10 Questions

My friend Christie of www.marathonmama.net/ was challenged to answer these questions and tag her friends. She tagged me so I figure I'll give it a go.

1. Best Run Ever: Its a tie. When I first returned to running and went trail running part way up Ben Lomond I got a super awesome running high and as I yelled out "woo hoo!" I tripped and fell. You'd think that would have ruined my high but watching everyone's faces as I continued down the trail was classic. Then I got to the car and saw what they were really looking at; bloody nipples.

The other one was a little later when I had a chance to go back to Palmer Park in Colorado Springs, CO where we used to run for HS cross country. I got the chance to go for a run and I ran almost all the trails we used to run in high school. It used to take a week to go through all of those. That is a great place to run.

2. Three Words That Describe My Running: playful, experimental, personal

3. My Go-To Running Outfit Is: cheapo walmart shorts, an old race shirt, my Home Depot trucker hat, cheapo compression sleeves and my Altra Lone Peaks.

4. Quirky Habit While Running: I always want to go further than planned. This is not good when I have somewhere I need to be.
 
5. Morning, Midday, Evening:  I'm a morning runner but I don't mind an evening run. I have a hard time balancing eating and running to do in in the middle of the day.

6. I Won’t Run Outside When It’s:  There's not much that I won't run in but when it gets to be about -15F or below I will at least consider a treadmill or a day off.

7. Worst Injury and How I Got Over It: I'm guessing this refers to a running injury. I thought for a long time that I had really bad ITBS but eventually I figured out it was my aching vericose veins. Thank you genetics. I've had PF in both feet (luckily at different times) I pretty much ignored it both times. The first went away on its own, the 2nd I feel like has turned into a migrating imbalance on the back of my left leg. Sometime the PF flares up, then it could be the achilles. On really fast or hard runs, my left hamstring starts to get tight. The achilles was where I was stuck for a long time (over a year) and I think I'm mostly healed now. Some time off, eccentric calf raises, more time out of shoes with a heel, and rolling out the knots in my calf on a softball have all contributed to the little success I've had.

8. I Felt Most Like a Badass Runner When I: Ran my first Ultra. It was what I now look back on as a "baby ultra" as far as distance. It was the 2010 Logan Peak trail run. A 28 mile trail run with 7200' elevation gain and loss that not only goes to the peak and back of a local peak, but it also circumnavigates it.

9. My Next Race Is: I'm pacing a guy from Chicago in the Bear 100 this weekend. Other than that, who knows? Whatever goofy race I feel like jumping into. Probably not a big deal race until next spring.

10. Potential Running Goals for 2013: I want to complete my first 50 miler in 2013. Looking at the Buffalo Run 50M in March. I ran the 25k in 2010, and the 50K in 2011. I was going to run the 50 this year but the aforementioned achilles issue made me choose otherwise. But that was still awesome because I got to meet Christie and pace her for a few miles. I also had a fantastic experience as an aid station volunteer.

The above goal may be a challenge because I have scheduled a surgery on my veins for the beginning of the year.  I don't mind that my legs look gnarly but they just ache when I've been on my feet or butt for more than a couple of hours.

If all goes well, I'd like to do a marathon and/or half marathon where I can actually prepare and race to see what I can do. If I get to do some races for free as a pacer that would just be a bonus. 

Now I get to “tag” other bloggers that I follow! I choose my swim coach who would be an awesome runner if not for a string of injuries, Andrea of and if he'll accept I'll also tag my favorite DM friend from Canadia, Steve.