Should I Walk the Bolder Boulder?
Thursday, May 1, 2008
24 Days Until Bolder Boulder

When I arose at 2:30 am, it was blustery but dry. I got up not knowing what to expect. My weight was at 204 so I knew I didn’t make my April-ending goal of 200. I also knew I would have trouble getting to 200 by Saturday. There were just too many good things to eat.

At the YMCA, I shot a few baskets and then Angela joined me. We had come in only seconds apart so I pretended to run ahead of her. We hit the trail and I felt better than I had yesterday, After just 10 minutes, we noticed it was raining lightly. It wasn’t enough to bother us and I actually liked it.

Then, after another 10 or 15 minutes, tiny hail began to sputter around us. The pellets were so small they almost were unnoticeable. I managed to run the initial length of the route and felt OK. Then, on the return, I started feeling poorly again. Now it was snowing albeit very lightly.

The temperature was a brisk 35°F or so. With the wind-chill factor, it felt colder but I liked that a lot. After doing a majority of the run, I started my “interval training.” No, I didn’t speed up by sprinting and then return to a normal pace. Rather, I ran a normal pace and that, at times, slowed down. Perhaps that might be called “Reverse Interval Training” or something such as “Anti-Interval Training.” The acronym could be “AIT” and pronounced like “ate” – as in “I can’t believe I ate the entire birthday cake myself.”

Today we saw no foxie and that was disappointing. With nearly daily sightings for a week, we had become spoiled. Somehow, I completed the run although I knew my running partner could have finished well ahead of me.

While I was getting Holly up and making breakfast, it was a full-blown snowstorm. The ground was covered with snow despite the relatively warm temperatures. It was amazing to have run without a flake of snow initially and now be surrounded by a winter wonderland in May! This was the epitome of Colorado weather. Part of that equation was the fact it would all melt by the end of the day – which it did – and one would not be able to tell it had snowed at all.

It was a full day with Holly having school followed by an orthodontist appointment in Boulder with the esteemed Dr. Richard Fronczak. After the orthodontist we went grocery shopping at the newly-opened Sunflower Market in Boulder. I liked the store and had added it to my list of favorite grocery stores – the Erie Safeway, the Lafayette King Soopers (with a very helpful staff), and my favorite – the Albertsons in Lafayette, which was staffed by the nicest people in the grocery business.

We also had to go shopping for Holly’s friend, Emily, who was having a 14th birthday party sleepover at a hotel in Boulder this weekend — that was a new one for me but I had spoken with Emily’s Mom and it sounded totally under control — so we went to Target as well. Holly wanted a smoothie so we also stopped at the Jamba Juice in Boulder. I was happy to spend money in Boulder and help the local economy. After all, my favorite trail was on Boulder Open Space property so I felt this was the least I could do.

By the time we got home, I was exhausted. I made dinner and we dined on salmon and rice as well as a variety of goodies I had recently purchased. I also snuck in a mug of root beer and didn’t tell Holly.

After working and helping Holly with her homework, I caught a few minutes of the television program, “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?” on FOX and deemed it one of the best programs on television today. It was fun and instructional – as well as humbling. I watched as a Yale-trained doctor got eliminated when he could not name the state which borders both Kansas and Utah. The poor schmuck guessed “Wyoming” after trying to paint a mental picture of the 50 States. My guess was once he got to the Mississippi River from the east, he was lost.

This was a program families could watch together. I tried to get Holly to join me but she was doing serious work. The answer, of course, is “Colorado.” That made the question even more fun for me. I worked some more, spent some time with my daughter talking about her plans for the upcoming weekend, and finally got to sleep by 11:00 pm.