Bolder Boulder

Apologies for the lack of update recently. Of course, had the race gone better than expected on Monday I would have been on here singing and and dancing about it.

Well it's been a crazy week. The jet-lag which I've been dreading ever since I planned this leg of the adventure didn't even have time to take a hold of me. More about that later.

Boulder was another amazing stop on this trip. The trails were very different from those that I'd come across so far, but no less spectacular. In contrast with the vast pine forests of Flagstaff, the Boulder trails were lined by deciduous trees which had just budded fresh green foliage. And like everywhere else I've visited, there was plenty of wildlife to keep me entertained on my runs.

In addition to the flat trails in south Boulder which I could access from the hotel, thanks to Angelina Ramos (a friend of a friend) I got to explore some of the higher, out-of-town routes. The views of the town from the Messa Trail were amazing, and I can see why its many people's favourite.

After the heavy mileage of the previous week, last week was a somewhat easier one, well at least from Thursday when I started tapering from Monday's big race.

Now by big race I don't mean the pinnacle of my season (well at least I hope not), but rather it's a reference to the 53,000-strong field that take part in Boulder's biggest event each Memorial Day bank-holiday. The Bolder Boulder is one of the deepest road races, in terms of quality, outside of Africa. With some 400 people breaking 40 minutes (at altitude!) for the 10km distance each year, I was hoping to get close to my PB for the distance from 2005. Alas this was not to be. I guess it was a case of 1 good week's training and you think you can take on the world. I guess 42 minutes wasn't too bad, especially considering how fresh I felt afterwards. Two months ago I would have been happy with that. And I did finish in the top 3% of the field.

After the main Bolder race, I managed to watch the elite men from the media truck that lead the race out. Watching 3 Ethiopian athletes run away from the rest of the field with considerable ease, was eye-opening. So dominant was their performance that they were able to control the second half of the race, and slow down to cross the line together, in the University of Colorado American Football stadium, which by that time was packed to the rafters with finishers from the citizens race. The whole event has definitely given me some inspiration and motivation to train even harder, and maybe one day to come back here and be one of those 400 that run faster than 40 minutes.

And so, after 64 days of living out of a suitcase; thousands of miles of air travel; 12 different airports; 13 different hotel rooms, 10 time change, and far more tacos than I care to count, part 1 of my adventure has come to an end. A seven hour overnight flight back across the Atlantic to Birmingham, was followed by the completion of yet another assignment; a lot of catching-up with friends, some birthday cake (yes I turned 31 yesterday); endless routing through bags to try find my belongings, and some manic rushing around to get to the M5 Services at Frankly by 7pm this evening. And that's where I'm now sitting, waiting for a lift to Cardiff for some races tomorrow, finally able to take a deep breath, and contemplate the next leg of this amazing journey.

Thanks to everyone who had made the trip a possibility; to those who gave me that final push to make the decision to go in first place, to those who have shared my enthusiasm for the project, and all those who have shown such generosity during the first part of the trip. And last, but my no means least, thanks to all my blog followers. It's nice to know that somebody is reading my rants and rambles.

Now I know why they call them the Rockies!

After not wanting to leave Flagstaff yesterday, I'm glad that I did.  After an uneventful pair of flights I arrived in Boulder last night under the cover of darkness.  When I opened the curtains this morning, this is what greeted me.  How wonderful!

From what I've seen of the trails here they are pretty cool too.  I'm looking forward to exploring them some more.

Fabulous Flagstaff

This morning was the first morning where I woke up not wanting to leave my current destination. Not even the excitement of seeing a new place could get me over the sadness of leaving Flagstaff behind. Maybe it had something to do with my trip nearing an end, or maybe it was the dread of repacking the suitcase yet again, but mostly I think it was because I genuinely enjoyed my stay here.

Unfortunately, an otherwise perfect week, has just been slightly flawed by a taxi-driver. No strange there, but not for the usual reason of being over charged. For most of the trip thus far, I have managed to avoid those Americans who give the country a bad name. You know the type. The ones who hear that you're from Ireland manage to get every stereotypical point that they have ever heard about Ireland into a conversation (well, monologue). Thankfully the journey from hotel to airport was only 5 minutes long, but none the less I got to hear about snakes, St. Patrick, Catholicism, that there are more Irish in America than there are in Ireland, that the Irish hate the English (can't imagine where he got that idea from!) and that Clint Eastwood has Irish heritage. Oh and of course that he, the taxi driver that is, is Welsh, despite speaking with an American accent, and from what I could gather, has never even been in Wales. I think I prefer the ones who have never even heard of Ireland (yes I have meet a few of those too!)

But, in fairness, that was the only downside.

Of course there was the trip to the Grand Canyon, but there was so much more to enjoy about Flagstaff. It's an amazing place for training, with miles, and miles, and miles of trails, most of them through the forest that surrounds the town. They say that no matter where you are in Flagstaff you are no more than 3 minutes from a trail (I prefer that statistic to the rat one).

I've always believed that a little bit of sunshine, and an endless supply of beautiful trails are good motivators for training. Well that was definitely true here. After a poor week of training in Albuquerque, I managed to clock up 73 miles in a week here. Lets just hope I can keep it up!

Of course no week's training is perfect, and you'll be glad to know that after the ecstasy of clocking up such an impressive mileage tally (well by my standards), I was brought crashing down to earth yesterday. Literally! Once again, after tripping on a stone, I again managed the face-plant which I am now becoming an expert at. This time there was no grazing to my now perfectly tanned legs, but I did but a big gash in my hand, and got covered head to toe in dust and dirt. I should have been doing a little less looking at the beautiful scenery, and a little more looking at where I was going.

Everybody here has been very helpful too, and it has been really nice to get some more positive feedback about the book idea.

The spotting of unusual animals in the wild count has also gone up. I saw some Elk in the Grand Canyon National Park, and then, when out for a run on Saturday evening I saw a skunk. I'm just scared that sooner or later I'll come across a snake. I won't, however, need to blog about that, because I'm pretty sure that you will all hear me scream. And there definitely won't be time for photos!

Well just about to board the plane on my last pair of flights before the home trip. Rocky Mountains, here I come!

Left Speechless

Some posts don't need any words, but let me say this one thing:

''Do nothing to mar its granduer for the ages have been at work upon it and man cannot improve it"  President Theodore Roosevelt

Oh, by the way, just in case anyone in in any doubt, these photos are from the Grand Canyon!

Coyote Ugly

I've just spent 10 days in Albuquerque, probably more famous for being a regular training haunt for world marathon record holder Paula Radcliffe than for being the largest city in New Mexico.  The highlight of the week was seeing a coyote run along in front of me during a run last Monday, but that's probably doing ABQ an injustice.

Albuquerque is a large, but spread-out city.  While avoiding doing an essay earlier in the week, I decided to explore the city.  I thought that taking a bus to downtown would be the best way to get to the happening part of the city.  How wrong I was.  The high-rise buildings of the downtown totalled two, and apart from one decent souvenir shop, and a few restaurants, there was nothing there for me.  So I walked to the old town, a one-street strip of traditional craft shops about 2 miles from the downtown.  I managed to punch in a few hours there looking at the gifts that I should buy from my family, but am too lazy to carry around in my already overweight suitcase (and too tight to buy), but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as one of the world's must visit destinations.  Oh there was a museum too, but I don't do museums.

I later found out that the main shopping area is in Uptown, about 3 or 4 miles in the other direction.

Much of the rest of the time was spent doing the aforementioned essay, training, and trying to avoid the pollen that was reaping havoc with my nasal passages.  I managed to do some training with the girls and guys at University of New Mexico, a lot of whom are British, and I got to see some of them race in their Conference meet on Friday and Saturday.

And then, yesterday evening I took the train to Flagstaff, AZ, the penultimate destination in my tour of America's South West.  I'd been looking forward to the trip for a while, mostly because there is only so much flying that one body can take, but also because I figured that the scenery would be something to look at.

And it didn't disappoint.  Having read a couple of Paul Theroux's travel books (including Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar, I was curious to see what the obsession is with long distance train journeys was.  And I guess there is nowhere better to start than in the desert!

Below are some of the snaps of the beautiful scenery, and the amazing sunset that I got from the train.  Unfortunately because of the fast moving train, and the glare from the glass, National Geographic won't be signing me up as one of their photographers based on these examples, but I'll have another chance to change that when I visit the Grand Canynon later in the week.

Hot Air Balloons

At the best of times my dreams are somewhat bizarre.  Just like when I'm awake, my sleep world is slightly on the eccentric side (in other words I'm just as weird when I'm asleep as I am when awake).  But bizarre and all as my dreams normally are, they get way worse when I'm at altitude.  On a previous visit to Kenya I dreamept that I was pregnant a couple nights in a row, and the main topic of conversation at breakfast each morning was what strange and wacky dreams I'd had the previous night.

Today though, I believe I reached the pinnacle of strange dreams.  After waking from an afternoon nap (the joys of being a full-time athlete), I lay there wondering how on earth my subconscious had come up with my nap-time entertainment.  While on a run in a park, I met a man also on a run.  Only he wasn't on a normal run.  No, he was running with a hot-air balloon attached to his body.  I'm not sure of the purpose, as his feet were still on the ground - perhaps it's the newest trend in performance enhancement, or injury prevention.  I did try to get a photo, but stupidly had forgotten to put the battery in my camera.  And then I woke up.

The hot air balloon reference wasn't completely random.  New Mexico's largest city, Albuquerque, where I'm currently based, hosts an International balloon fiesta each October, and hence there are lots of pictures and paintings of hot air balloons decorating the walls of the hotels and restaurants in the city.  In fact, the lack of battery in my camera was also not that strange, and actually reminded me that I needed to charge the battery in my camera.  But why would anyone ever run with such a giant thing strapped to them, and more importantly why would I ever dream such a thing?

A picture paints a thousand words

Yesterday I had a bad day. Not that I was lonely or home-sick or anything. Things just didn't go according to plan. And there is nobody to blame but myself.

After spending a couple of days exploring San Francisco, which I will detail more later, I got up at 05:30 to make my way to SFO. Having misread the sign on the air shuttle and getting off at the wrong terminal, I spent ages trying to find the US Airways check-in desk. Eventually I realised my error, and rushed to the correct terminal, only to find that I still couldn't check-in. The computer was telling me that it couldn't find a reservation for me, and when the assistant too informed me that he couldn't find me I feared the worst. About 10 minutes later he confirmed that I was a day early for my flight. I truly have lost track of days and times!

A little embarrassed, I looked on the positive side, and saw it as an opportunity to see a bit more of the city. And it could have been worse. I could have been a day late, and I would never live that down with my family.

At the hotel I found a leaflet for trips to Muir Woods, a major Redwood forest across the bay. Seizing the opportunity I made my way into the city, only to read the fine print on the leaflet stating that tours needed to be booked in advance. A day in Golden Gate park would have to do instead.

Rather than giving a day by day account of my time in the city, which would not only be boring, but also predictable (and we know that's not me) I'll follow with some photos and a brief description of each. They say that a picture paints a thousand words, so here are 20 of my most interesting, which should save 20,000 words or thereabouts!

These pictures show some of the cable cars which transverse the city. I knew from previous photos that I've seen of San Francisco that the city was hilly (that picture of the cable cars that Chris had at the top of our rather steep stairway in Birmingham gave me a daily reminder), but I didn't realise just how undulating it is. And they really didn't make any attempt to flatten any of it, just built perfectly perpendicular streets right across the hills. The ride was a bit hair-raising, but probably just about worth the 5 dollar charge.

The cable car went right past Lombardy Street, the 'crookedest street in the world'. Some 750,000 cars a year wait in line to make the 5-mph decent down it, with it's 9 hairpin bends and the gradient of 27 per cent.

From the last section of the cable car journey you could see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge across the bay. I took this as an opportunity to start taking photos, and didn't stop for about 3 hours.

Another example of how steep the streets are can be seen from this photo.

From the top of Coit tower I got these pictures of the city. Patrick, you'll be glad to know that yet again I made it to the top of a very tall building, but this time the lift went most of the way, and there were only 37 steps to climb at the end. No In Bruges moments this time! Unfortunately all the windows had glass in them so there is a little bit of glare.

Pier 39 is San Francisco's own attempt at a pleasure beach. Slightly less tacky than the English equivalent though and definitely worth it for the views of the Sea Lions that have made it their home since the earthquake of 1989. During the winter as many as 600 can be seen in the dock.

Alamo square is very cute, and features in many of the postcards of the city. The quaint 7-sisters Victorian houses combine with the downtown skyscrapers to make a perfect picture.

And finally, golden gate park was even better than anticipated, though I was disappointed that the bison in the bison paddock were not roaming freely and available for photos. The rest of the park though made up for the very long walk and at least the geese were willing to pose.