So Much to Do So Little Time

I cant believe it's been over a MONTH since my last blog post!  And now summer is coming to an end. There's been a lot of trail riding....lots of trail running (in my skirts...being a bit of a fashionista I LOVE THEM)....a little bike riding...a little geocaching...and even some kayaking.  Only thing I haven't had a chance to do yet is go fly fishing.  The sad news on that note is that our nephew Joe and his wife and new baby who lived in Rapid City just  moved to Minnesota.  Joe was going to help me actually catch something.  But the good news is he introduced me to the guy that taught him so I'm going to have to call him sometime to go out fishing.  I think the fall is a good time for fly fishing in the hills too.

I signed up for my second half marathon.  The Run Crazy Horse marathon will be October 2nd.  I'm looking forward to doing another one.  But just like the last one, I'm injured again.  This time I have tendonitis in one of my toes.  Ice, Advil, stiff shoes and rest are what the doctor's ordered.  I can't really stop my training so the resting part will have to wait for a few weeks for when I'm on the dive boat and cant run.  Oh yea, I'm going scuba diving in the Sea of Cortez with the Bottom Dwellers soon.  Looking forward to possibly seeing some whale sharks!!

In the mean time, here are some photos of cool stuff around the hills....

 Bull Elk on one of my favorite running trails

 Lunch on a trail ride.

 Rock jumping & swimming at the Hippie Hole

Trail Ride to Custer's Sting of Pearls overlook.

Hot in the Hills

It was another great week in the Hills.  Although I didn't get any running in I did manage to get to Rapid and pick up a couple of pairs of running shorts (yes shorts) and a running skirt.  It's gotten hot here so I thought I needed some new duds that may keep me cooler.  I've also started wearing hats when hiking and riding.  So a running hat may have to be next.

I've got the best husband ever!  He drove all the way out to the Hills (7 hours) just to go on our first Trail Riders of the Black Hills, Inc. trail ride.  We rode Saturday and had 19 riders.  It was a good ride with some steep climbs and rocks but the horses handled it well.  Especially since it was over 5 hours too.

Sunday I hiked with friends to Harney Peak for the second time this summer.  We started early to avoid the heat and had an absolutely beautiful morning to go.  Made it up in about 90 minutes.  Harney Peak has an old unused fire lookout station on top of it and the most popular hike in the hills.  It's just over 3 miles one way and is the highest peak between the Rocky Mountains and the Swiss Alps.  It offers some of the most stunning views in the Hills and the only way to it is by foot or horseback.  Today we had a special treat at the top......a mountain goat!  I've been to Harney a dozen times and never have seen a goat there.

In the afternoon I did the Custer Tour of Gardens.  It was better this year.  No "rock gardens" or plastic flowers like last year.  LOL!  It was a good week!

How long before poinson ivy kicks in?

That's it.  That's my blog post.  LOL!  So we attempted to find the Hippie Hole today.  We didn't.  My fault.  I know that when hiking back country even in South Dakota to be prepared.  Water, first aid, food, shock blocks, headlight, GPS, a well thought out plan...yadda yadda yadda.....  I had water and food.  No GPS and no well thought out plan.  Idiot.  And pretty much all of the hike was through lots and lots of poison ivy.  I never knew what it looked like before but I do now!  And we all wore shorts.  YEA!

While we didn't find the hippie hole we did find a neat little spot where two stream converged.  One stream was literally warm water and the other was cold!  It was really odd but fun.  And very pretty.  Why I didn't take any photos is beyond me.  Again idiot.  And of course when we hiked out we did NOT end up at where we left the car.  Oh no we ended up at the SD Children's Home and ended up calling someone to come get us to take us back to our car.  Sigh.....


So here is where we were and where we should have been...You have to click on the larger map to see all our points.

View Hippie Hole Adventure in a larger map


The good news is that my friends are still speaking to me and actually want to try to find the Hippie Hole again.  Supposedly there is a 30' rock cliff there you can jump off and into the water.  Next time I'll take the GPS, have a better plan and take pictures!!  And wear pants for the poison ivy.

Where has the month gone? Having Fun!

Where has it  gone???  I'll tell ya!  It's been filled with working, company, and running around the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota which is where I live for half of the year.

I spent a week playing tour guide to two of my Bottom Dweller friends from New York City.  We went everywhere and did everything from hiking, biking, wild life viewing, rock scrambling, rodeo and caving.  Our kids Mark & Lindsey came for the weekend of the 4th of July and we did some more hiking and exploring and rodeoing.  Doug, my husband has been here for over 2 weeks so you can also throw in several trail rides we did.  And cooking!!  I've had a renewed interest in cooking this last month and have been making a lot of new dishes.  My fav so far???  Mexican corn on the cob.  YUMMMY.  Doug just left to head back to SUX and as much as I hate to see him go, I need the time to myself to get caught up on work!!  He's coming back next weekend for a trail ride the Trail Riders of the Black Hills is doing. 

But today is Saturday and a beautiful day that's not meant to be spent inside.   So I'm going to hit the Michelson Trail this morning with a couple of friends and do some biking.  Then we might check out the logging competition in Hill City before heading to Keystone to hike to the Hippie Hole to maybe go swimming!  I'm excited for today!  I haven't been on my bike yet this summer and as I'm a biker at heart (not a runner) this will be fun.  The Hippie Hole I've never been to and I think it's going to be one of those hidden jewels in the Hills that few people know about.  Plus I'm excited about seeing some friends I have seen for a while and hearing what's new in their lives!

Tomorrow I'll probably go for a trail run (yes I'm still trying to run) and then go for a trail ride in the afternoon with one of my neighbors who's been working way too much at Crazy Horse this summer and needs some down time.  I may also take the kayak out and check out a new spot.  (have I mentioned I want to get a paddleboard???) 

I am regretting that I'm missing my 25th high school class reunion this weekend and seeing my brother who is also back in Wayne, NE for his 40th class reunion and Wayne's Chicken Days.  I'm hoping my facebook classmates will post lots of pics and updates.

Well off to load up the SUV for today's adventures!

My First Half Marathon

Months ago I registered for the Deadwood Michelson Trail Half Marathon.  Then I got hurt......  I really didn't plan on actually participating after that but I did want to pick up my t-shirt as I had paid $85 to run in the race and now all I was going to get was a stinking shirt.  So Friday Doug and I drove the hour north to Deadwood to get it.  The place was a buzz with race excitement which was contagious. Then I saw my shirt.  It said "finisher" on it.  Well how the heck could I ever wear it if I didn't actually do the race?  Doug said he wouldn't tell anyone that I didn't do it but I would know.  And then I saw my bib # and it had my name printed on it!  And spelled correctly!!  How cool is that.  So I thought well I'm up to running 5 miles again what's another 7?  (slight brain fart on my part)  And if have to walk some of it I could swallow my pride and do that.  Plus Doug was going back to Sioux City on Sunday and typically I mope around on the days he leaves and the race would be a good distraction. 

One downside of marathons is that they start REALLY EARLY in the morning.  So Sunday came and I had to get up at 4:30.  I'm not sure my body knew that 4:30 came twice a day.  The race didn't start till 8:00 but participants had to be there by 6:15 to catch the shuttle buses to the starting lines.  It was a beautiful morning not too hot and not too cold at the starting line.  There were 2000 participants in the half marathon and 1000 in the full.  And we were running on the gorgeous Michelson trail through the Black Hills.  Couldn't get any better than that.  My goal was to finish at under 3 hours and I had planned to walk some. 

When they have you line up at the starting line they have it marked for you to line up on how fast you think your average miles will be.  As much as I wanted to position myself toward the front I was realistic and went to the back and was in front of the walkers.  Yes that was somewhat humiliating for me being the competitive person I am.  LOL  I quickly got over it as within the first few miles there were MANY people who where ahead of me and were already walking.  OK this was also annoying too.  I mean come on people did you really think you could run 8 minute miles for 13.1 miles???  Did I mention that there were a lot of people who were quite chunky?  Well there were.  Sadly I found inspiration in them.  Or maybe it's being catty but I took one look at them and knew if they could do it I sure as heck could!

At about mile 6 it started getting hot and I needed to think about walking.  I did the next 7 miles mostly running though and am very happy to say I finished the race well under my 3 hour goal at 2 hours 35 minutes!  And I got a big honken medal!!

I'm kind of pumped now to do another half marathon!  I figure my time can only get better.  But I also am pretty sure I dont want to do a full marathon now.  It's not that I wouldn't be physically capable of it if I set my mind to it, it's that I think I would just get bored out of my skull running for 6 hours.  So I think for now I'm going to stick to half marathons and rename my blog if I can.  :)

POST RACE:  New blisters, not sure a toe nail is going to survive and my thighs are quite angry with me. But they'll get over it.  I'm giving them a running va-ca till next week.  Then I'm hitting the trails again.  Happy Running!

ooops its been a while

I cant believe I haven't posted since March!  I swear I wrote something in April but only a few lines showed up.  Oh my goodness so much has happened since then!  I did run the Spring Thaw the first Saturday of April and while it went well as soon as I finished I was in pain.  Well April is my "physicals" month.  Having MS and being a pilot means I have to jump through a LOT of medical hoops to maintain my pilot's license with the FAA.  But I though "hey I'll just bring up this running pain" with my docs and see if there is anything I can do.  I thought for sure my neurologist was a runner because he just looks like one.  Nope he's not and his advice was to go to Peak Performance.  I already buy my shoes from Peak so I stopped by and was told to rest more.  humph  Next stop was my GP doc and "we" decided I probably just needed a shot of cortisone in my hip.  I've had these before for back pain and LOVE them.  They make me all better very quick.  Before I could get the shot I had to have xrays and then an MRI (and we wonder why our insurance rates are so high..). But of all things I did NOT expect was that the radiologist would come back and tell me I had a stress fracture in my hip!!!  WTH????  From "moving"?????  Yep a stress fracture.  Well nothing says you're getting old than that.  I was in shock, disbelieve and now slightly depressed!!  To top it off my GP doc found other issues in my physical requiring of all things me to have my first ever colonoscopy.  At least the bright side of that was I lost some weight in the prep.  But again starting to feel old.  Ironically the colonoscopy showed a couple of small ulcers which the doc thinks were caused by me taking ibuprofen on an empty stomach.  So now I'm also questioning my sanity of wanting to be a runner.  Stress fracture...ulcers....

Now I have to go to an orthopedic doc for the fracture.  Like there was anything he could do for that.  But turns out he wasn't so sure about the fracture and that perhaps it was tendonitis.  Tendonitis = cortisone shot  which I did get right then and there.  Did it help?  Sort of but not as fabulous as when I've had them for my back.  And I was also told to lay off running for a couple of weeks which I did.  When I started back up I noticed I had a slight drop foot action happening in the leg where I got the shot.  Oh great now what!!!!  Luckily have a  few weeks and wearing an ankle weight occasionally it finally went away.

So my final doc visit was my actual flight physical.  You would think by now all my "issues" would have been covered.  Oh no....the vision aint what it used to be.  I barely passed (thanks to some eye chart cheating) and will in the next month or so be looking into vision correction surgery.  Oh goody!

And all this time I'm actually kind of depressed with this hip fracture!  I mean  come on I'm only 43 and I fractured my hip by moving????  But as I had my Oprah moment months ago about doing a marathon I got lucky and had another one!  Come to find out, Kelly Ripa also had a hip fracture from running!  YEA KELLY!  (dont take that the wrong way)  But she's an avid runner and younger than me.  Finding that out got me out of my funk and ready to start running again.

So I've been back on the training bandwagon for about a month.  And I'm very glad to say that its been relatively pain free!  So as much as I hated taking the time off it is what was needed.  That enough for today.  I'll post again soon as I have to write about what I did this weekend.  It was HUGE.

4th Journal Entry Baby Steps & Oprah

So who know an injury could alter so drastically the way you move in such a short time?  I took a few days off from running but did do some cross training via my bike and elliptical and some other stuff.  I tried running again a couple of days ago and I feel like I've had a major brain injury and have to relearn how to move my legs.  It's the weirdest thing ever.  I'm trying to take it slow too and only do 15 minutes at at time.  Ergo...baby steps.  Still hurts a little too but I'm trying to follow "doctors orders" and take the Advil and ice the area.  The Spring Thaw run is in a week.  I had hoped to do the 10 mile option but now I'll be happy to do the 5k.  Oh well. 

I'm also obsessed with barefoot running.  But having learned my lesson from trying it a few months ago I know that too requires baby steps and perhaps some special shoes.  I know...oxymoron.....barefoot running = shoes.  But it's the new hot thing.  It's supposed to help improve your stride and make you less likely to get injured.  OK I'm a sucker for a salespitch.  But hey  NEW SHOES.

Something else I learned recently.  Oprah ran a marathon!  Yep she did about 10 years ago, in her 40's.  And get this...she did it in 4 hours 30 minutes!  Compared to my pace that's SMOKING! 
So now I have another reason I HAVE to do this.  I mean come on....OPRAH???  Dont get me wrong.  I LOVE Oprah and think that she should run for President.  But she's not exactly the picture of athleticism.  So dang it if she can do it SO CAN I!  At least I sure hope so.  Beating her time...well yea that's probably not going to happen unless it involves motorized transportation.