Sunday, September 30, 2012

The All-inclusive update


Alright, so I am just going to do an all-in-one update post so that I can actually get up to date on my latest goals and stories...

At the end of the summer, my family and I went to the lake for a much anticipated, much needed vacation. The lake we go to and is probably one of the cleanest most beautiful lakes in the country. We camped on a small island that is split up in to two campsites which we had to ourselves almost the whole two weeks we were there. We spent most of the time out on the boat relaxing, having fun and eating a lot.















It is needless to say that we had a lot of fun. Now, we spent the first couple of weeks in August at the lake and our half marathon was at the end of August, so we actually spent a good amount of time training as well. Every morning we would take the boat over to the marina and park it there and go on a nice run through the beautiful town of Bolton Landing, NY. Some mornings we would also head over to the main land and run the trails shown in the pics below.


There were some obvious obstacles that I ran into (the trail being washed out completely leaving large ditches) so we ended up running most says in Bolton Landing. One of the days we were up there, I went out for a run, planning to run about 4 miles. The run is an out-and-back sort of thing, so once I hit the 2 mile mark, I didn't quite feel ready to turn around, so I kept going. Before I knew it, I was 5 miles away from home and did a full 10 miles completely barefoot! It was an awesome accomplishment. My feet were tired after all was said and done and I had a pretty awesome blister on one of my toes, but other than that I felt great. It was a breakthrough moment for me when I realized how much I really enjoy running and the freedom of being capable of running long distances. It got me really excited for the half marathon to come. Well, here comes the next part of the story.

After the lake, we moved!
We moved in to our new apartment the day before the half marathon. We are really excited about our new home. The downside to living in the west in the mountains and training on the east at sea level, is that where we live is almost 5000 feet higher is elevation than where we trained.

Either way, after our one day of acclimation, we left our baby girl with my sisters and headed off at 5 am to the start of the race. The Top of Utah Half Marathon starts up a canyon and runs down into town. After much thought and analysis of the roads and such, I decided I was going to be running the half in my Huaraches. Being a canyon road, they are really rough and covered with a lot of gravel. Any barefoot runner knows that this is a recipe for some bloody, bruised feet, so I went with my huaraches to ensure that I would finish. Well, it went awesome!! I had probably 15-20 people stop me while running to ask about my sandals, it was very entertaining. I was doing awesome but starting to tire until about 10 miles I got a second wind that lasted until about 12 miles. The last mile you can see the finish line the whole way. My legs and everything were doing just fine, but my feet were pretty fatigued. I continued to run the entire way though and finished! It was an awesome experience and I am super happy that we did it. Now I, just like many others that run races, aspire to do more. Bigger, better, longer, crazier races are in the works for the future. I am not just talking about a full marathon, although I do plan on running the full marathon next September. I am talking about Ultras. I WILL be an ultra-runner  Check back later and I'll talk about where this dream came from. Also, I will be writing a better review on the Huaraches I ran in, I fell completely in love with them, thus I would like to give a more tried and tested review of them.


Wednesday, September 26, 2012

I am not dead.

Alright, so I know that the last time I posted something, I said that it was going to be just a couple of weeks. What I mean was that it was going to be a couple of months, you just had to read between the lines. Anyway, I am back, I have some stories and I cannot wait to post them up here.

Posts to come:
1. Running at Lake George
2. Top of Utah Half Marathon
3. We moved!
4. New running goals/adventures

Check back later to see the stories and for some new barefoot running tips!!