Capon Ridge Running Camp 2012

Just arrived back from another great year of Capon Ridge Running Camp, sponsored by Nike. Lots of great kids and great teams came up this year, and we grew by about 20 campers, which is always fun.  In honor of the Olympics, our camp activities and games had an Olympic theme, complete with flags, and my forcing the counselors to sing the Olympic anthem again and again, which was hilarious to me, at least.  Nike also generously supported us again, bring us some awesome samples and information about the Flywire and Flyknit shoes and spikes that they are unveiling at the Olympics in London.  Really cool stuff.

I pretty much failed to take pictures this year, partially because I was working with campers on stretching most of the time, or yelling at Larry, and partially because I forgot my camera.  As I come across photos and video, I will see about posting them, but below are the photos of the actors who played certain roles, with their namesakes:

The Mikes. note the tattoos, belts as stand-ins for HR monitors, and various therapy equipment as apparel.  Mac (to my left) managed to look so creepily like me that my wife was somewhat bothered by it.

The Larrys, including Ransom's interpretation of Larry as an evil wizard with a cape.

Foley and his double, who put his goldfish tattoo in a more appropriate spot than Foley himself did.

 I am already looking forward to next year, and hope everyone returns for another year of running in the ridiculously steep hills of Yellow Springs, WV.


 

Broken again

So I have taken some time off running, as a result of the head injury suffered in Mexico back in December that had some unexpected consequences (head hurt for 2 months anytime I did anything strenuous, couldn't seem to concentrate either...), an increase in my workload, and a need to make running something that was adding enjoyment, and not stress, to my life.

I've since been building up again for the past month, nothing crazy, just trying to get out and run, even while in Queretaro, and my fitness was coming back nicely, and I was enjoying being out for hour runs or so.  Then, on the morning of June 26th, on the Mesa trail in Chataqua park, which I have run maybe 1000 times, I was coming down a hill on a morning run and BAM! my right ankle just went sideways.  It's a rocky trail, and I haven't the slightest clue exactly what I hit/stepped on, but I have never heard a joint crack like that before. It was terrible.  At the moment it happened, I was a solid 2 miles out from my car, and I couldn't put any weight on it.  I ended up hoping tree to tree back to the parking lot, which got pretty amusing as hikers started coming in on the trail, wondering what the hell I was doing. 

In any event, following Gibby logic ("Ankle injuries aren't real injuries."), I took a day off, then started running again.  Which led to it not just not improving, but getting exponentially worse.  Not good.  So I went in to the Doctor, where they x-rayed it, only to tell me that my ankle looked arthritic and like I was an 80 year old man, but it wasn't broken.  And they put me on crutches for two weeks. 

unfortunately, even the crutches didn't exactly help, and a week later, I had to go in to get an MRI, which revealed a full tear of the calcaneofibular ligament, and anterior talofibular ligament, but the posterior talofibular and ant. inferior talofibular were intact, as were all the tendons.  So at the moment, the prognosis is PT, and up to 8 weeks recovery time.  Boo.

Capon Ridge Running Camp starts in two days, and this will be the first time in 9 years of attending I won't be able to run at camp. Even post knee surgery I found a way to make it work.  I am bummed.

This fun bruising has lasted for a good couple of weeks....

Fire!

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy, as two big fires have been dominating the news and our air quality out here.  The High Park fire west of Ft. Collins and the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs have been greatly affecting our air (as seen below), but we also just had a fire break out on the western side of the ridge here in Boulder.  At one point, the flames actually jumped to the east side of the ridge, which is scary.  This is what happens when it is super dry, we get no snow, and there is entirely too many dead trees from Pine beetle kill.

It's crazy stuff, and I'm worried to see what the long term damage for these areas will be.

Smoke from the Flagstaff fire rising above Bear Peak and Shadow Canyon.  The fire is currently burning right on one of my favorite trails, that you access by running up the canyon in the center of the picture between the peaks.

Another of the smoke above Shadow Canyon and Bear Peak.

Here you can see the plumes of smoke from where the flames actually jumped to the east side of the ridge, and the trees right under Bear Peak were burning.

This was on the 4th of July, and may look like nothing, but you should be able to see for miles, and all the way up towards Summit County.  Because of the wind patterns, the smoke from Colorado Springs a 2 hour drive south) was so thick it was limiting visibility to about 2 miles.  Needless to say, fireworks were canceled.

This is a hawk I saw on a bike ride.  No connection, but I liked this bird.