Well, it has been awhile since my last blog entry but I think I have a pretty good excuse.  I have been moving my family across the country from Jacksonville, FL to Golden, CO.  We are still not completely settled, but there has been a lot of excitement surrounding our inquiry of the new area and all that it offers.  Let me tell you, it offers a whole lot!

However, as a runner in Golden, CO I kind of feel out of place.  I have been on an 8-mile run that afforded me the pleasure of encountering about 5 other runners.  That may seem like a lot, but I must admit that about 50 of my human encounters involved people on bikes.  I quickly learned that Golden is a biking town.  Oh, they are friendly enough and will often wave or nod, but I get the feeling that they might think I am some kind of nut.  I mean, who runs up these insane hills when you can bike up them and then sail faster than the cars as you glide down them?  As a runner, it takes work going up the hill and, whether or not you believe me, it actually takes some work going down them.  Then again, I would only fear for my life if I were on a bike.  I have yet to attempt that because I am still mustering the courage.  I just nod back and silently call those cyclists “crazy.”  Yet, everywhere you look in the quaint little downtown you see a bike rack (and oddly enough, they are actually shaped like bikes).

So, here is runner me gasping for air at 1.2 miles above sea level (yep folks, Golden is higher than Denver… and my neighbor just had to warn me about the fact that we get double the amount of snow during the winter).  Let me remind you that I just moved from flat, sea level Florida.  Granted, the sweltering heat and humidity totally SUCKED, but I am thinking that this altitude really STINKS.  Not to mention the fact that an onion I purchased at the store today nearly jumped out of the back of my SUV which was slanted at 45 degrees in our driveway.  If I wouldn’t have caught the darn thing then it would have literally rolled all the way to the end of our road and then down to the bottom of the valley.  What does an onion have to do with anything?  Well, my point being that we live on a freakishly hilly hill (if you think there is no such thing then I cordially invite you to visit my home). When the training plan says “rest day” I can pretty much throw that to the wind because no day is a “rest day” when you have to climb 200 feet up a hill.  Unless I can run down the hellish thing and persuade my husband to pick me up at the bottom.

Well, it has obviously been an adventure.  The adventure lies in finding a flat place to run, but I have yet to find any such place around here.  Since I should just consider myself screwed, my plan is to run like crazy here (I don’t even have to leave the boundaries of my neighborhood) and then make a trip to a lower, flatter location and run like nobody’s business.  I am sure I will make some kind of world record.  It’s all about making a positive out of a negative, right?