Mysterious Pelvic Injuries

The area between my pelvis and right leg is hurting. A lot. It doesn't feel quite like the hip flexor, but it doesn't feel like my groin either. All I know is that I am limping all over the place. I ran less than 2 miles yesterday and it is one big hobble fest today.

In good news, I am trapped in the woods in Vermont and running from our house has two options: Up a big hill and then turn around and go down or Down a big hill and turn around and go up. So I don't love running here anyway. (So the hill doesn't look so bad in the photos, but it is uphill for miles and miles and miles without any true flats, so it wears on you. And add the snow.)

We have snow here at least! Yay for white Christmas! I hope you all have a good one, while I sit on the couch and have my mom bring me breakfast. I love my mom.

Dublin 2012!

Hotel rooms are booked. Dublin 2012! Good times! We'll return later to the question of if I really want to run another marathon...

In other news, we rented this cabin by Mount Rainier for New Year's Eve. You have to ski or snowshoe in (or bribe the ski patrol to bring you up on that stylin' snowmobile). It sleeps 14. Party time! Of course, we do have to haul in all the booze ourselves...

Sinister Minister!

Oh my, how did I forget! Team BOMIAS also did a trail relay in Alberta this summer (the Sinister 7)! I had to run 8 miles downhill in the dark being chased by bears and cougars. Even with my huge ass head lamp, it was hard to see and so running was really hard. My hands were cut up from falling and where I had to essentially shuffle down steep banks into creeks because the gravel was so loose that it was hard to get footing.

But it was good times! The race was really well done and we had a blast. Some random Canadian let us stay at their house for free and he slept in his camper. Oh Canada! You're so sweet.

The year in review

Since Glaven needs a place to make suggestive comments in response to my comments on his blog, I thought I would pop in and give an update. It's been over a year, so I imagine approximately three people will read this, but hey! I'm procrastinating!

So I ran Berlin and then proceeded to do nothing for a long time.

Then I signed up for the Avenue of the Giants Marathon with some Iowa friends, got really sick in February (woah, vertigo!) lost all my fitness, but ran the half anyway, despite having a long run of 2 miles. Gorgeous course. The half is totally PR material. I recommend it whole-heartedly.

I organized a team for the Epic Prelay from Portland to Eugene. It was a gorgeous course. I can't recommend running in Oregon enough.

I was going to do the Ragnar Pacific Northwest Relay, but on short notice I got flown to Australia for an interview (for a job I didn't get, but free trip to Australia!).

Here I will gently suggest that you avoid doing Ragnar races in the future. As a relay veteran, I have done two Ragnars and many independently run relays. If you haven't heard, they started a new relay in Colorado, which runs the course of a long standing relay (simply named The Colorado Relay) in reverse. In fact, the Ragnar race organizer was given a free entry by The Colorado Relay as a courtesy, ran the race, and then a week later began the plans to poach the course.

My Ragnar experiences do not trump my independent experiences in terms of organization or support (in fact, Ragnar's Great River Relay has been my worst experience), so this is not a case of the better man winning, simply bullying by a larger organization. There is room for other relays in Colorado (Epic has a new one as well - they developed a unique route and picked a weekend that doesn't overlap with the long established weekends of other races in Colorado). So on principle, I will not be organizing any more Ragnar teams. There are plenty of great races out there without the Ragnar label, so go do those!

Sorry for the diversion! Anyway, it is all moot, since I am moving to Ireland! So I am guessing there will be no relay for me in the near future, but Dublin Marathon 2012? Anyone?

Also, I'm wearing the German chicken hat today for an office Halloween party. Best hat ever!