Highway 61 Revisited

Yes, I know it's a Bob Dylan album. But, for Christmas, I returned to my home: Minnesota. I grew up (and started running) on the shore of Lake Superior. This specific break, my parents were not living in the house I grew up in, but rather 20-some minutes up the north shore, off the fabled Highway 61. They live between the 5 and 6 mile mark of Grandma's Marathon (I plan to run the half marathon this summer, if I can scrape up the money to fly home and do so). In any case, this meant that I went for several runs up Highway 61.

One in particular sticks in my memory, and in my right arm. I was scheduled for a two hour run the Saturday I got back. When I got up, it was about 35 and raining. By the time I was ready to run, it was about 40. At that temperature, I decided to wear shorts and go out for an 80 minute run.

Unfortunately, what I didn't know was that I went out with the wind. By the time I turned back, 5 and a half miles up the road at 40 minutes (right at the starting line of the marathon) I was soaked to the skin. On turning around, I realized that the temperature had dropped, and the rain had turned to snow. By the time I got back to my parents' house, I could no longer move either of my hands.

One of the dumber moves I've ever made. . .

To the right is a pic of me after that run. You can't really see it in this pic, but it was snowing heavily by this point and I was covered in it. By the end of the next day we'd gotten some 10 inches or so. My hands are quite literally stuck to my sides. I had to mold them into position in order to get that pose. Even now, I can still feel the damage I did to my right arm.

For the rest of the trip, I didn't get a whole lot of running in. Among other problems, we had two decent snow storms during the vacation, which precluded running for those days. Add to that taking Christmas off, and I didn't have a whole lot of time to train. The trip back in a car didn't help either.

However, once I got back to Boulder, and once my family left, I quickly got back into it. On Friday, I went out for a "40 minute" run. Having a fair amount on my mind, the 40 minutes ended up being 56. I went out 4 miles in 30, and came back in 26, for an average pace of 7 minute miles.

I'm back . ..