With the confirmation page staring us in the face saying “Order Complete”, its official, Paige and I are running Leadville 100 this August!  I’m sure I will feel nervous at some point but for now, its sheer joy and excitement.  In fact, I wish I didn’t have to wait so long to run in the gorgeous mountains of Colorado!  I am looking forward to a lot of things this year but this has been on the “bucket list” for a while and three years ago, I went through the town of Leadville just to check it out and that only amplified my fascination with the race.  Even better, I will be surrounded by CHUGs, possibly the Corson boys, Hoops, and Paige - its going to be amazing!

Yesterday, on Ed’s recommendation, we met up with some CHUGs for a long run at Des Plaines River Trail.  I had never been there before and was looking forward to seeing a new area.  Jim picked us up at 7:15 AM and we headed north and west out of the city.  When we pulled into the parking lot, Brian and Ed were both there.  We said hello and got ready to roll.  They had gotten a fair amount of snow and the warm temps of the week had turn it into an uneven hardpack with ice underneath; the footing wasn’t bad but you did have to pay attention.  Paige’s ankle was bothering her some so she opted to turn back and run the paved trail around the lake, the rest of us continued on for an hour before turning around and finishing our run with her around the lake.  If you haven’t been to this area, it is a beautiful park with a lot of trail (both paved and crushed limestone).  They have picnic areas and a place to rent bikes.  The lake is good sized and a lap around is just shy of 3 miles.  As beautiful as it was with the frozen lake and snow, I’d love to see this place on a warm sunny afternoon.  I finished the day with 16+ miles.

We stopped for breakfast at the Townee Square Restaurant in Libertyville.  The food was good but it was the company that made the day, always good to spend some time with the CHUGs.  Thanks for driving Jim!

With Rocky Raccoon just 3 weeks away, it feels good to be getting in a few more miles.  Today, we will do 20+ which will be our first back-to-back long run for this go around - already looking forward to it!

It all started with that simple joke.  Paige and I had been contemplating running Rocky Raccoon 100 Mile together for a while and had discussed it with a few CHUGs to test their interest.  A few showed interest and Brian said that if we went, to let him know because he was interested.  Paige then posted the above knock knock joke on Brian’s Facebook page.  You have to be careful with what you say to Brian because he is an action oriented guy.  He took this to mean we had signed up and two minutes later, sent us his confirmation.  Paige and I sat there in disbelief.  We hadn’t done any long runs yet and with the temperatures in the single digits for the past couple of weeks, we weren’t all that excited about doing one now.  Add to that, Rocky was only a couple months away.  We wanted to run a 100 miler together and wanted that race to be early enough in the year that we could properly recover before the spring season.  We have heard great things about this race.  And, we love hanging out with Brelly and the other CHUGs who are also racing.  We had a lot of incentive to do Rocky.  But, there was still the lingering fact that we were way behind on our training and didn’t really feel like ramping it up.

Enter Windburn Six in the Stix.  We decided that we would use this race as our test of our fitness - if we got through it feeling good, we were in.  Well, we finished feeling great and that night we signed up.  Texas, here we come!

Making Our Way To The Start

Cold temps greeted us for the inaugural running of Windburn Six in the Stix.  When we pulled into the parking lot of the James “Pate” Philip State Park, the temperature was 2 degrees but the sun was shining and the wind wasn’t too bad.  Jim, fellow CHUG, was prepping the sled that will accompany him on his Arrowhead 135 adventure coming up in a month; from what I saw, he is looking strong and will finish with awesome tales from the trail - good luck Jim!  We finalized our prep, lingering in the warm truck before braving the cold for the race start.  It was amazing how many people showed up, there were 49 signed up but I expected only a handful of those to actually start - I’m not sure of the final number, but it was probably 25 or more.

Lap One: Fresh Snow

Brian got things underway just past 8AM and we all moved down the trail, slowly.  The trails had a good amount of snow on them and only a few sections had any tracks on them.  The first loop was blazing trail most of the way with lots of slipping and sliding.  I think we all expected it to pack down after a couple of loops but it was so cold that the snow stayed very loose and kept the trail challenging all day.  Within ten minutes, I was comfortably warm and within another ten, I was already starting to sweat.  I absolutely love the REI Powerstretch material and wore it top and bottom as my base/insulating layer.  I then layered on a windbreaker, a powerstretch balaclava and a hat.  My hands and feet were protected and quite toasty with windproof/waterproof socks and gloves from Pearl Izumi.

Jim And His Sled

The first loop was slow but fun with lots of conversation and the welcome surprise of feeling warmer than expected.  Because of the temperature, we decided not to carry water with us and stop each lap to get our fluids/nutrition.  Since the laps were only a little over 2 miles each, we had no problem staying hydrated.  Paige and I stayed together the whole day, just like we’d planned to do, but had the good fortune to run with several others throughout the day.  Jim was moving well with his sled, it was such a simple but well thought out set-up.  For those who aren’t familiar with the Arrowhead 135, it is a race that takes place during early February, its 135 miles, self supported (read: bring a cook stove to melt snow for water), takes place in International Falls (read: bitterly cold with temps dropping to the minus 30 range at night), Minnesota, and takes 2+ days to finish; he would never tell you but he’s a pretty tough dude.  Everyone commented on how tricky the footing was but seemed to be having a good time just the same.

Finishing Up A Loop

The next couple of laps went by pretty quickly, relatively speaking, and we were nearly halfway through the race.  Timed events have a whole different feel than distance based events and on Saturday, I was extremely glad it was only 6 hours and not a specific distance - it allowed us to relax and enjoy the day, rather than worrying about pace and how far we had left to go.  Everyone had placed their things in the shelter, so after each lap, there was a mix of people eating, drinking, adjusting their clothing, or just hanging out.  Senator Brett’s son, Marshall, was there and had a smile on his face all day - what a great kid!  Several people shared a variety of items including: hot chocolate, chicken soup, water and McDonalds - thank you, it made the day much better!

Brelly

As we wrapped up the run, the temperature had risen to mid-teen’s, the sun was still shining, and the wind remained calm.  Paige and I ran just over 20 miles - less than we were hoping but just fine for the conditions of the trail.  We all changed into dry clothes and then several of us headed over to The Nest Cafe for some lunch, it was the perfect ending to a great run.  Thank you to Brian for organizing another successful event and for those that showed up to share in the fun!

New Year’s Eve has never been a wild and crazy time for me and this year was no different.  Paige and I went out for dinner and then to see a fun movie called Did You Hear About The Morgans? We did stay awake to see the new year but only by a couple of minutes.  New Year’s day, we went to Waterfall Glen to meet up with some CHUGs for a run.  It was single digit cold and as it turned out, only Tony, Ian and one of Ian’s friends (Cathy) showed up.  We had a nice 13+ mile run on packed snow trails - thanks for organizing the run Tony.

After the run, it was off to Clinton for us.  We met up with some of the family for chinese food.  After dinner, it was off to Jim and Brenda’s house for more socializing and some yummy dessert - it was fun to see everyone.  Back at the grandparents’ house, it was movie time.  Four Christmases is what we decided on, unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the end of the movie because the disk stopped playing after an hour and a half - argh!

Saturday morning was a lazy one with Jim stopping by for coffee.  We hit the road around 11:30 AM to make it back to Chicago in time for our scheduled massages, which were glorious!  After a quick stop at the grocery store, we were home for the night.  We had so much fun on Friday, that we headed back to Waterfall Glen for our run on Sunday.  When we got back to the car, we had a message from Brelly about meeting them for dinner.  After a quick call, we decided on meeting at Portillo’s, a personal favorite of mine.  They were fresh off a cruise and getting engaged, so we had a lot to catchup on - it was awesome to see them.  A huge congratulations to the happy couple, we couldn’t be more excited for you two!