Hooray!  The semester is finally over and summer “break” is here.  I use the term “break” loosely because that just means now I have uninterrupted time to sit and work and make progress on my research, which I haven’t had much of a chance to do since the winter.  It’ll be great.  And I’ve decided that from here on out, it’s just research for me until I finish this program – no more classes, and no more teaching.  So that will make things much better in terms of productivity.  Thank goodness!

The other thing I get to do more of now is training.  Summer has arrived in Boulder (not without over a week of nearly continuous rain, topped off with a little bit of snow at the very end), and I’m out for long trail runs every weekend, and trying to get in as many shorter weekday runs around town as well.  It’s amazing how stinking difficult running on pavement feels after you’ve been on trails for a while.  I feel absolutely horrible every time I try to stick to roads and bike paths.  My ultras are on trails, so I’ll do my long runs that way, but I still need to get in some pavement miles since I have Ironman Boulder in August, and that run is on the concrete bike path here in town.

Over the last couple weeks, my race calendar has really started to fill up!  Race season is getting into full swing, and things keep popping up.  First, due to all the rain, the Quad Rock 50 was postponed until June 14th.  I also got a free entry into the Bolder Boulder 10k since I was injured last year and never made it more than 100 feet from my front door.  (I never run shorter races, but I figure I’m a runner and I live in Boulder – it would be weird to never do the Bolder Boulder.)  I also bit the bullet and signed up for the Dirty 30 50k at the end of May.  Annnnnnnd, I had a stroke of luck and got a free team entry for the Trail Ragnar Relay in Snowmass, CO in early June.  Suddenly, the next several weeks are looking very busy!

Avoiding thunderstorms at Marshall Mesa with one of my favorite people – Molly!

One of my favorite things about all this running is the friends I’ve made over the last year or so.  Now, I have this fabulous group of girls who I run with on the weekends, and it makes everything so much more enjoyable.  We might not be fast, but we have a great time out there.