Bananas. Bears. Bikers. Dogs.

A banana for breakfast will not provide the energy to run 10 miles. I thought it might be okay because I ate about 30 oatmeal chocolate chip cookies the previous night the banana could draw on as back up. I was wrong. About 6.5 miles into my 10-mile run yesterday and I felt like I was moving in slow motion.

I have to admit, it wasn’t only the banana’s fault. I went to Alaska for vacation last week. This vacation probably contributed to my lack of energy in several different ways. First, Saturday night I took a red eye back to Denver so I really didn’t get much sleep. Second, I had just spent a week at about 500 feet and my cells got used to the laziness in which they could draw oxygen from the oxygen rich air. Finally, I only ran about 3 miles the whole time I was in Alaska.

My second day in The Final Frontier I pulled on some running pants, a long sleeved shirt and my iPod and headed up the road from where I was staying in Coopers Landing towards Princess Lodge. Running in 55-degree weather at sea level is fantastic when you are used to running in 100-degree weather at altitude. It was fantastic. My legs never got tired and I never got out of breath. Hills were easy, air was cool and I never got thirsty.

I was looking forward to going again a couple of days later when our fantastic hostess, Marilyn announced that a young woman had been attacked and mauled by a giant brown bear… on my running route! I looked over my shoulder the previous day a couple of times, joking with myself that I might turn to see a bear trotting along behind me. I decided that I wouldn’t be able to go running again and still think of that as a joke, so I hung up my running shoes, slipped on my hiking shoes, picked up some bear spray and went for a walk instead.

I guess I held onto the hope that 10 miles wouldn’t be too hard because I actually found 9 miles to be relatively easy last week. However, I can attribute the ease of 9 miles to the fact that I found $5 in my shoe pouch before the run when tucking away my car key. I realized the only reasonable explanation of the $5 was the universe trying to tell me that I should get a smoothie after the run. With my smoothie as the light at the end of my 9-mile tunnel, I sailed through the run, only having trouble when I tried to sprint the last mile to get to Jamba Juice faster. I made a mental note to hide $5 somewhere where I will find it on marathon day. We’ll see how powerful thoughts of smoothies really are.

Back to the 10-mile run – at about mile 8 I was deep into survival running mode. Survival running mode is the desperate state I slip into during the last mile or two of any run. I just keep telling myself, “almost there, almost there, almost there, just keep going…” over and over and over. The rest of my thoughts are a little foggy. This happens in the last mile or so no matter whether I’m running 10 miles or 3 miles. People look at me funny when I’m muttering this quietly to myself when I haven’t even broken a sweat yet.

Survival mode happened a little early on the 10 mile run. I wasn’t registering much even though I was trying to look around at the other people on the trail to distract me from the fact that my left kneecap was attempting to escape my body. The trail ran under a bridge where I saw a big, stocky, brown lab, fresh from a swim in the creek and enjoying the shade wandering slowly across the path. I thought about how I was glad he wasn’t a bear but was hoping he wouldn’t get in my way or chase me because I couldn’t alter my direction or my speed very much without pain.

A biker coasted down the hill from the other side of the bridge. I looked up at the biker, noticed he was heading right for the dog, looked at the dog, and noticed the dog stop to check out the biker. Before I could comprehend what was going to happen, the dog yelped, the bike flipped over, the biker flew through the air about 5 feet, hit the ground (in much the same position I landed to break my arm last April), and slid about 10 feet to land at my feet. I limped over to him as quickly as I could, “are you okay?!” I gasped.

The biker looked up at me, his eyes full of panic, “The dog! Where’s the dog?! Is the dog okay?!” before I could reply he spun around, looking for the big brown lab, his stuff left all over the path like a yard sale. It turns out the sturdy dog was just very startled. He was already on his way to the biker, looking apologetic. When they reached each other the biker just petted the dog, the dog licked at the bikers face and all was well on the Boulder Creek Path.

Plane Tickets

I have my plane ticket to D.C. There are actually several people from my MBA program running the Marine Corp Marathon in addition to myself. This kind of self punishing behavior must be contagious. Anyway, my friend Wylie and I bought our plane tickets Saturday!

I was on the phone with him when he put them on his credit card. He joked about checking the box saying that I was visually impaired and/or hearing impaired just to make things interesting. We joked, inappropriately, about being in a wheelchair but really started laughing when there was actually an option that read, "passenger may be carried." I told him to check that one for sure. I plan to be carried from the moment I finish the race to the time when I get back to my own bed in Boulder.

Boulder's Trails

I did my "long" run that I was suppose to do last Saturday today (Monday). I was scheduled for a 5-6 mile run on Saturday morning but I had two indoor soccer games on Friday night. After playing soccer from 9:30-11:30pm, I found it a little difficult to get out of my warm bed on a cool morning and run for 5-6 miles. Call me crazy.

I did manage to get my cross training in Sunday by going on a nice hike up a small mountain near Boulder. The Gregory Trail took my friends and I about an hour and 40 minutes. I spent the rest of the weekend cleaning up a strategic plan for a client that was due early this week and playing welcoming committee for a friend's mom. Sometimes, you just have to go for apps and a glass of wine. Afterall, it would have been rude to run instead.

So, this morning, after working about 17 hours this weekend I figured I deserved to take a little time this morning for a "long" jog. (If you are wondering why I'm putting "long" in quotes, it's that there is a 10 mile run looming on my calendar and I can't define 5 miles long when there is a 10 mile run in sight. What would I call the 10 mile run?) But I digress.

It's going to be about 94 degrees in Boulder today so I set off at about 8:30 for a new trail that was labeled "easy" by the Boulder Parks and Rec. Department. Trails are usually marked easy, moderate, or difficult. This is not a good enough distinction due to the fact that different features are easy or difficult depending on what you are doing on the trail. If I were hiking, or walking, yes, easy would have been appropriate. But jogging is an entirely different story.

I was excited when I first arrived at the trailhead. (the photo is what the trailhead looked like) I love running on nice, long, flat, dirt trails. I just set my little Nike + to the distance I want to go, run until a little voice interrupts Linkin Park screaming in my ear to announce "half way point!" Then I turn around and go back.

After 1/2 a mile I reached a small fork in the road, the left path went down a steep but short hill, the other meandered off to the right. I had been running west for the first 1/2 a mile (which means that I had been going slightly uphill for the first 5 minutes or so - it took me a two years of running in Boulder to put together the idea that if you are going west, you are probably going uphill. Mountains. Duh.) I turned left knowing I would curse myself on the way back when I had to go up this hill.

Little did I know how this choice would affect the rest of the run. I jogged through what a Boulderite trail runner might call "rolling hills." I would call them "a way to rip apart my calves." Then, about 2 hours later, or 20 minutes later my iPod informs me, I reach it. A mountain. The trail goes right up the side. I check in with Nike + and it tells me that I have not yet reached my half way point. So, up I go.

I stumbled up the side of the mountain to find myself running along a ridge where, if I had looked up from the gravel I was now wading through, I could see all of Boulder Valley. It was absolutely beautiful. I was too worried about how I was going to make it back, that I didn't enjoy it to the full potential.

I finally did make it back the car after 5.25 miles. I figured with all the hills, I could probably round up the mileage to 6. Next weekend, my 9 miler, no new trails. I'm heading back to an old faithful, paved, shady path through the middle of town with plenty of people watching and no mountains. =)

Wait, a Triathlon?

On Sundays I cross train. This means that I pick a low impact activity that will get my heart rate up and work on my cardio while giving my knees, back, and body a break from pounding the pavement. For my first cross training session I decided to do the Danskin Women's Sprint Triathlon with my sister, Emily. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Weirdly, I wasn't on the same painkillers I was on when I decided to do the marathon. Maybe I am crazy after all.

Anyway, Emily and I had signed up a long time ago. Neither of us actually trained for the event. We both figured that we work out enough we could at least finish the thing. Plus, this was a great excuse for me to get my bike a tune up, buy a some new running clothes, and have a (literally) sink or swim opportunity to learn how to use a wetsuit. I originally wasn't going to rent one but when I heard that the water temperature was a chilly 61 degrees, I had second thoughts. Fortunately, I'm not completely crazy.

All of the women's wetsuits in Boulder were rented. All of them. So I ended up at Fleet Feet Sports squeezing into an XS men's suit. I got it on as well as I could before stepping out of the dressing room to two men who started pinching the rubber of the suit around my ankles and wiggling it up my legs. I wouldn't have been surprised if one of them had gone back to the back to get a giant shoe horn.

The pinching and pulling happened for a while. "Look," said the salesman, "this is how it's suppose to fit." I turned around to look in the mirror, hoping to see a surfer girl from the movies or at least one of those really buff, aerodynamic professional triathletes. The girl looking back at me looked more like a large black tuna fish, round in places that I that I thought I was relatively flat, and flat in places I thought I was a little round. I made a mental note of an idea for a new business: wetsuits with Batman abs built in. Possible expansion of the idea: little motors.

I didn't sleep at all the night before the race. Emily and I got up at 4:25 to drive from Boulder to Aurora. It seemed like the only other people on the road were also women with bikes on their roofs, trunks and in their back seats. Some of them were also towing sleeping fan clubs in their passenger seats. We got our transition areas set up and watched the elites start the race.

Before long it was my turn to walk down the boat ramp with 99 other nervous, excited ladies. An iron man champion (a triathlon that is about a 2 1/2 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile marathon) tried to pump us up with girl-power cheers. "What are you when you swim?" she shouted at us through a megaphone. "Beautiful!" we were all suppose to reply. I snickered and thought I looked anything but beautiful standing there in my tuna-suit and swim cap. "What are you when you bike?" she continued... apparently, we are always beautiful. I figured by the time I was done with this I would just be stinky.

The race itself went pretty well. Aside from the fact that I almost drown during the swim - which had been shortened from 1/2 mile to a 1/4 mile due to water temperature. Apparently, I couldn't get my wetsuit high enough by myself and it tried to strangle me the whole time. The water didn't really feel that cold but with the restrictive nature of the wetsuit and the fact that everyone around me kept kicking water into my face when I was trying to breathe I started panicking a little. I found out later the swim took me about 6:01. Longest 6:01 minutes of my life.

The bike was hillier than I expected, and I was dizzy after the swim. Once I got used to working myself up the hills to fly down them at about 30 mph, it went pretty well. The downhill part is my favorite. I did get a little self conscious about how little I was wearing when I saw a girl wipe out going around a corner. In my sports bra and tri shorts, I would get a pretty horrible road burn. I made the decision not to fall.

Since Emily was riding my bike, I borrowed a bike from a friend. I rode it up and down the street in flip flops like I used to do when I was a kid on Saturday to make sure the seat was high enough and all the gears worked. However, I neglected to trying clipping in and out with my clip shoes. I got into the clips just fine at the beginning of the ride, but as I approached the transition area, tired from the route but looking forward to a snack before the run, I couldn't get out of the clips. I jerked my ankle to the side, which was all it took to get out of the clips on my bike, and my foot didn't budge. I tried again, thinking about how embarrassing it would be to tip over in front of all the people who had lined up to watch us finish the bike.

Just then, I saw a volunteer directing traffic. It looked like she had a halo on. No, just kidding, but I rode directly at her anyway screaming something like, "I can't get out of my clips! Help! Help!" People on the sidelines decided they would assist me in yelling at the poor victim I was cruising straight for. They started yelling along with me, "Help her! Help her!" She caught my bike by the handlebars, and I still couldn't get out of my clips, so I ripped the Velcro off the top of my shoes and sprinted into the transition area in my socks, bike in tow, shoes bumping off the ground still attached to the pedals.

The run was the least eventful leg, and my strongest activity. My calves were tired and I was getting warm, but aside from that, everything went smoothly. As I passed one girl, who was breathing so hard she could barely talk I heard her say something like, "let's go ladies, we're almost there, we can do it," over and over and over. I wanted to just grab her hand and pull her along for a while. She seemed so tired, but had such a great, encouraging spirit.

I came flying, well, stumbling, up to the finish line at 31:07. The announcer yelled something like, "and here comes Lindsay Br-ou-st!" I was pleased that I could hold an average of a 10:02 mile pace after thrashing around in the water and riding a bike. I was also pleased to hear a new pronunciation of my last name.

And you know what, I guess I did feel a little beautiful. Very stinky. But a little beautiful too.