Sorry!

Sorry - I've not kept up with this blog this year. My bad! But it's the last weekend of the year and I must. I've been healthy, except for a bruised rib during a fall onto a rock towards the end of a Fall Creek 12 miler in November. It took me out for a couple of weeks. When I did the math, I found it was going to be ~impossible for me to get to my goal of a new PR for annual running miles. I set my new target to getting to 1000 miles for the 4th straight year. Even that would be pretty tough. It would require a lotta miles in December. Fortunately for our drought, we had lots of rain this month... but it made getting in running miles harder. I quickly had to embrace the rain. I did 10 half-marathon trail runs this month ("HM = 11.8-17 miles loosely defined), all in Fall Creek and Nicene Marks state parks. Tonight's was the most challenging I think, even though a 17 miler almost to Lower Summit Rd in Fall Creek was the longer. My hip flexors are pretty tired and I was slow today, and got a late start, getting on-trail at 1:55pm. The atmospheric river of rain was already coming down hard. I'm used to running in the dark now, with my Li-Ion headlamp. But tonight the rain seemed to get into the electronics and it was flipping between modes randomly, always settling on a blinking dim red glow. But I also worried that it had been on, in my CamelBak. If it died altogether I'd be in big trouble. The trail is quite treacherous in total darkness, next to the raging river, and I had 4 bridges which might be underwater..... so I decided to just let it stay on dim red flasher mode and take great care with roots, rocks, submerged bridges (one of which was actually floating, with just one side anchored! Touchy getting across that one). Thanks to my good night vision and having 3 fleece layers under my REI waterproof jacket to keep from getting hypothermic. It was an adventure! No annual running record, but at age=70, I did set a monthly running record; 191 miles; that's a 2300 mile per year average! Gratified to be this healthy.

How did that happen? This year I learned that ibuprofen shuts down the anabolic training effect - so you don't get stronger from hard efforts. Hardly fair! That was it - never taking ibuprofen again. Instead, the research guided me - the choice is a heaping tablespoon per day of turmeric spice, which is a powerful anti-inflammatory and does NOT shut down the anabolic effect. I have noticed! My left psoas now doesn't get sore unless I put in MUCH bigger miles than earlier (on trails. On asphalt, it can still kick in during races, as I saw on the Jenny Light 10K and the Turkey Trot 10K). And, I recover from whatever psoas pain in just a couple of days, not a week or more like in the farther past. 

Highlight of the year turned out not to be the GraniteMan Challenge as I'd hoped, which I felt I had to bail on when lightening caused fires ruined the air quality, and thunderstorms and lightening made the Tioga Run dangerous too. Instead I stayed home and did the Ironman Santa Cruz virtual; the ride with the competitors, the swim as a full 2 miler, with IM SC people the day before the race, and then a Fall Creek half marathon instead of doing the IM course out to Wilder. No, the highlight I felt was the Mt Diablo Summit Stomp. Despite getting lost, I did get in 16 miles and close to the summit. I'd love to do it again as a 30K, which is what I'd signed up for. 

The photo below I took this month during a less rainy Fall Creek 13 miler, at the Big Ben Tree. 

I was swimming well and hard, leading up to the hoped-for June Lake swim. Got in 21 'round the wharf mile swims, but - my pool swimming came to an abrupt end when the InShape pool was drained and is really slow in getting back and open again. 

I put in a very hard solid cycling leading up to September, but then, it was running that took over, especially when the rains came.