The wife and I went up into the mountains for a little vacation last week. Just about every year for the last 20 years or so her parents and other relatives go and rent a cabin in Estes Park, CO for a week. The area up there is fantastic, scenic and just feels so healthy… although unfortunately the cabin they’ve stayed in for the last 20 years hasn’t kept up with the times. Especially the beds and chairs.

We haven’t gone every year, but this year we were able to book plane tickets using frequent flier miles so the trip was fairly cheap overall.

By the 3rd day the terrible beds had taken their toll. I managed to tweak a rib on my right side which managed to eventually die down to a dull throbbing pain… unless I sneezed. Whenever I sneezed a point on my back connected to that rib would really really hurt. I suffer from Autosomal dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst syndrome (the craziest version I found on the wikipedia page)… basically I sneeze whenever I go from dark into the light… or in the case of a bright sunny day from the light into the bright. Ugh. I was sneezing a lot since the weather was basically perfect the whole time. Ouch.

The good news is that running up there was fantastic. I had to slow down a little because of the elevation (8000+ ft. compared to the whopping 600 ft. in Dallas) but it was cool and dry and just perfect for the training. One of the nice things I discovered too is that I enjoyed the climb. At maximum I gained 1200 feet on my runs, which is quite a lot in comparison to flat Dallas.

Here are the first two runs. The third is still on the watch:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3726314
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3736116

I had problems when I got back to Dallas though. My Sunday run was just terrible. My Tuesday run was even worse. I finally got in to see the Chiropractor today and sure enough those terrible beds and the tiny stiff airplane seats had taken their toll. I was totally out of whack and it was making me favor one leg over the other which was putting too much strain on my left shin/calf. Nice. I’m going to turn today into a rest day and run tomorrow instead to let the adjustment have enough time to set.

My coworker reports that he pulled his calf while I was gone and hasn’t been able to properly train either. He’s ahead though so hopefully he’ll be able to complete the training by December.

News from Mom:

Well I did it! I successfully ran a half marathon. It only took me 4 days to do it. My total weekly time was 14.4 miles. The Garmin is so fun, I know to the second how fast (or slow in my case) I am moving. I also discovered that I can actually walk faster than I run.