Q&A time and a little mountain run

That Chris K over at The Manly Runner thought he'd be really cute and invite bloggers to ask him questions so he could weasel out of writing a normal blog post, like us normal people do.  And to be even cuter, he tagged me to do the same.  What a lucky girl am I!

So, as Chris said: let's give it a try.  Ask me anything.  No holds barred.   No subject too serious or frivolous.  I can't guarantee that I will answer every question, but I guess we'll see.

Want to know something about my prior training? 
Want to know about my heel?
Want to know the secret to being happy?
Want to know what I do when I am not running my kids all over creation?
Want to know what I'm going to do to my hair today?

All sorts of thrilling questions are out there just oozing with anticipation to be answered, so ask away.

In the meantime, I spent a little time up in the mountains on Friday where I failed attempted to do a little high altitude trail running.  The boys and I ventured over to this trail we did a couple years ago called Hell's Hole - and the name is pretty fitting.  The trail is only about 3.5 miles long, but it gains about 1900' in elevation - for me, that's steep. 

Ryan took off like a bat out of hell, he can now run probably 2x my speed, brat, so Brendan and I somewhat stuck together.  I'd run slow about 10 minutes or so and turn around go back down to find him and repeat until it got way too steep and I was spent so we just hiked together.  About 2.75 miles in (yes, laugh away...but we climbed about 1800' in that short distance, this is taxing on my out-of-shape bod.  Bleh!), this huge, black cloud rolled in and it started raining; that was enough for me to panic and turn around.  Storms in the mountains come quick and hard and way too many hikers end up not so fortunate getting down and I didn't want to be one of those statistics. But I got a lot of cool pics on the way up:

These trees were all leaning over sideways - very odd.  Any ideas why?

Going down this trail was not making my foot/heel happy - at all!  By the time we got down to the bottom, I was in agony and after we drove a short ways into town for some lunch, the bottom of my ankle was throbbing and I couldn't walk on it.  ARGH!!  I threw off my shoes and found instant relief.  Still painful, but at least I could walk.  I am pretty stressed out about the shoe situation - again - and not sure where I need to go with trail shoes.  I'm all about the minimalist shoe and firmly believe they are what has helped me get back on the road running....but the trails are another beast.  The Pearl Izumi shoes I have been wearing have been causing me some discomfort but they are not a true minimalist shoe, and I'm not sure if my ankle problem (which is just a continuation of the heel from hell saga - my ankle has been one of the many cuplprits to the heel situation) from the run stems from too much shoe or not enough shoe.  Very frustrating trying to figure this out and the clock is ticking....I need to figure this out.

Anyway, when we got into Idaho Springs, I noticed the river was running crazy wild with all the rain we've had this past week so the boys wanted to run the rapids, as they say...

They had an awesome time.  Because the water is flowing like wicked crazy, they were done in an hour and I barely had time to tag along on the frontage road for pictures, but said it was the best rafting trip EVER (and those boys have done a lot!).  

Saturday I was fortunate to meet up with blogger Matt of Matty Run Run for some lunch at Whole Foods.  Matt's one of my favorite blogs to read - he's articulate yet funny and really provides a good read.  He and his awesome wife just had a baby - meet Matt, his wife Sara and their new baby boy, Henry!

Some of you may remember that little video contest Matty was holding where I submitted my physical therapy exercises and begged for votes to win that cool canvass of Matty doing clam shell exercises on the beach. Well.....

Henry obviously notices his daddy!

Yeah, I WON!  What an honor to have the man himself, in live person, here to get a picture together.  Dang it though, I forgot to have him sign the thing - it'd be worth millions if I had the foresight to do that. 

Thanks, Matty - was great meeting you and your beautiful family and can't wait until you're back in town again.

I'm happy to report that my ankle is better and I am back to running my ploddingly (that's a word you know!) slow pace.  Going to head to PT today to make sure I didn't do something drastic to it...and have him check out my rib muscle, which is obviously better but still hounding me now and then.  And that bee sting from last week???  Um, yeah...that sucker swelled so bad it looked like someone slugged me, but thankfully it's now almost all okay (a little itchy, but the grapefruit-sized growth on the side of my face is thankfully gone.  Check back next week to see what new catastrophe I endured). 

Ok, that's a wrap!  Chris states I am to bestow this Q&A Award to five people who have to do this on their blog, then pass it on to five others  - and use that same image file above.  Since I'm horrible at picking, I'm going with the first 5 who commented on my last post.  The lucky recipients are:

Marcia @ The Studly Runner
Julie @ You just have to TRI
Jamoosh @ Last Mile Lounge
Abbey @ Have Dental FLoss, Will Travel
Liz @ Runner Mum

Ha - teach you guys to rush out and comment on my posts, huh?? 
I'll give you til Sunday to ask questions (you know I can't rush into another blog post this week already) and I'll post the answers early next week.  In the meantime, RUN STRONG, Friends!