Author: lola

Hello world! It’s been a while. I have been running races and even had a PR in a 5k in April, a 24:27! At least I think it was a PR. I injured my psoas, which is just plain fun to say but not so fun to rehab in January. The psoas led to a hip flexor issue but I watched a million youtube videos and through a greater power and much stronger glutes, I have persevered!

If feel like my Altras contributed to my psoas pull/glute weakness. Though I love the zero drop, I felt like I had little arch support. As a runner with very high arches, I struggle to find a balance between restriction and support. I switched to Saucony Kinveras, which I liked for their light weight feel and support but after a few months, I began to get that familiar plantar plate ache, this time on the opposite foot. My plantar plate tear previously took me out of commission for about 2 months, I didn’t want to lose the best part of the spring/summer so I backed off and went back to my Hokas. I taped my 2nd toe down to prevent the curling I was starting to see and began a vigorous toe exercise regimen. I never thought my life would revolve around glute exercises and toe lifts, but, here I am.

After wearing the Hokas for a few weeks, the rocker bottom allowed me to take that strain off toes, I started looking for other options. I didn’t likt the narrow toe box on the Hokas, and I do feel the excessive stack height throws off my gait and doesn’t allow me to engage my now incredible glutes. I have never been as comfortable wearign a show as I was with the Altra Escalante but after a 10 mile race, and a very sore psoas, I checked into other zero or low drop shoes. I found the Topo Magnifly 3. These shoes are very comfortable, feel supportive but not bulky. Unlike the Altras, they don’t look like clown shoes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…. I removed the insert and used these alleged zero drop insoles to allow for a little more shock control. I can’t believe I paid this much for an insert, but my toe has been ok so far!

Back to the black hole that is Etsy. It reminds me of the halcyon days of yore when I was first on facebook and I wanted to see every comment and like. Like this blog, I will go months without posting and then go on a rager. I didn’t paint as much during the pandemic as I thought I would when contemplating what I would do during a pandemic. My house was busy all of the time and I just didn’t make it a priority. Recently I started painting again, I don’t have a lot more wall space and I hate trying to make prints, so I just started throwing more stuff on Etsy. Some of the work is generally appealing and some is a little more artsy-fartsy. Either way, the posting process is cumbersome and I have no idea how to use Instagram but I made a page anyway. I don’t share it because I somehow want to be anonymous which makes no sense, pretty much the same thing I do with this blog. A quiet, dignified Etsy shop. That 2 people a week visit. I have actually had 7 sales which is more than I thought I would have but less than I would need to make this an actual occupation. I would have to figure out how to make prints and doo-dads with my prints on them and that makes me want to take a nap, though if I am following my own advice and learning new tricks, I guess I should learn. Here are the latest additions to my Etsy shop!

    I have mixed feelings about 2020. While I do not enjoy being part of a pandemic, having my business shut down or depriving my children of any semblance of socialization, I did enjoy the time we spent together.

    Since we only ran a few races, we had extra time to train and I stepped out of my comfort zone. Speed training sounded like something for much younger people. Even my quarter mile intervals improved my 5k time by minutes. My last race of the year, my splits were 7:53, 8:01 and 7:55, significantly faster than any of my times last year. I didn’t necessarily run further, though I tried to mix in some longer runs with regularity.

    If you want to improve your 5k time, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of speed work. I dread Wednesdays because I am a lazy runner, but I feel so much stronger when I am done.

    Much like 2020, we have to get through the bad to experience the good. Here is hoping that 2021 is better for all of us.

    In a million years, I never would have predicted that I would run a 10 mile race let alone THRIVE in a 10 mile race. To be fair, like most humans, I am not very good at predicting things.

    I would love to regale my readers (not that I have any) with my detailed training regimen. Running 10 miles might have been a good start. I didn’t do that. In fact, I had never run 10 miles, 7 ish was probably as far as I ever ventured before. You probably shouldn’t consider this training. What I lacked in actual distance training, I made up for in persistence, consistency, sporadic speed workouts and my spotify playlists. And lots of heart, having watched all of the 80’s movies, I knew the slow clap at the end of my journey would make everything ok.

    The day before the race, I was walking in to the kitchen when I caught the little toe of my left foot on a chair. It was a familiar feeling, I broke this toe walking past a Hummer sized strolled at Water Country a few years ago. I iced it, took the therapeutic dosage of Ibuprofen and shoved my foot into a running shoe to act as a compress.

    The conditions for the race were challenging, a steady 20 mph wind with gusts to 40 mph. I almost didn’t run, I was still having toe pain but it didn’t seem to be broken, it hurt whether I walked, ran or stood still. This was a race I have always wanted to do, I was going to do the irresponsible thing. Originally all four of us were supposed to race, an ankle injury side-lined my husband and I decided to defer my daughter’s race to next year. It was just me and my son. Mama and her boy.

    As we battled the wind to find the start line, close to a half mile from our packet pick up, I saw a line. A long line. As we are “social distancing” I thought it might have been the wave start line forming. No, this was the line for the porta-potty. Given the time I had before my start in the “elite women” group, there was no way I would get through that line. Yes, I was placed in the 1st women’s heat, talk about pressure. I have never run 10 miles in a row but because of my 5k time, I was placed in front. Super.

    I found a large tree in a ravine and headed to the woods. I guess that makes me a legit distance runner now.

    I had my music, or what I could hear of my music through the 40 mph wind gusts. I had my Samsung health ap, which still sound less cool than Runkeeper, but we don’t dwell on these things. My wave went off and I was running a 10 mile race, all 10 miles. It wasn’t until about a half mile in that I realized my GPS was not connecting! I kept restarting, but after being told I was running a 24 min mile, I gave up. The woman in front of me looked like she was keeping a good pace. As everyone pointed out to me after the race, I could have calculated my pace using the start time and the mile markers like our Puritan ancestor had to do. I wasn’t carrying an abacus and I was still trying to wrap my mind around the 10 miles in a row thing so I just laser focused on the woman in orange ahead of me.

    I felt great! Cold, but still strong until about mile 8. Before the race, I had the idea of bringing some gummy bears in my pocket in case I needed a carbohydrate boost. I jammed my cold hand into the tiny coin-sized pocket of my running shorts to pull out a sticky gummy bear and realized just how stupid this idea was. I now had sticky fingers and since I am an old lady who runs with her cell phone, I had made my useless running ap all sticky as well. Regardless, I stuck to the plan and ate the gummy bear. This made me thirsty and not at all revived.

    There is a happy ending, I made it to the end and my pace was just over 9 min per mile! Much faster than I was planning to run! My possibly broken toe didn’t hurt. I was only passed by a few 70 year-olds. A good day overall. Ultimately, I learned that I placed 3rd in my age group, which I guess makes me “elite” in a “good for you!” kind of way.

    . The aura of this race was much different from the frenetic pace of the 5k world. The fact that people actually stop in the middle of the race to use a port-a-potty was a foreign concept. I enjoyed the more leisurely pace and laid-back attitude.

    I was sore the next day. It’s been a while since I was sore after a race, it was a badge of honor! The slow clap never happened, but like a good 80’s movie, a positive attitude and the right clothes are 90 percent of the solution. I made some memories with my first born. I look forward to running in more distance races, especially trail races.

    I have new running shorts which I love, they are Baleaf, made in China likely by forced labor, but they are the best shorts I have ever worn. And they have real pockets, not tiny coin purse pockets! I am also loving my Altra Escalante 2 running shoes, I wore them over the past few races and have had sub 8 splits in my 5ks. These Balega socks have been great, no blisters, not even on my unfortunate bunion!

    It has been a busy week. Especially busy now that it is dark at 5 PM and I have my pajamas on by 6, so much to do in so little time.

    I was having a streak, I even took some photos (terrible of course) of several from scratch pumpkin pies I made. Though I am not a good baker, I do make everything from scratch, no mixes here. I took these precious little pie pumpkins and transformed them into crust-less pies! Why crust-less? Because otherwise I will be listening to the rumblings of a certain someone in my family who avoids extraneous gluten. I don’t particularly care about crust and as I would be making it from scratch, thus increasing my chances of disaster, I am happy to skip it.

    Riding high on the victory of my past pies, I flew too close to the sun and literally melted my pumpkin wings. Note to self, if your pie needs 5 or so minutes to be fully set in the middle it is not wise to step outside to do a little hedge clipping.

    The scorched earth pie began simply. Microwaving chunks of pumpkin until soft. Easy, right? All went well until I decided to use my food processor not just to puree the pumpkin but to blend my entire batter. It was at this point that I realized that I do not have one of those food processors in which one can blend soups and liquids. It leaks out of the bottom. After I cleaned this mess up and poured the remains into my pie pan, I popped this beauty into the oven. After about 40 minutes, I decided it needed about 5 more minutes to fully set. So I left it in for another hour while I pruned hedges on a glorious fall day.

    “Oh my god, the pie!”

    Apparently, virtual school makes it impossible to smell burning pumpkin pie. My children were oblivious to the disaster as I walked into the kitchen, realizing that I had left the pie in the oven.

    I didn’t realize how blurry this was until now. Probably from the steam.

    The saving grace of this pie, baked for well over 2 hours, was that it was crust-less. If there had been a gluten engorged crust to this particular pie, it would have turned to ash. Instead, the custard caramelized. My son actually said he preferred my burned pie to the others. That’s not really saying much. There’s a sound bite for you, “this burned pie tastes better tha n my other pumpkin pie, follow me for more recipes!”

    Breaking News, middle aged woman runs faster than she did before.

    Two earth shattering things in my running world. I am wearing new shoes and I ran a 24:44 5k on Saturday, a sub 8 min pace!

    The Hokas helped me recover from a foot injury, specifically a plantar plate tear. The rocker bottom allowed me to run without pressure on this healing area. On the other hand, I felt that the cushion contributed to some hip flexor/psoas pain. I have been using some Pilate and yoga strength training to work my glutes and to stretch my psoas. The Hokas helped me recover from a foot injury, specifically a plantar plate tear. The rocker bottom allowed me to run without pressure on this healing area. On the other hand, I felt that the cushion contributed to some hip flexor/psoas pain. I have been using some Pilate and yoga strength training to work my glutes and to stretch my psoas. Doesn’t that make me sound like a gym rat?

    Interestingly, foot pain has been my Achilles heel. I have bunions and high arches and I have been using an arch support in my running shoes. After listening to this podcast with guest, Irene Davis, PhD and with my reading on trigger points and muscle attachments, I decided to increase my foot flexibility and strengthen my arches. After several weeks of these exercises, I took out my arch supports. The first few runs I felt like I was getting blisters below my bunion. After that, I could feel my ankles getting stronger and much more range of motion in my toes.

    I ran in minimalist shoes before, the Merrell Arc 4. I was running in these when I had the plantar plate injury. Though I was running in Hokas, I believed in the mechanics of the minimal shoe. I have started running in the Altra Escalante and have been pleased with results. By focusing on proper form, especially a midfoot/forefoot strike pattern my feet feel strong. Picturing my daughter’s beautiful running form, particularly the leg extension. There is a more natural rhythm that I am falling into when I am focusing on my foot strike and leg extension which leads me to a faster pace!

    This weekend, I was shocked when my phone clocked my first mile at a 7:50! I kept each mile pretty consistent and finished with a 7:53 average pace, something I did not think would ever be possible. I did this with new shoes, no arch supports and a kick ass playlist.

    There is a metaphor in here somewhere. Sometimes the things you think are helping you are actually holding you back. Had I not decided to begin this foot exercise regimen and to cast aside the shoes I had been running in somewhat successfully, I would never know the glory of running like a slow motion Olympian. Sometimes you have to break it all down to rebuild it better. We are never too old to learn some new tricks.

    Loyal readers, I know there has been much anticipation about yesterday’s 5k. Despite the chilly temps and a looming full moon, I actually had a great race!

    My time was close to but not quite a PR, I was most proud of my negative splits. Still even prouder that I can use “negative split” in a sentence. I ran each mile slightly faster than the one prior with an average pace of 8:07. This comes naturally to me as the irrational fear of not being able to finish the race keeps me from starting out too fast. I will not fall into the speed trap.

    At one point I did see someone from our local run club taking photos, I smiled and waved. Smiled and waved. I smile and wave through most of my races, I smile and wave at the course marshals, at spectators. I thank the marshals and the water attendants. I like to think that even though I am not the fastest runner, I am the most pleasant and polite runner. The Miss Congeniality of road running! Or the psycho smiling woman, you choose.

    When our run club posted photos on facebook from yesterday’s race, they did not post my smile and wave photo. Instead, I have a pretty scary and miserable looking picture, I didn’t even know there was a camera in the vicinity. Clearly I was unaware of the camera… “Hoka on line one, they want you to be the new face of running!”

    I think we have a clear winner for my Christmas card photos. I had better lift my feet a tad more if I am going to clear that speed bump!

    The moral of this story is, even if you think you are having the race of your life, smiling and waving at your fans, there may be a perspective that is different. I could choose to dwell on this photo or I can decide that my image of a strong, healthy, happy young runner is in fact the reality.

    Now, to stretch my psoas, a muscle I never even knew existed before last year. Sore ass I knew but not psoas.

    I have heard of people becoming born again virgins. Can one have a born-again PR? Let me begin by saying that I have run in a handful of races since the “Corn Teen” of 2020.

    not me

    The first two were tiny and shy, unsure of what to do in this Covid landscape. One was through the ground of mental hospital on an insanely (poor taste?) hot day. It was a race to promote mental health so there is that irony. Another was the slightly chaotic, very wet and very disappointing 8k that I was unprepared for written about here.

    I didn’t think I liked running in races, I am not especially fast, except compared to women of a certain age. Typically, I spend the first mile freaking out that I won’t be able to finish and that they will find me curled in the fetal position when they “sweep” the course at the end. The second mile I am cursing my idiotic ideas and vowing to never race again. “This is the last race I will ever run in, I will only run for fun from this day forth!” By the 3rd mile, I see the literal light at the end of the tunnel and I tell myself the faster I run the faster it will be over. It doesn’t help to think that when I am finishing mile 2, my much faster son has finished the race and is snacking.

    Is it me or is that last 0.1 unnecessary? Is it not the longest 100 meters on planet Earth? Do the laws of physics cease to exist? I always forget about that damn 0.1.

    Not running in actual races has made me slow. Not even particularly steady, but significantly slower. I thought I would be ok with this but I am not. There is still some life in this old girl yet.

    Back to my PR goal of running in the 25’s for my next 5k. Well, I was looking through our local run club results and the results from the last Turkey Trot we ran in Florida and found that I have already done this, more than once! I have no recollection of this, I thought my time was in the 26 range but no, 25:10 is my PR and I see no way that I am capable of running this time in 3 days. That’s something like an 8:06 pace, a pace which is perilously close to what I consider a “sprint.”

    But do I look good?

    On a positive note, I have been stealing the running sunglasses my son got for his birthday often enough that he finally yelled at me and I bought my own. Like everything I do and buy, I spent way too much time analyzing and being “frugal”. Ordinarily I buy whatever sunglasses are available from TJ Maxx or Marshalls, the idea of buying sunglasses without trying them on seemed foreign. How would I know if they were distorted or if I looked like a cast member from Dynasty?

    I settled on these and I love them, the Tifosi “Swank.” The matte finish is so much better for sweaty faces. Having the bright polarizing lens means I don’t have to keep pulling my glasses up and down depending on the tree canopy above, allowing me to leap gracefully over the rocks and roots on the trail. They look pretty cool, at least as cool as I am willing to look. Though more expensive then the 9.99 glasses I usually buy, they are not ridiculously expensive.

    In case I didn’t like the Tifosi’s, I bought these Knockarounds. I liked these too so I am keeping them both! They are a little less fancy than the Tifosis but they are still much better than my usual sunglasses!

    The pair of Goodr that my son has are nice too, I wasn’t as crazy about the mirrored lenses but they have a great lightweight feel and ample but not overly dark light blocking.

    All three of these brands, Knockarounds, Tifosi and Goodr have fun colors and remind me of the Swatch watches I so loved as a kid. I am coming full-circle, I will be the old lady trying to chase her best 5k time wearing some crazy sunglasses and checking my time on a swatch non-smart watch. Maybe a perm and bangs to complete my teen look?

    We can at least all agree, I will be wearing ugly Hokas.

    While I may not be able to run a 25:15, my goal is still to see a 25 in front of my time. I have been doing at least one speed workout a week, which I hate. I can feel a difference when I run faster, my legs hurt and I sound and look like Cujo on a hot day. Speed is not my friend. The one thing I have learned is to never say never, maybe I will like speed workouts someday. After my lobotomy.

    Next, I will regale you with spooky tales of my pumpkin pie.

    Hello darkness my old friend. Fall is a tough time for me, I don’t like winter and the darkness. The short days are especially difficult, I frequently joke that I am solar powered.

    This fall came earlier than usual for our area. Without a prolonged “Indian Summer” I didn’t have a chance to feel tired of the heat. We never really go to say goodbye.

    In years past, I have let myself get stressed out from all from all of the obligatory decorative clutter that appears in our house between October and January 1st. Now, I am embracing the mess. Or tying to.

    When the days get shorter, I cook and bake more, I read more. I paint more. All of this indoor and inner reflection comes with a price, too much navel gazing, too much self-analysis.

    I painted this over the weekend, I actually worked on 2 paintings side by side. Using this opportunity to tweak a few things from one to the other, playing with color and light. I am also attempting to maximize my very expensive Arches watercolor paper which comes in the most awkward sizes. Picture an angry beret-wearing, cigarette smoking cabal deciding, “Ah, yes, we shall make the papier of a useless size for any of those American frames. They shall buy beaucoup papier, cutting into even more useless scraps. Viola! C’est magnifique!

    Can you tell that I took 4 years of French in high school? Or that I also took 2 years in college. It wasn’t pretty.

    This painting is from a photo I took at Fairy Stone State Park early this spring. It was very cold and a storm was rolling in with darkness overtaking the light. Kind of how I feel right now.

    This makes me feel cold.

    I am counting down to December 21st, at least then I know they days will be getting longer. I will always love you, Summer! If you come back I won’t complain about mosquitoes. Maybe chiggers, but not the mosquitoes!

    https://www.etsy.com/listing/889564041/storm-on-mountain-lake-at-sunset?ref=shop_home_active_1&frs=1

    Fairy Stone State Park has beautiful lakefront cabins, some original post and beam and some modern. There are several good hiking trails, including one that travels on an old iron mining trail! Another trail goes to a scenic waterfall. The fairy stones are fun to hunt for but your best bet is to drive to the other side of the park to hunt!

    Some blogs post beautiful photographs of carefully staged food, if you have read anything on this blog, you know this is not one of them.

    My sister sent me a text message asking for the recipe of a childhood favorite, Apple Chocolate Chip Cake. It doesn’t sound like much, the name, though descriptive, doesn’t sounds appealing. It is delicious and simple, two of my favorite things.

    I sent her a quick photo of the recipe. A recipe scrawled on a post-it-note and stuck inside the cover of a “vintage” The New York Time International Cookbook. I have never actually cooked one of these international dishes but I have moved this book to at least 14 different residences over the past 20-ish years so I feel like this book is essential to my household.

    I have made this recipe so many times I don’t read it except to verify the age old question, “am I using baking powder or baking soda?” My sister, “lol”ed at my directions. And the patina of my cover.

    Follow me for more delicious recipes!

    The big joke here is that I am what you might call a “one bowl baker,” which is code for a lazy and terrible baker. My love of minimalism and efficiency is greater than my need to be a perfect baker so I mix my “wet” ingredients and then add scoops of my dry ingredients, in the same bowl! With the exception of a meringue or a souffle, which I clearly have no business making, I stick to my one-bowl rule.

    The writing on the upper right is my mother’s, though I have no recollection of her adding her helpful hints. I never dust pans and certainly wouldn’t dust them with breadcrumbs. My life is too short for dry-cleaning, owning shirts that aren’t wrinkle free and dusting cake pans.

    I get angry when I am scrolling through War and Peace to find the directions to a recipe, clearly a simple, “add” and “mix” is sufficient to make a cake.

    As a minimalist, I try not to attach too much sentiment to material things. I take a lot of photographs, try to create as many fun memories as I can but I don’t have a lot of “mementos.” My kids won’t inherit much from me other than my love of karaoke and combination oily/dry skin.

    This is my heirloom, I rewrote this recipe at one point from an even older post-it note than had lost its stick and been taped several times. Behold my children, someday, this will be yours.

    Growing up, I called this recipe, Auntie Hazel’s Apple Cake. Hazel was a classic Yankee farmer who owned a large apple orchard in Rhode Island. I never had a relationship with any relatives outside of my parents so this was as close as I get to family recipes.

    Since the recipe involved apples, it all made sense to my young mind. I proudly told everyone who came into contact with this delicious recipe that it was “Auntie Hazel’s Apple Chocolate Chip Cake.” Only it wasn’t her recipe. My mother casually mentioned it came from a magazine and had nothing to do with the apple orchard of my youth.

    This will have to suffice as an heirloom recipe for my children.

    On the other side of their family, my husband has this book, filled with classic Italian cookie recipes from his mother. Did I mention his family had been bakers in Italy?

    Someday, my children will fight over one of these books.

    Though I am not a good baker, I substitute ingredients early and often, I know how to pick and stick with a winner. Much like marriage, you may have to modify a bit but ultimately, there is no substitute for comfort.

    I have made this recipe more times than I can count, I am posting the “classic” version as well as my “modified” version.

    Classic Apple Chocolate Chip Cake

    1. Cream 1 cup of sugar, 3/4 cup oil in a bowl. Add 2 eggs and beat until fluffy. Add 2 tsp of vanilla extract and mix.
    2. In a separate large bowl, sift together (ha ha) 2 cups flour, dash salt and 1 tsp of baking soda.
    3. With the precision of the bomb squad, carefully add the wet ingredients to the dry (or the other way around I can’t remember) Mix until blended
    4. Add 3-4 apples, peeled and slices and 1 cup of chocolate chips, mix.
    5. Grease a bundt pan, pour in batter, scoop it, etc.
    6. Bake at 350 for almost an hour. It will get fairly dark, you don’t want it undercooked.

    Modified Apple Chocolate Chip Cake

    1. Get your favorite bowl, cream 1/2 cup sugar with olive oil and whole plain yogurt, I add equal amounts to create 3/4 cup total
    2. Add 2 eggs, mix until fluffy, add 1tsp vanilla extract and a whisp of cinnamon
    3. throw in your dash of salt, add 1 tsp of baking soda, mix a tad
    4. Add 1 cup almond flour, mix a bit
    5. Add 1 cup of gluten-laden white flour, mix until blended
    6. Mix in the apples (3-4 sliced and peeled) and 1 cup chocolate chip
    7. Grease your bundt pan, add batter, bake at 350 for around an hour
    8. Do not underbake, the apples release moisture.
    Food photography is not my strong point, let’s call it rustic and agree that my granite is ugly.

    We like to hike as a family. Well, my husband and I like to hike so by virtue of the “I am your parent, obey me” property, we hike as a family. I am not going to romanticize this, there is an undercurrent of whining and eye rolling when I announce we are going for a hike. I tend to do things on the spur of the moment, throw a “picnic” lunch into a bag and hit the road. Before we had the beloved shed-cabin documented here, here and here.

    Room with a view!

    I love this little table, it’s from IKEA and came with 4 chairs. It is made from real wood and matches our unfinished cabin! You can’t beat the price and the small foot print works well for us.

    We have hiked many trails, for years I have wanted to blog about our various hikes but never got around to it. I will attempt to pick one trail and see how it goes from there. I have so many favorites but I will try to stay on topic and focus on ONE hike!

    Recently we hiked to Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory. I will admit, I had images of vultures and condors soaring overhead with a dark bell-tower looming atop the mountain. It wasn’t like that. This was for us, an easy and short hike, it should be doable for most people and families. There is an elevation gain but the trail is clear and it is a steady rise to the top. Once at the top there is an observatory (not a dark tower) with several steep flights of steps. It was under construction when we went which was eavn more terrifying. There were many brave volunteers replacing the decking around the observatory.

    One of the volunteers showed us the “peaks” of interest. From this observatory you can see Flat Top/Sharp Top as well as Buffalo Mountain (all of which we have hiked and are fantastic!).

    Getting there:

    The road in is windy, like most mountain roads. There was a Mennonite bakery with delicious hand pies (think hostess but much better) on the main road just before you turn on to . The road is paved all of the way to the parking lot ( if you hike many trails you know that sometimes the roads are very rough.) The lot is small so plan accordingly and on weekends, it fills early. There were no open spots when we arrived, we drove further down the road to turn around when we saw a group walking up what was labeled “Fire Tower Road”. We pulled over onto the very wide shoulder and checked the map.

    All roads do not lead to the Observatory.

    We hiked this fire road to where I thought there was a trail which would intersect with the Allegheny trail. It did not, we turned around and drove back to the trail head lot.

    The hike up is an incline, but not very steep, the trail is well cleared and not a rock scramble. The elevation at the top is over 3500 ft and it was quite cool, be prepared for the lower temps in cooler weather. It would be a nice hike in summer to get away from the heat!

    Clearly we need to work on posture…

    It’s about a mile to the top, there was a port-a-potty just past the building but the sign on it said it was closed due to Covid. One of my troop used it and said it was particulary nasty, closed apparently meant no cleaning or emptying.

    I wished it were a little more like a haunted tower with spider webs, dark clouds and menacing raptors. Maybe a quothing Raven or two.

    Once you reach the top, or use the port-a-potty, you can climb on the rocks and peer over. There is a very steep drop off and no barrier so I would be very careful! Here are some views from the top and a picture of me slinking towards the top of the rock!

    This is a great family hike, it is about a mile each direction, here is a longer description of the hike.

    Apparently I will only run rainy races this year. At least it was cooler than the last race and I was prepared to run in wet conditions.

    This time, I tried to find a course map. The link to the race page went to an email address so that didn’t quite work out for me. I underestimated the hills, my phone told me there was a nearly half a mile of ascent but my speed training carried me through!

    We all ran hard, I think in part to make up for our lackluster performance at the previous race. I was most proud of my daughter, she had a PR and ran a 23:20 ish which was 40 seconds faster than her prior PR. It was an out an back course so I got to see both of my kids as they sailed through the back half!

    Why did I feel so much stronger in this race? I ran 2 and 3 day streaks in a row, usually I run every other day. I also incorporated some sprints into my regular run and did a track workout with my daughter. My 5k time was 26:11 which will not quality me for any product endorsements or coaching gigs, but it it a time I am proud to tell other people!

    What are my next goals?

    1. To get into the 25 minute range for a 5k. Most of our upcoming races that have not been cancelled are 8 or 10ks.
    2. Run some races outside of the area, I like a change of scenery, it satisfies my “wanderlust gene!”. As the daughter of an immigrant and a descendant of Mormon Pioneers, it’s strong in me.