Traveling the West Part II

And, after much delay (for a good reason - more on that to come), here is Part II of my 3-week teaching trip out west.  If you missed the first Part (days 1-5ish), click here.  I left my notes/schedule elsewhere so I'm going to do my best to recall days/hike lengths.

I left off with day 5 - leaving Zion National Park.  After leaving Zion, we headed through Vegas to end the day in Sequoia and King's Canyon National Park.  Let me cover Vegas first.  Vegas is not my thing and I was NOT looking forward to going.  The stop was more or less a quick trip through to see the strip and have lunch.  It was fine.  I had no plans to ever go back (more on that later too).

We camped in King's Canyon in a pretty nice NP campground, though the lack of lights in the bathroom at the campsite was challenging at night!  I hiked to Mist Falls, which was a nice easy hike, about 9-10 miles.

Sequoia National Park



Sequoia National Park

King's Canyon National Park



Hike to Mist Falls in King's Canyon



Mist Falls, King's Canyon



Bear on the Mist Falls trail

After a couple of days in King's Canyon/Sequoia, we headed to California and stayed in Santa Paula for three nights.  Our first day in the area, we took a boat out to the Santa Cruz (part of the Channel Islands), where we went on a guided hike on Nature Conservancy land (estimated 3-4 miles).  The topic of the hike was mostly biogeographic in nature, which was awesome since that is my specialty!  Very interesting!  One downfall of the hike is that there were loose rocks on steeper slopes and I slipped.  And fell.  And hit my tailbone hard enough to knock all the air out of my lungs.  And gashed my arm pretty good (I have a very nice scar).  It took me 10 minutes just to sit up in my tent the next morning.  If you've hit your tailbone before, you know that it is an injury that is hard to come back quickly from!  It took nearly 4 weeks for my tailbone to stop aching constantly.  Never-the-less, the Channel Islands are very cool:

The next day, we headed for LA.  I drove a 15 passenger van in which the breaks were dying while attempting to follow four other vehicles.  It was awesome (note the sarcasm).  We hit the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Chinese Theater, and other such touristy places, a conservatory, and Venice Beach.  To express how I felt about LA, I will share exactly how many pictures I took over two days.  I took 16 photos.  Can you tell how much I loved it?  Hah. 

I love White Christmas!  :)

After a few days in the LA area, we headed out through Needles, CA to the Grand Canyon.  After three days of driving said van through LA traffic (which I am not used to - I was living in a town of 10,000 for the past three years and I drive a Versa hatchback - not the same thing!), I was tired.  And then one of our big 15-passanger vans broke down with "total catastrophic failure". 

I made a trip back to Vegas (where I had said I would never go back to about a week earlier and about 100 miles one way) to pick up a new rental van, then drove the 100 miles back to where the van broke down to gather the items that couldn't fit in the vans that headed straight to the GC, and then to the Grand Canyon.  We were held up by a major accident on Highway 40 in northern Arizona and by the time we were driving north to the Grand Canyon, it was around 2am (I had driven from 8am-about 11:00pm with about a three hour break for lunch/van checkup) and the elk were out in insane numbers.  We ended up driving 20-30mph for about 60 miles and made it to the campsite around 4am.

I was up at about 6am and then needed to drive a student to Williams on the first day in the GC.  The second (and last) day in the GC, I needed to drive to Flagstaff.  I had a couple of hours at the end of the second day, and since I was working on about 4 hours of sleep total in three days and had yet to see the GC yet (though I've been there before), a few awesome students went on the shuttle with me.

So, my goal of hiking the Grand Canyon did not happen.  I had been training for my half on hills to get ready to hike the GC (though I don't know if I could have ever trained for that type of hike!).  There was no way it was going to happen on this trip with so little time and sleep and so much stress!  It's okay though, there was a lot going on that was more important.  I'll get back one day and do it. 

After the Grand Canyon, we headed towards the four corners area, New Mexico, Great Sand Dunes, and then back through Kansas to head home.  After all that went on over the week before this, I was exhausted and not really taking many photos.  I was still getting up early to go for walks.  I was glutened in California and then again in New Mexico and Kansas so I was feeling awful and everything I did felt like a lot of work.  Let's just say that when you are glutened with Celiac, life is pretty rough for a while (still dealing with the effects).

Border of New Mexico and Colorado

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado - so much fun to climb!

So that's it!  Three weeks of awesomeness!  It really was a great trip and I'm very happy I went.

While I was gone, I was also attempting to close on my new home (which was supposed to happen 1 week after I returned home from the trip but was pushed back a week after I got back)!  Talk about adding a little stress to the mix!  I will be working on a post on my whole home buying process because it was insane.

Catching Up and Traveling the West Part I

Good afternoon!  It's been a crazy three weeks since I was last able to post!  Lots going on!  Let's start with a photo of my mom and I from my half (recap is here).

Putting on a happy face though I was pretty upset that the race got pulled.

Following the race, I boarded a plane and flew to Colorado to join a field course that I was coteaching.  My goal for the field course was to hike as much as I could and to maintain my weight as it was going to be impossible to count calories or have much control over what I was eating (beyond gluten free of course).  There were 26 students and 2 faculty members (including myself) on this trip, so being extremely picky about what I was doing or eating was really not an option.

Never-the-less, on Day 1, I got my butt out of my sleeping bag and went out for a walk.  I knew that after my half on Sunday, I would be quite stiff if I did nothing but sit in a van all day.  I only had time for a quick 35-minute walk + ~10 minutes of pushups and abs but it was definitely worth the effort!  Day one involved driving from Lakewood, CO to Moab, UT.  A few photos of the trip:



Vail Pass, Colorado



North of Moab



North of Moab

 Day 2 was spent hiking in Arches National Park.  I hiked up to Delicate Arch and then hiked Devil's Garden to Double O Arch (about 8 miles total).  While I love hiking, the hike to Double O Arch was...not worth the effort.  It really wasn't cool enough for the amount of rock climbing that was involved.  I did get to walk around on the top of the fins though, so there was a silver lining!


Delicate Arch



Delicate Arch with me in it for scale (I'm the little pink and black blobie).



Delicate Arch



Hike to Double O Arch in the Devil's Garden area

 Day 3 was driving from Arches to Zion, hitting Capital Reef National Park and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (awesome!) along the way.


Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument

 Day 4 was hiking in Zion National Park!  Up until this point in the trip, I had been to all of the places were were hitting.  I had never been to Zion and I would dare to say that the hiking day at Zion was perhaps my favorite day of the whole trip.  I hiked 5.4 miles up to Angels Landing and followed that with 1-2 miles in the Narrows (no photos because I was worried about getting my camera wet - you are just walking through the Virgin River between rock cliffs - cool but tiring!).

Angel's Landing is perhaps the best hike I have ever done.  You climb up about 1500 feet, using chains to pull yourself up for the last mile, and you end up at the top of a cliff overlooking most of the park.  Very, very cool!  Very worthy of lots of photos!  :)


First look of the morning of the "oh crap, that's where we are going?" sight at the trail head.  Angel's Landing is the very highest point in the photo above.



A look back at the beginning of the trail



A look back at "Walter's Wiggles", the zig zagging portion of the trail



A look forward to the chain climb up the cliff to Angel's Landing (people in front for scale)



View from the top of Angel's Landing



View from the top of Angel's Landing



Days 5 and 6 involved driving from Zion to Sequoia and King's Canyon National Park, which is where I'll leave off for the day!  More to come!

Cellcom Half Marathon Recap

When I set my race goals on Friday, I mentioned that I hoped I would have time to post how the Green Bay Cellcom Half Marathon went.  Well, I have time after all.  The race was stopped due to excessive heat.

So, here's how things went down this morning:  we got up SUPER early (3:30am), showered, ate, and booked it up to Green Bay.  By the time we parked, we had about 45 minutes to hang out and wait for the race to start.  And then we were off! 

I had been hydrating like no other for the past few days (especially yesterday) because I knew the forecast called for sun and heat.  Still, the first water station came up about a half mile too late - I was thirsty!  I was moving along at a great pace though - I was at about 26.5 minutes for the first 2 miles.

I hit my stride earlier than normal (normal = ~4-5 miles in, today = ~2.5-3 miles in) and was feeling great - warm but great!  I was cruising along, stopping and hydrating at every water station (side note - Gatorade makes me sick).  Miles 1-7 just flew by.  It went so fast!

I had a hard time during mile 8, though I'm not sure why.  I was back at my goal pace by mile 9 and continued to speed up from there.

Then mile 11 came up.  Several police and all the volunteers were yelling at us to stop and head back to the last water station (about 2 blocks back).  The race was being called due to excessive heat.  The police told us that hundreds of people had collapsed and there were no ambulances left nor was there room at the emergency room.

We were 2.1 miles from the finish line and we had no choice but to stop and not finish.  I was feeling so good that I really wasn't feeling the heat that much and I knew I could finish the race - and finish it under my #3 reach goal of 2 hours and 55 minutes.

Having no choice, we were told that we should wait for a shuttle to take us back to Lambeau (where the start/finish lines were), but most of us chose to walk back because we were only 5-6 blocks away.  I ended up actually crossing the finish line but it wasn't real as I didn't actually finish the race.

I think what was so frustrating about this situation, even though I understand why the decision had to be made, is that I had worked so hard and was doing so well.  I trained for nearly five months.  I did 6 training workouts that were 11+ miles (two 13.15's).  I had to plan around this date for traveling for work.  It was definitely not the result I was looking for and I was mad.

I'm calming down now and starting to realize that, all along, I was in this for the training, not the race itself.  The race was just my celebration of working so hard.  It's a victory lap.  I know I'm capable of completing a half marathon.  There are several this fall in Wisconsin and I hope to sign up and train for another one.  I've been told that training the second time around is not as big of a deal and won't take nearly as long (though, I really didn't need nearly 5 months this time around).  I'm glad I did this and am happy with what I was able to accomplish. 

So, with all that being said, I was able to get some race stats.  I had 2 mid-race updates sent to me via my timing chip and I also wore a watch that I hit start on when I crossed the start line.  So, here's as much as I know about my stats/splits:

Mile 2 (unofficial):  26:30 (average of 13.25 min/mile, pace of 4.56 mph)

Mile 5:  1:03:56 (average of 12.786 min/mile, pace of 4.69 mph)

Mile 10:  2:09:05 (average of 12.9 min/mile, pace of 4.65 mph)

Mile 11 (unofficial):  2:20:13 (average of 12.75 min/mile, pace of 4.7 mph)

Yes, you read that right - Mile 11 was 11 mins, 8 seconds, walking!  I was booking it and feeling good!  If I were to have continued at the average pace listed at mile 11, and I likely would have, I would have finished the half marathon in 2:45:45.  Nice!  I'm very happy with my pace, I have never reached this speed in training and my 5-mile Turkey Trot pace was only 4.6 mph, which was really pushing it at the time.

I wish I could post a photo, but my mom left with her camera and won't be back before I leave.  I will post one when I get back to town and will ask her to post one to Facebook for those who are friends with either one of us. 

I have to hit the shower and then I'm off for three weeks!  I'll hopefully have lots of (good) hiking stories and great photos when I'm back!