"Running with a 200lb Man on Your Chest" or Running in Denver

So I ventured out running again today and there is nothing like a little altitude to give you some perspective on your running ability.

We've been walking a ton since moving in out here but only ran once before today. This is partially because we have been super busy with unpacking and guests and partially because we/me were trying to ease into running at this altitude.

I've been running pretty consistently since training for the Mud Run back in August and was pretty proud of my progress. I wasn't going to run a marathon or anything last week but I could hammer out a few miles and still stand up straight. To me, that's amazing progress considering when I was dancing in high school and in the best shape of my life I could barely make it a mile. Today, however I got a pretty hard reality check. (And so did Juneau.) We made it to mile one and I literally felt like there was a 200lb man sitting on my chest. I managed to run some intervals (as in walking a block, running a block, no fancy sprinting or anything of that nature) on the way home but I got back feeling like I didn't really get a work out, at least that's how I felt after I caught my breath.

One of my new coworkers told me that it takes about three weeks for your body to adjust to the altitude and for running to get easier. Here's hoping! For now I am going to stick to walking/running intervals and then hopefully up it to jogging/running intervals. I'll let you knowwhen it stops feeling like I've been chain smoking for the last 20 years.

Near the end of our walk/running adventure, I found the LARGEST DANDELION EVER! Ok, maybe not the largest, I'll have to reference Guinness for that, but it was much bigger than any South Carolina dandelion we made wishes on when I was a kid. (We also made bracelets out of those yellow flower weeds. Fashionable, I know.) But back to my dandelion, it was seriously huge and reminded me of a truffula tree from my favorite book of all time, The Lorax. Go read it now if you haven't. Seriously an amazing book. I read it to all of my students when I was teaching on the second day of class. Yes, I taught high school. Yes, Dr. Seuss is very relevant in a high school science class. Read the book, you'll see.

Here is the dandelion i found next to Juneau for size comparison and for some added cuteness.

And here are the truffula trees...

see? Maybe it was the lack of oxygen going to my brain from my run but this was very exciting to me.

And then Juneau promptly destroyed my truffula tree dandelion. Perhaps she thought I was a little too excited about a weed.