Month in Review (July)

7/2010: 145.0 miles (0 babies)
7/2011: 235.5 miles (0 babies)
7/2012: 198.1 miles (1 baby)

Another solid month of training, but with a bit of an early taper...

I had tentatively planned to run my traditional double-crossing of Hope Pass on the last weekend of July, but life had other plans! Instead of 20.5 miles from Twin to Winfield and back, my wife and I must have logged at least a mile of power walking in the hospital lobby trying to speed up her contractions and induce labor! On the morning of 7/29 it finally worked and our new son, Ethan Stirling Reiff, was born!

Future ultra runner: Ethan.

Watching my amazing wife endure labor (without any painkillers!) and give birth to a perfect, healthy little baby certainly put things in perspective on many levels. The 100 seems very small in comparison. And whining about sore legs or an upset stomach during the race? Laughable.

I logged a total of 39,064 feet of elevation gain in July. A little low compared to last year, but almost all of that came during a seven day stretch from the Silver Rush 50 to the following Saturday: 21,000 feet of vertical in seven days. I set PRs on both Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive-- I was not holding back on the downhills to save my legs.

Near the summit of Mt. Elbert

While my running training has been put on hold for a bit, my sleep deprivation training has just begun! Ethan is a very quiet baby, alternating between nursing, pooping, and sleeping every few hours. We're waiting for him to discover his vocal cords, but for now he is remarkably well behaved... a thoughtful, almost contemplative little guy. The only things that seem to annoy him are having his diaper changed and when his oxygen tubes fall into his mouth. Like most infants in Leadville, he's on oxygen for the first few months. It's annoying for parents to have to deal with the tangle of tubes and tanks, but a good precaution. And, of course, this means I'll have several oxygen tanks at my disposal during the 100... Hmm... I wonder if there are any rules against that? :)

I'm going to try to get in one or two more long runs (16-20 miles) this weekend, but after that everything will be 10 miles or less. Probably just one 10 miler next weekend, I think. I'm enjoying paternity leave and looking forward to the race-- though I'm obviously a bit distracted at the moment. That's probably a good thing. It's easy to starting obsessing about race day details once you start tapering... but I'm going to try to relax and enjoy these few weeks with my family.