Advice For What I Should Bee Doing With My Socks

I am writing this to ask for some advice.  First, I'm going to tell you what happened on my afternoon run today.

I've been training a lot and had a difficult last week.  I was doing what was supposed to be a relatively easy, relaxing run this afternoon.  Suddenly, I felt a terrible pain in my foot.  A bee got under the tongue of my shoe, freaked out, and stung me on top of my ankle.  This is the third time in a week that I've been nailed by something getting caught under the tongue of my shoe.  I'm mildly allergic to some sort of stinging insect, but usually when I get stung, whatever stung me is not in tact enough for me to positively identify the species.  However, I am a little worried that I'll end up with a not good reaction to whatever gets stuck under the tongue of my shoe next.  I also feel like my ankle is a little swollen, which is probably not the best for training.

I'm going to switch the detergent I use on my training socks in the hope that insects just really like the smell of my detergent.  However, just in case that isn't the case, I'm asking for your help.  Yes you, the one sitting on your computer.  Does anybody have advice on how to keep stinging and biting insects out from under my tongue?  And yes, I do run with my mouth closed.  I'll try to remember to enable comments in case anybody wants to post here, or you can post on my Facebook (since that looks like where most of you come to my blog from) or contact me in pretty much any other way.

Thanks for the help.

For those of you wondering what my difficult week was like, I did my most/least favorite workout on Friday.  Imagine the worst hills you can think of doing intervals on.  Then, make it ten times worse.  What you are imagining is probably a little easier than this workout.  Whenever I'm planning on doing this workout, I dread it for days.  On Sunday, I did a long run.  I felt tired, but I still managed to run about the time I've been running when I felt good.  Then, on Tuesday, I did another hill interval session.  The times were not good, but still much better than they were last year.  So now I'm tired.  And my foot hurts.

Maybe I Should Give My Posts Titles...

I suppose first off I should just say this Saturday (June 2) I'll be running the Vail Pass Half Marathon as part of the Teva Mountain Games.  It's a race up a pass in Vail.

Okay, as for how things have been going, it's been a mixed bag.  Training has been going quite well.  I've put in a few workouts that I've been very pleased with, and hopefully the fitness I get out of them will be apparent when it comes time to race fast.  But I do feel tired.  Luckily, I've got an easy run tomorrow.  But there are intervals the next day, so...

I'm also joining Team Colorado, which is a really low key team of not low key individuals who run up and down mountains and are from Colorado.  We're looking to run fast at Mount Washington on June 16, which is both the US Mountain Running Championships and the trials for World Mountain Running Championships.  Check out Team Colorado.  Check out Team Colorado:  http://teamcolorado.blogspot.com/

On the more mixed bag side of things, we had to put down my dog Wolf this week.  He was a 13 year old golden retriever, and was my companion for half my life.  That was tough.  That said, for the past 7 years or so I've thought he wouldn't make it through the year, so I guess the good news is that I got 7 more years with him than I thought I would.

Oh, we also had a wind storm yesterday that was so bad I couldn't run outside.  The entirety of Utah blew in, and visibility was down to maybe a mile for most of the afternoon.

One last thing.  And this is more of advice for all of the politicians out there campaigning.  A candidate for County Commissioner was doing a meet and greet where I started and finished a run the other day.  When I asked him about some long term issues that will affect the area in 15 or 20 years, his response was "I won't be around in 20 years."  If you are a politician trying to get a 20-something to vote for you, do not ever say this.  Their response will be something along the lines of my response.  "But I will."

I waited to publish a new post until after the Black Canyon Ascent because there wasn't really anything else interesting.  I've been pretty busy since then, but made some time to update whoever it is that actually reads this blog.

I ran the Black Canyon Ascent last Saturday.  My main goal was to just have a really good effort.  I was successful in that regard, especially during the last mile.  I did have a few slow portions of the race, but overall I think things went really well.  The light headwind helped keep me cool.  I won, set a new course record of 39:57, and was the first person ever under 40 minutes for the race.  Plus, everybody who raced got running shorts (instead of a shirt) and a delicious loaf of bread.  And I got to know some people from the mountain running community that I really had no excuse to not know.  Overall, a very successful day.

My uncle from Norway came over on Sunday.  I haven't seen him in a really long time, which is a big part of why I haven't gotten this post up earlier.  It's great to see my long lost relatives and spruce up on my Norwegian.

Training has been going pretty well.  My legs are a little tired right now, but the training plan has been modified.  Frankly, if I never feel tired, I must not be training hard enough.

As a bonus for patiently waiting for this blog post for so long, I recently learned about a really cool creature.  The naked mole rat.  They are abundant in Ethiopia and the surrounding area, are resistant to pain and cancer, and can run backwards as fast as forwards.  Their blood is especially good at transporting oxygen and they are the longest living rodent known to man.  They can live for 26 years.  Granted, they are very ugly and eat their own feces, but they can't feel pain.  That's really hard core.

Thanks for reading and I'll try to get another post up as soon as something else interesting happens.