Cincinnati.

I have been working in the Cincinnati area for the past few weeks, and shall be here for the foreseeable future I guess... I like it quite a bit actually. Its not often other than when I am home that I get to enjoy the benefits of a decent sized city. These benefits include having a lot of options as to nice places to stay, the opportunity to eat healthy food, and going to Masters Swimming!! Running is kinda slow right now. I got in a trail run in the middle of a four day downpour at Mt. Airy on Monday. That was fun, other than that I am pretty much just making use of the dreadmill at the Y. I am getting in a lot of good swimming though with a Masters team in Florence, Kentucky.

A little trail run

I got two days off for Labor day, Sunday and Monday. My original intention was to go to Glacier National park, but I decided that time just didn't allow it. So instead I went to Helena, Montana. Still a ten hour drive each way, but really I have nothing better to do. Helena is a fairly cool town, the capital of Montana, nestled in to the Mountains. I did a short trail run right out of downtown, up to the summit of Mt. Helen. It was beautiful, like most mountain trails are, and reinforced my desire to quit my job and move West ASAP. Yes, I did once again make my ITB a bit too sore, but I had to do it. Nothing else really makes me happy.

This is a nice shot of the "1906 trail". I'm not sure how it got its name.

This is the rocky approach to the summit. About 2000' above town.

Hi!

I am still hammering away in the pool, I haven't missed a day since I've been in North Dakota. Today I went to the Turtle Mountains along the U.S. - Canadian border, and swam in Strawberry lake. It was nice, the water was really cloudy because it rained hard all night, but I never saw another person. I did see some Moose tracks. I also ran about 2 miles, on some old overgrown forest roads, and made an illegal entry in to Canada. That was kind of fun. I've been testing out my ITB by putting in some really short gentle runs, but I still don't think its ready to go. I can't believe how bad this stupid injury is crushing me down. Sooo Frustrating.... I get 2 days off for Labor day next weekend, enough time to get deep in to Montana, but since serious running isn't much of an option I have my wetsuit and will be looking for a nice glacier fed lake to swim in .


I wonder if they would really arrest me for this??

Minot.....

I have been in Minot, ND for a little over a week, and its looking like I will probably be here for a couple of months. Not thrilled, but at least there is a decent YMCA here in town that I have been able to swim at every night after work. I am getting in some pretty intense workouts and I am pretty happy that I should have a couple of months to start working on my swimming again. Hopefully the next place I end up will have a masters team and I will be in good enough shape to join it. I still haven't ran a step since the marathon. I am trying to heal my injuries once and for all, I think I'm gonna give it another month before I start slowly easing back in to running. I played Disk Golf in the Montana Badlands on Sunday. That was pretty neat. I am hoping to do an open water swimming race on Memorial day in Glacier National park in Montana. I have to try and get enough time off work to be able to make the drive though. I will probably sign up and hope for the best. With my job it always comes down to not knowing if I can go until like the night before.

Grand Island "trail" Marathon

This was a nice run. It was by no means a trail marathon, like they advertised. But the nice flat shaded two tracks made this fairly painless until it was over. Considering the handful of runs that I have done over the last 3 months, my goal was to finish in under 6 hours and not hurt myself. the time goal was easy, but the ITB flared up pretty bad afterwards. I guess the toll will be another couple of months of no running. I will probably take up knitting or something that my body can handle I suppose.
Heath did an awesome job. He wore a wonderful full body spandex outfit and wore a camelback on top of it. I saw him once on an out and back and he was happily in second place at that point.

Jason, Nick and Heath made this trip a lot of fun. I loved swimming in Lake Superior. I need to spend a lot more time there.

Not sure what happened with my map. Begin and end should be at the same spot. I think the distance is accurate though.

07-16-2011 Run

Happy to get in another little jog in what is the fittest city in the country..

Here is a link

Thats one of the things I love most about this place. There are always a ton of other people outside doing something. If I go running when it is 10 below zero, I know there will be other people out there with me. I love being surrounded by miles of bike trails, running trails, ski trails, lakes, rivers, all of it.. I love Minneapolis, but I really don't like the Midwest. I'll be sad when I move, but I know I will be a lot happier in the Pacific North West.

Finally. 6-26-2011

Finally got my first day off in over a month of 14 hour days. All the hard work has paid off because as of yesterday, all of the pipe is in the ground. I started working on this project in January 2008 trying to figure out how we were going to route it the 675 miles from Wyoming to California. Several accidental deaths, Four billion dollars, and Three and a half years later, the pipe is in the ground. There is still a lot of testing and clean up work to do before it is operational, but that is coming along quickly. I honestly never thought I would see this day.

Now apparently I am pushed along to another much smaller project in North Dakota. I'm not sure when I will be going, but sometime within the next few weeks is the best guess. The worst part about that is that the only town in the area is Minot, which if you have seen the news would know that it is currently under water. We are trying to figure out how we are going to live there and right now the discussion seems to be leaning towards building a camp because the already limited housing is obviously even more scarce now. It's only supposed to last 3 months, so I guess I can handle that. I'm kind of looking forward to being in the wide open prairie lands for awhile. As long as I'm outta there before the winter hits than everything is good.

Got my first pain free run of over 3 miles in since May 10th last night. I think I am good to start building back up now, I'm nervous and excited about that. I'm really hoping it goes well.

Here are some pics from the last couple of weeks.

Here is the last convoy of pipe being delivered on a nice rainy foggy typical Oregon morning.

One thing that I'm not gonna miss is hauling my awkward equipment up mountains to set it up.

This is one of the last stretches of pipe, strung out waiting to get welded together.

After the pipe is buried, one of the last things we do is place pipeline markers over it. This is one of the final stretches just as it turns South to California. Thats Shasta in the background. After we set the markers, the ground gets seeded with native plants, so in a year or two it will look a lot nicer hopefully.

And this of course is the California/Oregon state line. The end of the line for now. There is a big receiver station that has been built that other pipelines are going to tap in to.

05-22-2011 Update.

I haven't really been running since my last post. I have tried three times and each time got less than 2 miles before my illiotital band shut me down. Its a simple case of not running on hills for almost 2 months and then all of a sudden climbing them all day at work again and running on them after work.. I'm trying to let it rest for awhile. I'm guessing another couple weeks. A little disappointing considering that I live right next door to a mountain full of single track running trails. Obviously things could be a lot worse.

I did get the day off, so I took advantage of it and did a fast hard hike at Castle Crags over near Mt. Shasta. My goal was to summit Castle Dome, looking at the map it looks like I still had a half mile or so to go but it was freaking straight up. There were sheer vertical cliffs everywhere. I thought I was into the real cool area, but if you look at the aerial, you will see that I just merely got to the edge of the insanity. This was a really cool place, much like the rest of Northern California and Oregon.





My goal upon leaving my truck this morning was to go up there.... But after catching a glimpse, I quickly realized that it was way beyond my ability. I guess thats why I everyone that I passed on the trail was carrying rope and other rock climbing gear...

05-10-2011 Trail Run

Gorgeous night. It was snowing yesterday. Today I was wearing short sleeves.

05-8/9 -2011 Trail Runs

Well. I'm back in Oregon. I got an Apartment in Klamath Falls, very close to a lot of trails. Although the schedule as of now is 7 days a week, 12 hours a day until the end of July, hopefully I can find some time most evenings to run these trails. I won't be putting in any miles on the bike, but there is a pool and a masters swim team here that I would like to join.

Todays Run


Sundays Run

05-04-2011 Run

Two days left before I have to head back to work... This break has been great.. At least I get to stay in Klamath Falls this time..

05-01-2011 Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon

I loved this course. It took place in a beautiful area about 10 miles West of Minneapolis. I think I ran by Prince's house. It was cold. Maybe 34 degrees max. Windy, 20-30 mph. A little bit of snow and sleet. I had a really tough time getting going on this run. My legs were soo sore and stiff I was really bogged down for the first 7 miles or so. The pace was very easy cardio wise, just my legs were full of concrete... I definitely picked it up in the second half and ran a nice negative split! It was fun, I wouldn't be surprised if I passed 1000 people. No one passed me. It was just a constant passing of people. I loved it. Well, from a performance stand point I definitely would not run back to back halfs again, but I did enjoy this experience a lot. My next door neighbor Dan ran it with me and beat me by about a minute. I lost track of him right from the start because I got so far behind in the beginning and I was never quite able to catch up. I like having a neighbor that can beat me.



Unofficial results link has me 292 out of 2380 overall. It doesn't really have the breakdown of passing people like yesterdays unfortunately.

04-30-2011 Get in Gear Half Marathon

My goal was to negative split the race and still have something left for the Minnetonka Half tomorrow morning. I think I did it. It was cold and raining realllly hard. Like a downpour the whole time and winds were 20-30 MPH. Jason would refer to it as miserable. I like it and I think I run better in the rain, except for the blisters that you get from running in wet shoes. I am doing emergency treatment on them to make sure they are ready for the morning. Tomorrows race will feature snow showers in addition to a 20-30 mph West wind, that the first 7 miles of the course runs straight in to. Unfortunately the course never gets a wind advantage because it is a point to point that goes West and then South.



Results link. 81st out of 1021 overall. The race details are pretty cool, you can kinda see how I moved up as the race progressed. I actually beat me last Road half marathon, capital city in 2009 (by 3 seconds) and there was a lot more elevation change in this race.

04-26-2011 Run

04-24-2011 Run

Finally a nice day!!

I was really hoping that it would start getting nice out before I have to leave. I at least hoped that I would see a leaf but on a tree, that probably won't happen. It was really nice today though.

04-22-2011 Run

04-20-2011 Run

Saw Doc today, he claims that most likely I need two procedures done. An adducter release, and Sports Hernia surgery. Both are relatively simple procedures. The sports hernia is basically grafting mesh onto a tear that I have. The one that scares me is the adducter release, they cut the tendon off of the bone where it meets the groin. Apparently a lot of athletes including high level runners have it done and the success rate is over 95%. It just freaks me out to have a tendon "released". Recovery time is about 6 to 8 weeks, so not really that bad. I have to run really hard this week, to try and get it flared up really bad so I can then go back to see him next Wednesday for a final diagnosis.

If all goes well, I might be able to have the surgery done before I go back to Oregon so I can get on the road to recovery.

04-19-2011 Run

Tomorrow the big day!! (I go see the Surgeon) Had to do a couple of speed bursts to ensure that I am in sufficient pain tomorrow.

04-17-2011 Run (MudBall Classic)

This was a fun race, that was probably easily winnable given the appropriate effort. It was an easy course for a trail run, they could have made it much much tougher, they kind of skirted around all of the big hills and kept the course on big easy trails. I need to start my own race in there. It would have be a 5k with 2000' of vertical.

Downtown popping over the lakes and trees.

And Begin.

For a mudball classic there really wasn't very much mud. There was one really muddy spot that got everyone really good. But the rest of it was just a nice little trail run. There is a pretty tough trail half marathon here in September that I would like to do.

04-13-2011 Run

A little bit..

04-08-2011 Run

Barefoot run with The Bec on South Beach. South Beach Triathlon is this weekend, so lotsa triathletes running around.

04-06-2011 Run

I love Spring!

04-05-2011 Run

Hit the trails a little bit to get an idea of what the Mudball Classic is gonna be like. Snow is just ankle deep slush for the most part on the trails. I'm imagining that in a week and a half, its gonna be super muddy so that the race will happily live up to its name.

04-04-2011 Run

Lake ice is fading fast. I bet there will be open water by the end of the week.

04-02-2011 Run

Beautiful day. Tons of people on the trails.

Here is a sweet video that someone made within the past couple of days riding around Minneapolis. I don't have the balls to ride through traffic the way they do yet, but I suppose I might get there. They stop by a couple of bike shops too. Pretty cool. At 3:00 into it, you can see Rebeccas design studio. Its the big castle looking thing in the distance, its the old Grain Belt Beer brewery on the Mississippi River. Her company spent 25 million renovating it.

04-01-2011 Run

Oh my god. The last 5 months of running have been the most pathetic things I have ever seen. I'm not really saying its gonna get any better immediately. I see the surgeon on April 20th. But I probably won't have surgery until I get done with this project. Maybe this fall??

The snow is rapidly melting so there are ankle deep slush filled streams everywhere. I love it!

I have started going to Masters again, I am the slowest person in the slowest lane, but I expect that to change rapidly as I regain some fitness.

I love Cycling as my main form of transportation!

03-29-2011 Run

03-22-2011 Run

Add a mile to this, for some reason my Garmin didn't record my first mile or so, just the time. I think I started running before I got enough satellites.

VERY excited to be back in Minneapolis. Hopefully the snow melts and it warms up soon!!

03-19-2011 Trail Run

Last run in Oregon for awhile! I could barely sleep last night because I was so excited to go home!

03-18-2011 Trail Run

Heading home for a month or two. I guess I have to take the Peterson Ridge Rumble off my schedule.

03-16-2011 Trail Run

I really regret not bringing my camera for this run. I was on the Eastern edge of the Coast range, running amongst huge moss covered conifers, deep fern and boulder filled ravines and a nice snow rain mix. It was gorgeous. I just love Oregon. Now I fully understand why so many world class ultra runners call Ashland home. The trail system is amazing. I briefly ran on the catwalk trail, the tooth pick trail, Queen of Hearts, and the White Rabbit. My original intention was to just run up the catwalk trail, but I had to turn around after less than a mile because I was starting to wonder if I was gonna hurt myself. My legs feel pretty good for all the hill work they just went through. When I move to Klamath Falls, I will be visiting Ashland a lot more often. I was kinda sad because last time I ran here was last April when Rebecca and I visited Ashland while on vacation. That was fun. If you look at the aerial view and scroll West, you can see that West of Ashland is just rugged wilderness until you hit the coast. Another sad note, the project has been pretty much shut down for the last 2 days because on Monday another one of our co-workers got killed, and one other broke his back, that makes four KIA's since this project started, and at least 20 serious injuries. FML

03-13-2011 Trail Run

This is trail running to me..





I cried enough to my bosses that they are finally allowing me to move to Klamath Falls. So by the end of this month, I am going to move there and get a house on the side of a mountain so that I can  run out my door and be on trails. That is where I will become a mountain trail running master. There is also a masters swim team in Klamath Falls that I am going to join too, so hopefully I will be able to get back enough of my swim fitness  that I will be able to do an open water race or two this summer.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that I have been resting my Achilles enough that it won't become a chronic injury. It felt fine today, but it still has been giving me some problems at work.My groin on the other hand felt like a screw driver was in there prying at my tendons for the entire run. I will be having surgery done on it when I get back to Minneapolis after this job is over. The Doctor tells me that I probably won't hurt it any worse than it already is if I keep running on it, as long as I can put up with the pain.

03-07-2011 Run

Achilles was 98% pain free. I think I got lucky. I had to watch a river crossing bore for the past four days, so I got a lot of rest. It was perfect timing. I think tomorrow I will be safe to get back to running!

03-03-2011 Run

03-02-2011 Run

03-01-2011 Run

Smooth..

02-27-2011 Run

Worked 98 hours last week. Wanted to do nothing sooo bad! But then I thought about all the people that work 40 hours at a desk job and then feel like they need to sit there and watch tv all weekend and I said F that!! My heart don't pump no kool aid!!

I made a couple of attempts early in the run to find a way deeper in to the mountains, but the powder was just too deep. I found a lone set of cross country ski tracks and I made my own trail by doing multiple loops following them.

02-24-2011 Run

02-22-2011 Run

02-21-2011 Run

This run felt really good, other than my perpetual groin injury. I feel like I am actually starting to get some of my fitness back!

02-20-2011 nothing

The past 2 days of heavy snowshoeing at work and a little bit of pain in my ankle from it helped me to decide to skip my long run tonight, just to be safe. Plus I really don't have the energy or motivation after working 13 hours on a Sunday. I really need Sundays off or Saturdays and Sundays for that matter!!! I hate not even getting one day a week to plan a run and get away from this project. You know its getting bad when its hard to remember what day it is, for several days in a row.  (I know I had two snow days this past week, but its not the same. I still have to dink around at our office (a big garage we kind of set up some tables etc. in) and I am still pretty much stuck in Lakeview)

02-18-2011 Run

Got another snow day today. It would be sweet if I weren't stuck in essentially the most remote town in the lower 48.

02-16-2011 Snowshoe Run

Got a snow day today, so I got to have some fun. I headed for Mt. McLoughlin with hopes of doing some snowshoe running on the Pacific Crest Trail that cuts across part of it. Unfortunately when I got there, there was waaaayy too much powder for my little snowshoes. Probably a good 30" or so of new snow in the past 24 hours. I took about 5 steps and decided to go elsewhere. I headed back towards Klamath Falls to hit some trails at Moore Mountain where there was only maybe 5" of new snow. All I can say again about snowshoe running is that it is freakin hard. Going downhill is not that bad really. I got in a really nice sprint. But going uphill is an absolute killer, and I hit plenty of hills today. Garmin Connect tells me only a little over 1000', I'm gonna argue with it and say a little over 2000'.

Here is a little picture of my truck in the parking area to give you a general idea of what it looks like in the area after a fresh snow.

02-15-2011 Run

Hey Remus, Your Friend, "wind", has been hanging out here too!! There has been a high wind warning the past three days. I think today there were sustained winds around 50mph most of the day with gusts around 80mph. The last couple of days it has actually felt like I was running in water when running in to the wind. When running in the cross wind, my wind side foot kept getting blown in to my non-windside foot and almost kicking it out from under me. It was pretty cool. It was nothing compared to working in it all day though.

02-14-2011 Run

02-13-2011 Run

Had to work today so I didn't get to leave town for a trail run, but I did get done a little early. FML

02-12-2011 Run

02-11-2011 Run

02-09-2011 Run

Here is a link to a pretty sweet race in Minnesota that I think Remus and Heath should do next year.
135 miles at 30 below.

02-08-2011 Run

Yup.

02-06-2011 Run

I woke up to a beautiful morning in my favorite city - Bend, Oregon!!
The view of  Mt. Bachelor and the Three sisters as I left my hotel room this morning.

With temperatures nearing 60 today, I hit the trail in just shorts and a t-shirt.

I love it here.

02-04-2011 Run

<iframe width='465' height='548' frameborder='0' src='http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/66627918'></iframe>

02-02-2011 Run

<iframe width='465' height='548' frameborder='0' src='http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/66399381'></iframe>

01-31-2011 Run

After the race yesterday, I drove an hour South of Mt. Shasta to the Palm trees, 70 degree temps and Shorts wearing people in Redding, California.

Today I ran at the Whiskeytown Lake National Recreation Area. It is gorgeous here, I ran the Davis Gulch trail, a steep twisty turny rocky trail that winds its way in and out of a bunch of waterfall filled gulches that drain down in to the lake.

Here is picture I took from the trail that shows generally what the area looks like

Here is a pretty average shot of the trail, probably one of the easier parts.

Here is a picture of some Wild mistletoe that lines much of the trail, there are also a lot of wild California grapes along the trail.

I had a nice two days off, but now I have to head back to work. My boss warns me that I may be here until next Christmas. Hopefully my house will be sold long before then, and Rebecca will be out here with me! I think we are both done with the Midwest. Why would you stay in that cold, snow infested flat land, when you could be in a place like this??

Mt. Shasta Snowshoe Race

So this was a Western regional qualifier for the US snow shoeing Championships that will be held this coming March in Northwest Wisconsin, right near the Minnesota border!

This was my first time ever running in my new Crescent Moon - Gold 12 Racing snowshoes...

It was fun, my lungs are still burning 5 hours later. I wasn't sure what was gonna happen with this race, I had no clue how I would pace myself. There was fresh powder falling and it was on the side of a huge mountain. I ended up starting really slow and quickly realized that the main pack was way too slow for my liking so I just kinda took off, my legs ended up feeling like they were full of concrete pretty quickly, but the fact that I knew there were only 2 people in front of me gave me some motivation as I attempted to chase them down. I closed the gap pretty good, but my "normally devastating finishing sprint" was hampered by the approximately 200 lb snowshoes that I felt like I was wearing, I ended up with 3rd place over all, missing 2nd by probably 10 seconds and first by probably less than 20 seconds. Not sure when final results will be up somewhere, but I will link them when they are.

There weren't as many people in the race as I thought there would be, I think the fact that tire chains were required to get to the race site might have scared a few people away, but I like snow shoe running, and I did qualify for the National Championships so I might make an attempt to get back home for that.

01-28-2011 Run

01-26-2011 Run

01-25-2011 Run

01-24-2011 Run

It was 46 below zero in Minnesota yesterday. Working outside in that for 14 hours would have been a little uncomfortable. I guess for that reason I should be thankful that I'm working in Oregon!

01-21-2011 Run

This might go down as my weakest month for running since 2007. I'm feeling a lot better, so maybe things are looking up.

I did see this guy today though..

01-17-2011 Run

01-16-2011 Run

We finally got a day off at the last minute because our "superiors" (rolling eyes) decided that they need to spend today reviewing safety guidelines after three near fatal incidents in the past week. My suggestion was to give us more days off, so that people can try and get some rest, and so I'm not working with a bunch of zombies that could kill me with their screw up at any moment. Half the people I work with have pneumonia, everyone is coughing and sick. I was on anti-biotics for ten days, I've been off them for less than a week and I'm already sick again... The favorite saying out here right now is FML.. "Fu*k my life!"

Anyways, I got a little bit of much needed trail therapy today. It was pretty cool, because its really warm 45ish, and the melting snow is ripping down the mountains everywhere. I got nice and muddy, plus it is raining and foggy. My mind drifted back to Minneapolis and the 5 below and snow they have this morning and it only reinforced my drive to move out here. Our house will be for sale as soon as winter breaks...

*Update*
Went to Dr before I headed back to Lakeview because I was coughing up a little bit of blood and chest was hurting. I have Pneumonia. Doc put me on something called a Zpack, said it should take care of it. FML.

01-14-2011 Run

This has been a pretty tough week. As you can see, we are making progress, but it is killing us. People are getting pretty tired. Still 7 days a week, at least 14 hours a day..

The pipe is lucky enough to get carried in by helicopter, Myself... I get to snowshoe mostly.

update

OK, I have been "training" like crazy, just not running. My days have consisted of loooong snowshoe treks in in deep dark mountainous frozen forests. I have been so tired at the end of everyday that all I can think about is getting to sleep.. The worst is almost over for now, so I should get back in to the running game in the next couple of days. I think I am going to do the Mt. Shasta snowshoe race on January 30th, so at least I can say I have been training for that!

This is a pretty typical view lately. Double click on the pic to get a better view, the snow on the trees is frozen solid.

01-05-2010 Run

Another day gone.

01-03-2011 Run

Happy to get in a run!

01-01-2011 Run

Started off the year with a nice little jog. I have a lot of confidence going in to this year now that I am finally on track to get my perpetual groin injury taken care of.