More of the same

Wake up, eat, run, shower, sleep, watch tv, find internet, run, eat, watch tv, sleep. Wal-Mart if we are feeling adventurous.
Such is the life at La Loma.
But the life of monotony will not be without its rewards.
For me, I will be rejuvenated and ready to head back out in the wilderness for another awesome season in the Grand Canyon.
For the ladies, they will certainly be reaping the rewards when they head back down to sea level and it comes time for them to race. It has been another great week of workouts and they are adapting very well to the altitude. I am stoked to see how they do in their upcoming races and I know they must be getting anxious to race as well.
While I had to tone back my running this week because of a number of different aches and pains I was able to hit the main days with the ladies. Friday I jumped in the middle of Kimmy's workout and did 3xmile and then finished off with Brie at the end of her tempo.

Kimmy at the start of her workout

Brie enjoying her tempo run through the park

Saturday I attempted to meet up with the local running group to go out and scout a new possible place to do a long run. I failed. I met up with them and tried to understand their directions to where we would run at which point I realized I would need the car since there was not enough room. I got the car and made it back in time to follow them at which point I realized I would need gas. I got gas but then drove around for an hour in the countryside unable to find them. Oh well. The social highlight of the week was today though as we ventured off to Wal-Mart to buy some food type things. It was an enjoyable trip.

Sunday we headed up to the same place as last week to do our long run since I failed to find a different place. We were praying for better conditions than last time. We made it up there a bit earlier in the day and it was slightly cooler and best of all there was just a slight breeze(although it felt a bit stronger by the end of the run). We pulled up to a large crowd of locals waiting for the bus and I'm sure we seemed a bit out of place. We took off down the road around 10:15am.
The same barking cocker spaniel was there to great us 3 minutes into the run, but besides that all went very smoothly. Kimmy is stoked on her new long run drink concoction of coffee, perpetuem and water I believe. She claimed it was way better than last week's orange juice/perpetuem combo, but I still think it tasted nasty. Either way she felt great and claims it was all thanks to the drink. I think taking the previous day off might have also had something to do with it.
I made sure to take my camera out on the run with us to get some shots of them running. I think it is a beautiful, although barren area. Rather than write anymore I will just show some pictures and you can decide for yourself.

About a mile into the run and enjoying the sun

About 3 miles into the run. Almost to the top of a long gradual uphill

Addie and Brie nearing the highest point of the run about 5.5 miles in

Kimmy and Addie can be seen way down the road shortly after turning around at the 6 mile point. You turn around and head straight uphill into a head wind. It's fun

Still uphill into a headwind at 7800ft. Mile 103 for the week for Addie, must feel good.

Kimmy and Addie nearing the top of the hill

Flat ground for a little bit

Running back through a small farming community

A couple horses grazing in the ruins of an old building.

Brie is but a small white dot off in the distance and the other two ladies enjoy a long gradual downhill about 10 miles into the run
We finished the long run and made it back in time for lunch and then relaxed the rest of the day.

We had a lovely run at the park this morning. It is certainly warming up though. It had been lovely for much of last week as it was cloudy and in the lower 60's, but it will be in the high 70's to low 80's for the next few days. Ouch

Tomorrow Kimmy and I will be headed up to the golf course at 7am to get a workout in on the grass. That should be enjoyable. I will then be timing Brie's workout and perhaps jump in on part of Addie's 7 mile cutdown workout. Who knows. That's all for now though.

Over half way done. Time flies

So, time is flying now. I can't believe we have already been here for over two weeks. It has been an amazing time so far and I'm sure it will continue to be. Goran has now left and we have become friendly with the Australians (the ladies are just excited they have all 4 seasons of Gossip Girl) who are very cool and down to earth. You would never guess they were Olympians.
Long Run

Looking out towards where we would be running. We went way out into the hills in the distance.

Ladies getting ready to run

We headed out last Sunday with a local runner named Victor so we could do a long run someplace besides Tangamanga. We drove for about 45 min and the fact that he spoke no english made it hard to grasp if he really knew where he was taking us. We pulled of the road and found our way to a dirt road. However it looked sketchy to say the least as there were dogs running around and run down houses and had a strange vibe. Victor said he would ask if it was safe to run here and park our car for 2ish hours. He came back about 3 minutes later and said it was not safe and we must leave right away. We turned back towards SLP to find someplace else. Clearly Victor did not really know where he was taking us. So we drove about 5-10 min backtracking at which point he tells me to turn off again. Once more we pull into another little residential area although it does not seem quite so sketchy. We do get some odd stares from the locals though. Luckily a local had just finished his run of 97 minutes and told Victor where to run. from my rough translation of their conversation it seemed to me that Victor, who was about to take us running through the small town, learned from the local gentleman that if we did that we risked being attacked by dogs. So he told Victor a route around town. The 5 of us headed off although no more than 2 minutes down the road dogs come barking at us. Luckily they stop and after that we have no more dog trouble, just some cattle and sheep.

However we have trouble of another sort. We are at 7500ft now and it is a scorching day with no shade and is super windy. Brie takes the run out hard, although she later denies it. The way out was a gradual uphill but luckily with a tale wind. About 5 miles out we enter a small little farming town with some houses and the people living there are astonished to see us although I wave and they seem friendly enough. We continued on until 42 min at which point we headed back. We quickly realized we would be running back into a block headwind. It was brutal to say the least. I haven't felt like that in a long long time. Victor pushed the pace all the way back and I trailed off the back just hoping to make it back. I made it back in what seemed like forever. Brie was already there while the other 3 added on. While Brie and I were there discussing the brutality of that run we glanced to the highway and saw a mule limping his way across the road towards us. After almost being hit by a number of cars he makes it to us and we see it is limping because he is tied to his hind leg. It just continues wandering off. The other 3 roll in with Addie being last as she ran longest (she is running 110+ miles per week up here). We quickly load in the cars and head back to SLP ready to sleep. Being the google earth fanatic I am I measured our route upon return and see that the ladies were averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:45-50 pace. Not bad considering the terrain and conditions.

Brie thinks she is recording the donkey but forgot to press record

Kimmy and Victor finishing up their run
German Silva (2 time NYC Marathon Winner) will be taking us out next Sunday for another run and we are all stoked for that.


Outside of long runs they have also been nailing all their workouts and seem to be adapting very well to the new environment.

Ladies cooling down after a workout

Sadly I may have been overdoing my comeback as my hamstrings have been shot since I did a couple 300's with Kimmy on Tuesday in 50-52s. I hope it's nothing too bad and look to be running with the ladies on their workouts tomorrow.

In non-running related news we heading out on Tuesday night to celebrate our last night with Goran who left to head back to London yesterday. We found our way to Buba's Delicious Pizza. It was delicious indeed and a nice change from the usual fare of the training center.

I headed out one night with Goran to time his hill repeats. The picture doesn't show it but it was an insanely steep hill overlooking the city. A very impressive workout.

In work related news I have seen that I will be leading crews in the Grand Canyon when I get back at least until April. I am stoked on that as I think it is the best time of year to be there.
That's all for now. I should be back in SF on the 26th and 27th of January and if you are in the area let me know as I would like to see as many folks as possible.

Adios

Time to Relax

Today being long run day is the first day since we arrived that I have had the afternoon to relax and actually get some internet. Yesterday was the first real workout of the trip and came in the form of 8x1km at tempo pace with 1 min rest. We did the repeats on a mile long dirt path around the training center that has each 100m marked. The ladies nailed it and had me hurting at the end but I hung in there and am quickly feeling better. I was around 50 miles on 6 days last week and should be around 70 miles on 7 days this week, but it may be prudent of me to take a day off. We shall see.
Day's are quickly falling into a routine which is nice. We usually eat breakfast at 8:30. Run at 10. Relax and shower after. Lunch at 12:30. Massage, or naps after that and afternoon run/cross training and lifting around 5. Then dinner after and then we usually relax and watch TV/movie at night.
Food is delicious and they make as much of whatever we want whenever we want it. Our apartment has 3 bedrooms for the 4 of us. I am in the master bedroom of course and Kimmy has her own room and Bri and her college teammate Addie share the other room. While we have a full kitchen we never use it as all our meals are prepared at the training center which is just a 5 min walk away.
I have to get going soon so I will just throw in some pictures.

Our apartments

The track

The ladies running on the golf course

Looking down at the facility and the rest of the city

Parque Tangamanga where we do most of our runs
That's all for now.

Crazy Awesome

Wow, it has been crazy awesome since Tuesday. Tuesday and Wednesday were more crazy and Thursday to now have been just plain awesome. The facility is amazing. New years was a great time and learning experience(don't show up to dinner before 9). And the training has been going awesome. From not having run more than 60 miles total from may to november I will be near 60 miles for this week. The australian national swimming team will be coming on the 5th. We have been hanging out with Goran Nava. He is from Serbia and ran the 1500 in Beijing. No one here speaks english which is forcing me to improve on my spanish which is happening slowly but surely.
Internet is near impossible to get and right now I have no time. However, I hope to have more time to post within the next week.

Off to Mexico!

I am currently at SFO terminal 3 waiting for my 6am flight tomorrow morning to Mexico City. It's 1015pm right now and I am planning on finding a comfy place to settle down and sleep for the night. Before then I will fill you in on how I got to this point and what I will be doing in Mexico.
As I returned from Tahoe to Flagstaff back in mid-October and was preparing for 5 weeks in the backcountry of south-east Arizona I received an email from Kimmy telling me of plans she had made with 3 other professional runners to head to an altitude training center to train for one month. They were looking for an "assistant coach" to go down and run with the ladies and make sure things ran smoothly(nice pun ehh?). She informed me that if I was interested I could go. Well it didn't take long to decide I was interested and so I made sure I could take time off from work and then informed Kimmy I was in. The next day I went on my backcountry project.
Upon getting back from the backcountry I slowly found out more details about where we would be going and how long we would be there. We will be at La Loma Altitude Training Center in San Luis Potosi, Mexico which is about 200 miles north of Mexico CIty.
Link to La Loma website
While it sounded like there would be 4 ladies going down, I believe it is down to just 2. Kimmy and Bri Felnagle.
Kimmy and I arrive in Mexico City tomorrow evening and Bri arrives the following day at which point we will drive up to San Luis Potosi.
So in preparation for this I have been running more in the last month than all of June-November combined, which means I have run more than 5 times. So I am hardly in good running shape, and I'm sure the ladies will be kicking my ass for the first week or so, but I am hoping the fact that I have lived at altitude for the last year will help me not be so embarrassed. In fact I will be coming down 800ft in elevation in relation to Flagstaff! So it should be a piece of cake.
I received my first passport ever upon coming home for Christmas and am very excited that the day I got my picture taken I had a new haircut which will be on my passport for 10 years.

I will be their driver for the duration of our visit and from everything I have heard and read it is an absolute delight to drive in Mexico City(sarcasm). Every website I have been to says the worst thing you can do is drive in Mexico City. So that will be fun.
At least they drive on the right side of the road down there.
As far as brushing up on my spanish skills. I haven't. But I did buy a small spanish/english dictionary of common phrases today. So I hope that with my vague recollection of what I learned in my spanish classes will help me get by with minimal embarrassment.
Of course, as most of you could guess, I am terribly excited at the prospect of eating a ton of Mexican food while I am down there.
Since getting back home from Flagstaff and arriving at the airport I have been quite busy visiting friends and family. I was able to stop by Paly and meet up with Himmel for lunch. The I continued onto Pleasanton to meet up with Ben where I had a lovely dinner with his family. We then drove up to Davis and stayed with Keith and played Frisbee golf late at night on campus which was highlighted by commandeering a scissor lift in a construction zone.
The following morning Ben and I made our way up to Sierra at Tahoe to hit the slopes after a ton of snow hit the sierra the previous week. Conditions were amazing and it was great to get back out in the snow. After a day of skiing we drove back down to the Bay Area and met up with Bri and having an amazing dinner at Cactus Taqueria in Rockridge. Awesome chile rellano with carne asada plate! We continued on to Studs Bar in SF to watch Arran's band play. Buscho was there freshly returned from Germany which was an added delight. The show was awesome. Ben and I then returned to his place.
The next morning I made my way home and had a spectacular Christmas with family.
I have since made my way to the Bay Area today with my new MacBook Air which I am currently typing on and eagerly anticipating my trip to Mexico. That is all for now. Time to find a place to sleep. I shall blog again from Mexico!
Adios!

Back in California and debt free

While leaving Flagstaff in the midst of a snow storm was sad it's great to be back in California. Before gong into events here I'll recap the last couple weeks in Flagstaff. I spent two weeks in Lake Mead fencing with a two day hiatus during that time back in Flagstaff to do a service project to finish off my AmeriCorps program. I have now finished AmeriCorps and just got my educational award with which I have now paid off my school loans and am debt free. Phew, that's nice to have out of the way.
My americorps project was a trash cleanup along one of the popular running trails in Flagstaff. I was able to get 15 volunteers to come out and help and many from the nau track/xc team. We gathered a ton of trash, much of which was quite unique including a full bottle of pills, a hula hoop, partially full bottles of vodka, and the winner for most bizzare trash was this:

my wonderful volunteers


At Lake Mead we were treated to some wonderful weather and amazing sunsets.

We were in some pretty remote places which required quite a bit of four wheeling which was a blast in our company Tundra. Although the office was not pleased that I beat the crap out of it. The front fender is now falling off and I got two flats.

Besides the fun in the Tundra we got a ton of work done. Here is a section of fence we completed. You can see it stretching off 3 miles into the distance.

After Lake Mead we had our company party which was a great time as we played office chair hockey with brooms at 3am in our warehouse. The next day my coworkers and I who were planning a climbing trip to red rocks by vegas came to the sad realization that it would not happen in the middle of a rainstorm so we each went our seperate ways back home. I started the 12 hour drive back to Carmel. I spent the night in Tehachapi and made it back home on Sunday around noon.
I have enjoyed relaxing and being at home and have much to do in the week I am here.
Top on the priority list is to eat at Taqueria de Valle which is difficult this time of year because they are often closed to be with family.
I am also going to spend much time with my family, and of course try and see as many friends as possible. I am heading up to the bay area tomorrow to visit Scott and go with Ben skiing at Tahoe where they have been raped by snow so far this season. Back home for christmas then back to the bay are to see friends again and leave at 6am on the 28th to fly to mexico.
Oh yeah, Mexico...once again I am too tired so I will get to that next time. Adios

Wrapping up the work year and unwrapping the running

Well it's been a hell of a year. Just got off the phone with Keith a bit ago and we commented on the state of affairs a year ago. I was living on a coach at ND and working at a restaurant. It was actually December 6th, 2009 that I found out I would be getting this job. I had little idea of what to expect and while it has had it's ups and downs it has been amazing.
I am now heading out tomorrow morning for my final project of the year which will be a low key fencing project at Lake Mead. Weather will be a sunny 70 degrees each day.
I will finish my AmeriCorps term on Saturday at the conclusion of my volunteer service event at which point I will be able to pay off my student loans.
Our end of season party will be on the 17th and I will start road tripping back through California on the 18th.
I will enjoy Christmas with my family in Carmel Valley and hope to get some skiing in with friends before or after that.
The year will then conclude with flying down to San Luis Potosi, Mexico where I will spend all of January at an Altitude Training Center(more on that at a later time).
I have run two days in a row now which is the most since May. I look to improve on that streak the rest of the week.
As for now I am heading to bed. I should have another post around the 17th before I head back to California.
I will close with an amusing picture I took whilst driving through Flagstaff this week.