert Mini Aid Station (basically a water drop operated by CamelBak). I came in to Twin Lakes, some hot spots forming on my feet, still pretty much right on pace. My crew taped up my feet and set me up with dry socks (proved pointless 10 minutes later as I forded a river) to stave off blisters. I picked back up arm warmers in case it got cold over the top of Hope Pass, a 10 oz handheld of coke, some nutella, and set out for Hope Pass. As I was walking out of the Aid Station, Mindy walked with me for a ways, giving me one of the greatest pep talks I have ever received.

Making Hope Pass my be-otch for the 2nd time that day
Photo Cred: M. Genauer

The 21 miles I spent on Hope Pass were hands down my favorite of the entire race. I'd driven out to Leadville twice over the summer to run Hope Pass, and had made my way out and back on the Twin Lakes side of the the trail twice, and about halfway down the decline on the Winfield side once. I felt really comfortable on the trail, and had a huge burst of energy and positivity on my way up. It was fun to see the leaders cruising down and get to cheer on some (much faster) friends from Fort Collins, both running and pacing, as I was on my way up. Passing the llamas at the Hopeless Aid Station was just fun, and hitting the top of Hope Pass and taking off running downhill felt amazing. I kept up a controlled easy jog (except over the talus rock sections that I tend to roll my ankle running over) all the way down the 3 miles or so of descent until the trail leveled out to runnable rollers. I started to feel a bit nauseous or light-headed around this section - just generally not great - so I walked a bit more than I might otherwise have needed. I ran pretty much my exact planned split into Winfield - about 4 hours flat. I walked into the aid station to find Rob and Mike and started crying, from some combination of relief, exhaustion, and who knows what else. Rob looked at me hard and told me to buck up, "there is no crying in ultra running." After a few gasping breaths, I pulled myself together, and requested a bit of additional foot care and another sock change to readdress the still lingering hot spots, and a gear swap to pack my needed gear into Mike's pack as he would be muling for me over Hope Pass. Mike came prepped with some awesomely awful bad jokes and lots of chatter to distract me from the hike back over Hope Pass. My legs weren't that tired, and other than a few spots where I paused to catch my breath on the ascent, I felt really good on the return trip over Hope Pass. We reached Twin Lakes a solid hour ahead of schedule - 3:11 as opposed to my goal time of 4:10. I lost some of that time back at the Aid Station re-taping my feet and collecting the gear I needed for the next 17 or so miles.

Swapping out Pacers at TL (return)

Cat and I headed out from Twin Lakes, headlamps lit, back up the climb to the Mt Elbert Mini AS and then down into Half Pipe. Somewhere along the way, my achilles tendon on my left foot and the tendon running across my first metatarsal on the same foot began to ache pretty severely and I started walking more and more, even though my legs still felt pretty good. Coming in to Outward Bound (Fish Hatchery), it was getting cold. In the AS, I filled up my 10 oz flask with hot water and chicken broth and pulled on a pair of running tights since my legs were getting so cold it was hard to move well. After a brief break to warm-up, Cat and I were off again for the never-ending climb up Pipeline. Seriously though - it felt like this climb was going to go on for the rest of my life. Memory is a funny thing too - I really didn't remember the descent off of Sugarloaf pass being that steep or that long. It flew by pretty quickly. Somehow, I missed the multiple false summits and winding endlessness that is this climb when I was running down it. And the same thing happened with the section of Colorado Trail from the turn-off from the jeep road following Pipeline into May Queen. A couple of miles out from May Queen, I decided I was finished with this run. Not DNF finished, but just an "I am so tired of running and this isn't fun anymore" finished.

I came through May Queen at 5:45am, an hour ahead of the cut-off and with 4:15 to trudge the final 13.5 miles. I passed off my bottles for a refill of water and coke, grabbed a dixie cup of potato chips topped with m&ms and walked on, towards the finish line. I really just wanted to be finished. Rob Erskine was taking over pacing duties for Cat, and in short order, he'd caught back up to me with some extra potato chips and my filled bottles. Though my handheld of coke was mixed pretty disgustingly with old chicken broth. To illustrate my level of not caring, I drank it. It was gross. Really gross. And I finished it all. A few miles along the trail around Turquoise Lake later, with the other side of the lake still depressingly far away, I broke down and decided to run. And found that it wasn't really that bad. It would take a few (hundred) mincing painful steps to settle into a rhythm, but once I got there, I found I could hold it for a long while. As long as the terrain didn't change too significantly. At the Tabor Boat Ramp, we heard a couple of different possible mileages and it was actually looking like we might be able to make it to the finish line before 9am. Unfortunately, that mileage estimate was a couple miles shorter than actual. And after 40 minutes of solid running, we'd only covered a "half mile" according to updated (probably more accurate) mileage estimates. That was discouraging. But on I ran, or more realistically, shuffled towards the finish line. At 8:15, I had 4 miles to go, pretty much all uphill. Rob deserves a huge thank you for putting up with me, especially over those last 4 miles, when I don't remember mustering any energy for anything but an eye roll at the relentless climbing, and I doubt my "run" pace topped 14 minute miles.

my ridiculous crew and pacers (minus my dad, the photographer), walking me in to the finish.

the guys and me, at the finish

My crew found me at the turn-off onto 6th Street and ran/walked the last mile in to the finish line with me. Being genuinely ridiculous. Across the finish line, I grabbed my medal, flowers, and stood for the weigh-in to ensure I hadn't lost too much weight over the past 30 hours. I hung around the finish area for a while watching more finishers come through, and cheering on Alan Smith as he finished in 29:45. I limped back to the house, into the shower, and onto the floor for a nap.

Palisade Peach and Spring Kite veggie pizza

To cap this off, I want to give a HUGE thank you to my crew, pacers, and those people I peppered with a hundred thousand questions along the way. Cat, Mike, and Rob Erskine - thank you so much for your awesome pacing and crewing. Mom, Dad, and Rob Howard - thanks for being out there to crew and cheer me on! Scott - it was so much fun to have you at the finish line to run in that last mile with, capping off the ridiculousness of my crew. And thanks to Pete and Kristel for training with me, lending me gear as needed, answering a million questions about running 100s, and generally putting up with me stressing out for months over my decision to actually register for one of these crazy runs. Oh and a thank you to Meghan and Michael at Spring Kite Farms for a delicious "congrats on finishing Leadville" bag of Palisade Peaches - yumm! (and I'm sure I forgot about a whole bunch of people, so thanks for whatever awesome contributions you had)