All towns should be named after toxic metals. Thursday 13.

Dear Diary,

13.  Today I am in Leadville, the highest city in the US.  Baboo is doing the "Race Across the Sky" Leadville Trail 100, which has about a 50% dropout rate.  It's just crazy hard, even as 100-milers go.  It's going to be a busy 24-30 hours.  This ia a 50-mile out and then 50 mile back course.  This is the profile:

 The top of the batman ears is called "Hope Pass" which I wrote about when I was in Leadville last month.  It's a long, grinding hike, done very slowly by people such as myself.  Baboo bounds up it like a mountain goat.  Not a real mountain goat.  The kind in cartoons. 

12.We've had a couple unpleasant surprises since buying The Dream House, but this was a pleasant one.

When Baboo was mowing this week, he found grapes, and most of them are ripe.
I shall eat them, I shall.


11. Monday I wore my belt buckle to work on its new belt.

yes, some people noticed.  

yes, it was fun.

Except for the person who asked me if I was into wrestling.  >:-(

10. I have a complicated running week planned. It is a cycle-down week, which occurs every 4th week of training:
M&F: off
T: 4 miles
W: 10 miles
T: 6 miles
St: 10 miles
Su: 10 miles

However, I'll be traveling to Leadville on Wednesday, and once I'm there, have to rest a couple days before I can exert myself.  So, my training will actually look like this:
T: 6 miles
W: 19 miles (early, before leaving)
Th: 5 mile hike and jog. 
F: 5 mile jog

Su: 5 miles (while pacing Baboo)

9. The best greatest sources of protein that I have found so far are salmon, crab, and shrimp.  Love those.  Worried about toxins.  I'm wondering if anyone knows how to get those foods without a build-up of toxic metals?

8.  I've gotten frustrated and tired of Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice, and the like.  The ones that are truly healthy are too expensive to eat every day, and the rest, well, at best we can say that they won't actively reach up and try to kill me.  There's never enough protein or vegetables, and most of the time they don't use whole grains.

So, I decided to make my own. I bought a pesto sauce packet, some whole wheat penne, and a pound of small shrimp, and a large bag of "Normandy" style mixed frozen vegetables.
The result: four meals, each with a cup and a half of whole veggies, a cup of whole wheat pasta, about 3/4 cup of small shrimp, and some pesto seasoning.

Mix it up in a bowl, portion it out into food containers, freeze, and voila.

The next batch will have low-fat Alfredo whole-wheat noodles, salmon, and mixed veggies.

7. So of course, on Monday, I walked off and left my brand new lunch sitting on the counter.  But I had it for dinner.  It was good.

6.  More on the grapes.  I went out to pick them this week, and although I didn't get all of them, this is what I wound up with:

What the heck  do I do with all this?  I know, jam, wine, etc.  But that's so much work. *Whine*

Isn't there something easy and freezable I could do?  There's still some out there ripening. Freezer jam?  Seems like I've heard of that. 

 5.  Saturday, as well as Wednesday, I did a run that went from where I live all the way across town.  It's 19 miles.  I tested this item:

and, I liked it quite a bit . It's designed to keep the sun off your neck and face while you run, and it's super lightweight.

4.  Today's "hike" is planned to be at 12,000 feet.  Yeah. Ulp.  Only a couple miles, though. 

3.  I've decided since last week that I can do without being blond, so long as my hair is longer.  I liked the short hair, it was sporty, but I feel more like me with long hair.
However, I've noticed two things: a) I sweat way more than I used to.  This is apparently my body becoming more "efficient" at cooling itself.
and,
b) My longer hair wicks the sweat away from my head.  My entire head and all my hair get sopping wet.  Pretty disgusting.

2. This morning, we did a very short quick jog up at Independence Pass, which is why I delayed writing this.  I started getting a headache, coughing, and feeling dizzy.  Then we returned back down to 10,000 feet.

In case you didn't notice, the clouds are behind and below me.  

1.  There are, apparently, a stunning number of "bogies" here in town.  This is what ultrarunners call Newbies.  They is their first 100-miler, and in some cases, their first distance over a marathon EVER.  Some of them don't even have crews.
In case you didn't already pick up on it, these are not smart ideas.

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