Lake Nighthorse Triathlon

This was the inaugural running of the Lake Nighthorse Triathlon in Durango. I decided to enter because I thought maybe it would motivate me. To do what, I don't know. I did work on my swimming more than I probably would have. And did some running off the bike. 

I'm not big into road biking so I didn't really practice that beyond making sure my 30 year old road bike worked. Which it only sort of does. The rear shifter has a problem of sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It's had this problem for at least 2 decades but I rarely ride the bike so I forget about it until I try to ride it and oh yeah, stupid rear shifter doesn't work. I took it to the shop many lifetimes ago to have it repaired and the guy in the shop said it's an endemic problem with those types of shifters, the only thing you can do is shoot degreaser into a little hole in the shifter and voila, it works. And as long as I remember to do this, it works. Except this time I couldn't find the little hole to shoot the degreaser in and I figured I had just imagined said hole and instead shot the degreaser into the shifter as best I could. And this worked but intermittently. The day before the race I couldn't get it to work until suddenly I could. I stayed overnight with some friends in Durango the night before the race and by the time I got to my friends' place an hour away it wasn't working anymore. My friend came out to help and when I explained the situation he laughed and said he'd had the exact same shifters and the exact same problem and used the exact same trick. I didn't even think to ask him about the location of the little hole because I still thought I was imagining it. I got it to work anyway and hoped for the best. But of course on race morning it didn't work. And didn't work and didn't work and didn't work. For the first time in the past 2-3 weeks I couldn't get it to work at all. Finally after an hour or so of fiddling and swearing it was nearly time to head down to the water for the race start when I finally spotted the little hole. It was for real after all, you have to squeeze the brake lever just so and look in at just the right angle and it's totally obvious. I squirted the degreaser in the hole and voila. 

Nothing like a last minute panic about whether or not your bike will work. But not a bad place to spend the morning.

 

Otherwise the race went off without a hitch. The water was beautiful, maybe 68-69 degrees, sunny blue skies, not too warm or cold. I ended up drafting off a guy early on. He was sighting perfectly, way better than I was doing on my own so I let him tow me in nearly the whole way. In the final few hundred yard it felt like he was slowing down or I wanted to go faster and I tried to pass but ended up going more or less his speed so I fell back again and let him bring me in. 

When I got out of the water I was disappointed to see my time was 20:30 minutes. I'd done a few time trials at the pool and had come in just under 18 minutes. At worst I was expecting 19 minutes or so because swimming in open water can be slower than the pool depending on conditions. I was mad at myself for drafting and not trying to go faster but also figured I'd saved a bit of energy for the rest of the course. What I didn't notice is that the course was way long. It was supposed to be 750 meter or 820 yards but it came in at 950 yards according to my Garmin. Checking on Strava, other folks had come in at 936 yards, 974 yards, so the course was definitely long. If I go by my Garmin my pace ended up being 2:10/100 yard which is faster than the 2:12/100 yd pace I'd pulled off in the pool. So yay for drafting, slightly faster pace at much less effort.

But I didn't realize all this until after I got home and uploaded my Garmin. During the race I was irritated with myself and then I couldn't get out of the arms of my wetsuit, a problem I never have. Because usually I use Body Glide to help the wetsuit slide on and off more easily. I'd put a bunch on my legs but skipped my arms because the Body Glide can also clog your pores and make sweating more difficult. I was more concerned with overheating than I was with the wetsuit so I didn't put any on my arms. I knew I'd take my wetsuit off at the water because it was a long, steep run up to the transition area from the lake. I figured the suit would come right off since I was right out of the water. And I was wrong. If I'd taken it off in the water it probably would have been fine. In hindsight I should have gone with Body Glide and just run in the suit since I could pull the arms off while I was running. How many years have I been doing this?

The bike was 12.5 miles with some very steep hills. I managed much better on my touring road bike than I had on Jonny's bike during the pre-ride. It was still hard but manageable. In fact I seemed to be keeping up with a pack for most of the climbing. But as soon as the grade evened out and then went downhill they were gone. I'm just not used to road riding on the flat or on downhills. I did reach 39.5 mph at one point so I was trying.

The course was open to traffic but the traffic was not nearly as bad as it had been at noon on a Wednesday. And the stretch of road that I thought had no shoulder/bike lane did actually have a decent shoulder, there was just a section of about 1/3 of a mile that didn't have shoulder. If I'd gone just a wee bit farther on my pre-ride I would have realized this. It's still a dangerous situation with cars swerving to avoid cyclists on both sides of the road. Thankfully it was only an issue with one car for me and that car managed it with no problem.

At the end of the bike I misunderstood where the dismount line was and started getting off too early. I realized my mistake, got back on and rode to the correct place but this allowed someone to pass me right at the last second heading into transition, which was already kind of obnoxious but then the guy dropped his bike on the ground right in front of me to take his chip off and give it to his relay partner. I yelled at him, 'Dude, you can't just drop your bike on the ground' but he was oblivious or didn't care and I had to maneuver around him and his bike. I had spent a bit of time practicing transitions too. So funny that I thought that that was where I'd make up some time.

The run actually went pretty well. The course was gorgeous, the aqua blue lake to one side, mountains to the other and the bright yellow rabbit brush going crazy everywhere. The course was on a gravel road closed to traffic, not as good as dirt but better than concrete. 

Photos from the Durango Triathlon Club, credit to photographer

I used the old ice cubes in the panty hose bags trick to stay cool. I had one in my hat and stuffed the other in my sports bra.The temps. weren't too bad, maybe mid to high 70's by the run, but I build up heat during races, especially during the run and this worked great. No dizziness or nausea. The run was just a 5k but very hilly.

All in all a fun day. I'd had a lot of ambivalence about going. I wasn't super well trained for it but certainly in decent enough shape to muddle through. Road biking isn't my best thing but this was actually kind of fun for a one off. The road bike went back in the grain shed when I got home. Hopefully if I ever try this foolishness again I'll remember where the stupid shifter hole is.

I do have some shenanigans planned for this weekend, more on that later.

Final Results. I was actually 47/56 overall, not sure why this says 19/61. Everything else looks reasonable.

Summer Trudges On

Not much to write about for the past few weeks. We were hit with the most fantastical round of monsoon moisture that went on for several weeks. Such a relief given the drought and poor irrigation season. My pastures are actually looking really good, considering. But it's meant that I've stayed out of the high country because the storms are dangerous, especially up there. We even had a bolt of lightning hit the ground in the pasture about 50 feet or so from the cow loafing shed and maybe another 40 feet to the house. Scary. And I've actually been sort of kind of training for my upcoming triathlon in Durango and that doesn't involve high country hiking. But I'll get back at it, especially when fall hits.

In general the smoke from the western wildfires hasn't impacted us here too badly but of course the one weekend I had a bike race and people down to visit/ride was the worst air quality so far this summer. I bailed on the race and riding with my friends, the AQI was around 170-180. And the Sleeping Ute looked like this.

Which is to say you couldn't see it at all. No way was I going to exert myself in that soup. My general rule of thumb for exerting myself in wildfire smoke is an AQI less than 70 and decent visibility of the surrounding mountains (Mesa Verde, Sleeping Ute, etc.). We're in uncharted territory with this, I can't find any good research/science about what is actually a safe level of smoke or the long term effects of exertion in wildfire smoke, so I'm taking no chances. So far this rule of thumb has worked well, I've not had any instances of coughing, wheezing, etc. after workouts since moving out here. I have had workouts in Boulder where I thought the smoke level was o.k. but I had a sore throat afterwards so I've sort of figured out what works for me. 

Last week saw clear skies and I headed to Lake Nighthorse in Durango to get in some open water swimming and check out the triathlon bike course. I tried swimming in McPhee a month or so ago and it was so low. Some places were deep enough but I'd be swimming along and scrape my hand along the bottom or suddenly notice a pile of dirt or rocks in front of me that normally would be submerged. It was a bit difficult to navigate, I had to keep looking up to see what might appear in front of me. Which I guess is good practice for sighting buoys but was a nuisance in reality.

Poor McPhee

This is what it normally looks like.

 

Lake Nighthorse is beautiful. Nobody draws on it for irrigation so it was plenty full.

 

I ran into a guy who was also there to swim and he showed me where I could swim. There was a line of buoys all the way across to the other side of the lake and he said it was about 3/4 mile which seemed a bit ambitious for my first real long distance swim of the season. And I wanted to have something left to ride the bike course. I almost made it to the other side but decided to turn around after 1000 yards. It was a good decision because the bike course ended up being way more difficult and terrifying than I was expecting. About 9 miles or so is on a road with a bike lane but the remaining 3 1/2 are on a road with no bike lane or shoulder. And there was a lot of traffic. I actually turned around on the no shoulder road after maybe a quarter of a mile because it was just too scary. I hate riding in traffic as it is but a busy road with no shoulder is a deal breaker. I was a bit confused about whether or not the road would be open to traffic during the race and I finally just got confirmation from the race director that it will be. I asked him if the road will be busy on a Saturday morning but haven't received a reply. It's an out and back course so cars will be swerving from both sides of the road to avoid cyclists making it even more dangerous. So I may sleep in on race day, we'll see. There's also the possibility of a bad smoke day. 

I didn't check out the run course but another guy I met in the parking lot described it to me and it doesn't sound too crazy.

I'm going to continue training because that's the fun part but I dunno, I'll see how I feel about that bike course on race day.

Yesterday I did another 750 meter time trial and my time was 33 seconds improved over my time from 3 weeks ago and still way slow. But that's where I'm at right now, at least I felt confident in the open water and the 750 meter distance seems easy enough. The 2000 meters at Lake Nighthorse felt good too though my pace was so very slow. It is what it is with only 3 months of swimming after a year and a half off. I suppose I'm thankful it isn't worse.

After yesterday's time trial I met some friends to go riding and we started off with a long, steep climb on the road that goes to the trailhead parking lot. The race has a lot of climbing, more steeper climbing than I was anticipating, so I wanted to get some steep climbing in. It was almost 1:00 so the heat of the day and no shade and by the time I got to the parking lot half an hour later I was too dizzy and nauseous to go any further. We stood talking in the shade for a bit so I had a chance to cool down a bit before the steep, twisty descent back to town. They carried on with a big epic ride that was probably too much for me even if I'd driven to the parking lot. I haven't felt that bad in a while, I'm done with the heat of summer. Probably need some more rest days too. Yesterday was supposed to be a recovery day and it ended up being anything but. I feel like the bulk of 'training' is behind me at this point, just need to get a couple rides in on the road bike to make sure the bike is o.k. mechanically. It's 27 years old and the shifters are kinda sketchy. At least I remember the hack to get them working. 

Race director just emailed me back and said he has a friend up in the subdivision that the course goes through and the friend saw several cars going 90 on that narrow, shoulderless road. Ugh! I'll see how I feel about this on race day. I guess I can always turn around on the bike course and go back to Lake Nighthorse for more swimming.

More Mountain Adventures

I bought an e-bike last fall so that I could access some of the high country trails more easily. Many of them require driving on high clearance, scary jeep roads that I wouldn't want to drive on even if I had a high clearance vehicle. Which I don't. Riding a bike on them is no problemo except in some cases I'd be so tired by the time I got to the trailhead that I wouldn't be able to hike very far. Even with the e-bike access is sometimes difficult and time consuming. Getting to the trailhead for the particular part of the Colorado Trail shown in the photos below took about an hour. It was well worth it though. Ah the San Juans.

And then there was this hike up to Sharkstooth. The Columbine! I couldn't capture it. The marmots and pikas were sassy as always but my marmot photo was disappointing.

The Durango Triathlon Club is hosting a sprint triathlon in September and it's a different course than the one I did 2 years ago, this time with an open water swim rather than a pool swim. It seems like a very reasonable goal and I'll likely sign up for it. Xterra Nationals is 2 weeks after that and is an atrociously unrealistic goal and yet . . . Somehow I found myself looking up lodging in Ogden this afternoon. In between shopping for bull semen. Swimming is going much better than expected. I'm still depressingly slow but showing some improvement. I tried on the wetsuits today and despite Jonny wanting to film it for a possible viral YouTube video I did manage to get both of them on (full suit and sleeveless). I'll head up to McPhee for an open water swim in the next few days and maybe over to Durango to swim with the triathlon club at the place where the race will be. I'll see how that goes and then mayyybe sign up for at least the sprint. Then I think of all the hassle that entails, especially driving to and staying in Ogden, and I lose all motivation. Never mind how freaking hard that race is compared to the shape I'm in. But where I'm sitting and typing right now is very hot and I'm a bit cranky and hating summer so maybe once I cool off a bit I'll feel a little more motivated.

A Very Good Week

Monday started off with the bestest news that Initiative 16, a citizen initiative created by animal rights activists that would have ended animal agriculture in Colorado, was struck down by the Colorado Supreme Court on the grounds that it did not satisfy the single subject requirement of an initiative and would have proven confusing to the general public. The vote was a decisive 7-0. The proponents can and likely will come back with another initiative but they'll have to start the process all over. Such a relief, at least for now. There were a couple few groups that formed to fight it and I'm going to see if there's any interest in having an initiative that would require initiatives that change the state statutes to have signatures from all of the states 35 senate districts in order to make the ballot. Oil and gas succeeded in getting this passed for the state constitution because they got tired of fighting citizen led anti-fracking initiatives. Applying this to the statutes would prevent the urban Front Range from dictating policy to the rural areas of the state which dominate in land mass but not in population. It would also make it much more difficult for any crazy legislation to make the ballot. I'm sick of the extremism from both sides of the fence and I think I'm not alone on that one.

And today I woke up to partly cloudy skies and a break in the interminable heat wave we've been having for weeks now. I was even able to go for a run and make some good progress in setting up the next round of cow pastures. I have some friends coming for the next 4 days so I want to have everything set up as best I can so I can go play. Then tonight we were treated to a full half hour of unpredicted rain. Such an amazing thing. The drought here is historic. I really should be fretting over this and not stupid vegans trying to destroy the state. I guess I have plenty of angst for both.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was hoping to get that post done before my house guests arrived but it never happened, oh well. I had a fun but tiring 5 days of guests, some good mountain bike rides. It's good to see people again and have them stay over but poor Tess was beside herself. It's been over a year since we've had people stay and it's already not her best thing. It didn't help that my friends showed up with a 'stray' dog that they'd picked up on my street. I see loose dogs on the country roads all the time and I almost never do anything because likely the owners have just let them roam and they'll find their way home. I hate that people do this, they did it in Boulder too and I finally gave up returning loose dogs to owners because they were almost always annoyed. Sometimes you can tell when a dog is truly in trouble and if that's the case and I can do something, I will. But these friends didn't really know any better and picked up a loose dog on my street and Tess went out of her mind with it in the yard as well as strange people. Her worst nightmare. We eventually found a neighbor to take the dog off our hands and as luck would have it, the owner lived practically across the street from the neighbor and dog and owner were eventually reunited. But it was a stressful few hours getting it all sorted out and I got Facebook involved and ugh. It all worked out but Tess was extra stressed out with the strangers in the house. 

I have more guests coming this summer so hopefully she'll continue to improve and at least get back to where she was before COVID.

I had a fantastic hike to the high country a couple of weeks ago. Very difficult, super steep and it starts at 10,000' elevation, but so beautiful at the top. 

Despite a historically low snow pack there were still some white bits here and there.

Lizard Head

We had to cross some snowfields on a steep pitch, always a bit unnerving. This part of the trail was o.k. but some parts of the trail were covered with snow on a steep angle like the snow shown below.

 

The San Juans never disappoint.

More Lizard Head. Just because.

 

Another wonderful thing last week was my return to the outdoor pool. It was shut last year and had a delayed opening this year due to staffing issues but finally, finally, I was able to swim again. 

It wasn't pretty but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I've gone 5 times now and I'm starting to feel some of my stroke coming back. There's a sprint triathlon in Durango in September that would be a perfect goal. And really, Xterra Nationals might not be too ridiculous of a pipe dream. I swam 600 meters non-stop as a little test to see how my endurance is and it was no problem, I could have easily gone way longer and Nationals is 1500 meters. The question is can I get up to that distance and still have some speed. Because right now my 'speed' is non-existent. I'm focusing more on getting my form and endurance back and then I'll start looking at the pace clock. Which thankfully they don't have at the outdoor pool, I have to go by my watch which is much easier to ignore.

Biking and running are coming back too. I'll see how the summer progresses. Next I'll have to get back to agility training. We've got a break in the weather, I'll have to find a little exercise to set up.

Da Baby

Update/Disclaimer: The title of this post has nothing to do with the similarly named supposedly homophobic musician (rap star?). I'm far too old and out if it to know who he is and he only just popped up on my newsfeed 2 months after I posted this.

I have a new addition on the farm, a little heifer calf. So excited. She's 3 days old in this photo.

She popped out right on schedule at around 7:50 a.m. on the exact day she was due. Jonny looked out the window and said, 'Lily's been pushing the other cows away, I'll bet today's the day'. I looked out the window and said, 'Yeah, more like right now's the time, she's absolutely in labor'.  Because somehow I've reached a point in my life where I can tell when a cow is in labor. Thankfully all went smoothly and I suspected she was a girl because she was up and nursing fairly quickly. Supposedly the boys take longer and that's been my experience so far. I left mama and baby alone for a few hours before I went out to put in her ear tag and confirm she was indeed a she. She's way smaller than our last batch of calves because her dad is a Lowline Angus which is a smaller breed than the regular sized Angus I have right now. I'm trying to breed down the size of the cows I have so I'm beyond thrilled to get a female especially out of mama Lily because she has the most awesome temperament and this is the first female I've gotten from her. I'm planning to keep this little one as part of my breeding stock provided she has a nice temperament. So far she's pretty awesome. Lucy, my other mama, is a fantastic mama and good cow in general but she's a bit skittish and her calves have all been skittish so far so I'm not keen to keep them for breeding. They don't have bad temperaments, just a little more difficult to manage than Lily and her babies have been. And Lily is smaller.

The little bug gave me some worry for the first few days because she seemed to be sleeping an awfully lot but now 2 1/2 weeks later she's up and rocketing around. Phew.

I'm finally feeling recovered from my vaccine side effects. A whopping 9 weeks later. I kept thinking I was better after 2 good days then I'd relapse and be dizzy and tired again then another good day or 2 and so on for 9 weeks. I've finally had a full week of feeling reasonably normal and feeling like I'm able to push a little harder on the bike and get some strength back. I'm probably a few sessions away from being back to normal with my weight lifting and my heart rate is nearly back to what it should be for various types of efforts on the run and bike. The outdoor pool opens next week!!! SO excited about that. I haven't been in a pool in maybe a year and a half. I'm hoping getting a reserved lane won't be a problem. Once I feel confident in the pool I'll start going back in the open water as well. Not sure about Xterra Nationals this fall, it doesn't feel feasible at the moment but you never know. I'll see how the swimming goes. I bought an e-bike which I don't think I wrote about, more about that later but in short I think it'll really help me with my hill climb bike training which has sorely been lacking since I moved out here. Xterra Nationals bike course is a point to point course with a net elevation gain, it's all about the climbing and then being able to climb some more on the run. I'm so not prepared, especially after 9 weeks of being on and off the couch, but I'll see.

Now that my brain fog is gone and my head feels more or less back to normal I'm hoping to write more. The past few weeks felt like such a struggle to sit down and string thoughts together in a coherent fashion. Not sure I'm there yet but hopefully this all made some sort of sense.

Come Closer and See, See Into the Trees

I'm three weeks out form my second vaccination and still getting sporadic dizziness. Yesterday was perhaps the best day I've had since shot number 2, had a good bike ride, starting to feel a little feisty, then today was one of the worst days I've had in a couple of weeks. When I started back to riding a couple of weeks ago I noticed my heart rate would be way too high for the exertion level I was putting forth. I'd have a day where I could ride, then need to take the next day off, each cycle having some improvement in heart rate until finally yesterday I was feeling maybe 90% of normal. Then woke up at 4:00 this morning with my world spinning around again. A few days ago I finally had the idea to check with the Slowtwitch Forum because those triathletes are crazy data nerds when it comes to training. Sure enough there was a huge thread full of people experiencing exactly what I'm experiencing. They also gave me the great idea of checking my Heart Rate Variability (HRV) which is a measure of overall stress to your body. Many folks were reporting huge off the charts spikes in stress values right after their vaccines and also in training afterwards. I checked my HRV today using my Garmin and it was 89 on a scale of 1 to 100 with 100 being the highest stress mark. This put me in the High Stress zone. Yikes. So on this beautiful perfect spring day I'm inside typing away, thankful that the fog finally cleared enough for me to be able to string sentences together. Sort of.

Many on Slowtwitch speculate that athletes are struggling more because our immune systems are stronger and are mounting a more powerful response. I'd like to believe this is true but I have no idea how true this is. I've also heard that women are struggling more, presumable a hormone thing. I think we're still in far too experimental of a stage to have any good data or science on the matter but I dunno. At least I know I'm not crazy or lazy, so many days of this I felt like I was slipping into laziness. I'm going to keep better tabs on my HRV and cut myself a little more slack.

Last Sunday I went to a tour of an area that was logged in a similar fashion to what is being proposed for Boggy Draw. Many different officials were there - several Forest Service guys, some from Dolores Watershed, etc. Many experts. I think more experts than civilians. Most of the civilians were bikers/hikers concerned about the trail system. The purpose of the tour was to show the public the type of work they're proposing to do at Boggy Draw. And this was thanks to all the people who left comments, thanks so much if you left a comment. Thanks to all the comments they're going to take more care with the Boggy Draw area, re-routing the trail where they can, trying to keep it open as much as possible, trying to preserve the aesthetics of the area, etc. Or so they say. We'll see what really ends up happening. I'm skeptical at best.

Anyway, here's an example of untreated forest. Again, this is an area called Chicken Creek, not Boggy Draw or even very near to it.

Now I'm no forestry expert but even I can see how this forest is both unhealthy and dangerous from a fire danger point of view. This isn't nearly as bad as what you commonly see on the Front Range but still the trees are very dense and all the same age and roughly the same size. This area was clear cut back in the early 1900s so the trees all grew back as a monoculture. I've not noticed Boggy to be this bad, in fact when we moved here I was amazed at how open the woods at Boggy were and others who have come to visit me from the Front Range have noticed the same thing. But for sure there are areas that are too dense.

This is an example of the logging they did at Chicken Creek to thin the forest.

They'll eventually burn the slash piles when weather permits, probably in the winter.

Forest Service did say that this is still not ideal and they'd probably take twice as much at Boggy primarily because they have industry that will do it. For the logging shown above they did not have the industry in place (ie a large sawmill) that was willing and able to do the work so they couldn't do all that they wanted to. But this actually looks really good to me, I find really dense forests to be unnerving and uninteresting. They're a huge hazard for those explosive mega-fires and it's boring when you can't see very far into the woods. They also allowed that Boggy is different so this isn't a direct comparison but does give one an idea of the spirit of the work. And I'm totally fine with this, I think this is actually  a really really good thing. I've always been in favor of this type of fire mitigation and if they'd been clearer about their intentions when they first announced this I wouldn't have become so worried. I'm still not thrilled, it'll be a huge disruption to the forest and the work is supposed to last 10 years though not at the recreation area for that whole time. The poor people of the town of Dolores will have terrible logging traffic tearing through their town and we'll have to contend with the logging trucks when we drive up the narrow mountain roads to get to the trailhead. Though the bike club did get the go ahead to build a trail from the town of Dolores to avoid the road and Jonny is currently at the first trail building session so I'll get a report on it later. 

When Forest Service did fire mitigation on the popular West Mag trails up from Boulder they clear cut huge sections of hillside and left a terrible mess of giant slash piles, stumps, debris. It was heart breaking. When they announced the Boggy logging project there was mention of clear cutting and that's why I became nauseous. However I asked the Forest Service guy point blank if they were going to clear cut at Boggy and he said absolutely not. I remain a bit cautious and skeptical and still not thrilled but I do see value in this project, at least for now.

Initiative 16 goes before the Colorado Supreme Court on May 5 I think. We'll see what happens. But at least I can sleep a little better knowing my beloved woods aren't going to be gutted. Hopefully. Thanks again to all who left comments.

The Old Familiar Sting

I struggled for 2 weeks with on again, off again bouts of dizziness. I had a few good days on my bike interspersed with some days spent napping on the couch. I went back and forth about whether or not I should go through with the second shot but by the time the date came up for it I was feeling mostly o.k. Unfortunately the volunteer had written down the wrong date for the second vaccination clinic on my vaccination card and we showed up at the casino 2 days too late. Fortunately I was able to get 9:00 a.m. appointments for both of us at City Market the following day. 

About 10-12 hours after the 2nd shot the dizziness set in again and I had a bad 24 hours of mild chills, mild nausea, fatigue and terrible dizziness and pressure in my head. Maybe a headache? I don't usually get headaches so I'm never sure what they feel like. Mercifully the terrible pressure in my head went away after 24 hours but the dizziness and fatigue persisted for 3 more days and I pretty much spent those days drifting in and out of sleep on the couch. I was able to walk the dogs for about 1/2 an hour and walk around the yard a bit here and there but that was about it as I'd then have to hit the couch to stop my world from spinning. Yesterday I was seriously doubting whether or not I'd made the right decision but today I feel significantly better and the only reason I'm not out on my bike right now is that the septic tank is being pumped. I'm hoping that's all it needs but I'm not optimistic. It's a pretty new septic system too. Life in the country.

I went running the day before my second shot, didn't feel too dizzy but also didn't feel awesome and tripped about 50 minutes into a 57 minute run. I landed pretty hard on my hip, hard enough to set off the emergency alert service on my Garmin which I thankfully managed to turn off before it actually alerted anyone. I fell heading downhill so I slid across some sandy slickrock for a bit as well. Miraculously I managed to escape with only a small abrasion on one knee. I never even got a bruise on my hip. My other knee and palms were covered in dirt where I'd skidded across the rock but somehow my skin remained intact. Back in my 40s or even my 30s there's no way this would have happened, I would have been covered in road rash and bruises and it would have hurt like hell. Because vegetarian diet. I'm not saying I'm currently bullet proof but thinking about it I've taken a few falls both running and hiking in the past few years and they've barely left a mark. I'm not sure why I fell, whether it was because I was mildly dizzy and didn't realize it or because I simply tripped on a funny shaped rock and lost my footing which happens to me from time to time. But it does have me concerned about hitting the trails again too soon.

The other odd thing was that my knee barely bled. And I wonder if this is something to do with the vaccine and the clotting issues some people are having. Hopefully my blood hasn't turned to sludge. Hopefully I just happened to not get a very deep cut. Still, it was weird to have road rash without a stream of blood running down my leg.

The skin under the dirt was scraped up, just didn't bleed through the dirt. Very strange. Being a guinea pig is fun!

Initiative 16 had its rehearing with the Title Board and they spent several hours tweaking the language but nothing significant changed. The problem is that it's intentionally written to deceive but not in a way that the Title Board can call them out on it. The objecting coalition will take it to the Colorado Supreme Court but I'm not optimistic, I think we need to assume this will hit the ballot. I have more to say about it but the outdoors beckon. I've been sitting on my ass for far too long.

Spinning On That Dizzy Edge

I woke up last Wednesday at 3 am with my head and the room spinning round and round. It was a bizarre sensation since I was lying down and had no other symptoms. I figured maybe it was dehydration, got up for some water and eventually made it back to sleep. I woke up feeling a little off but didn't think too much of it. When I attempted a weight workout that afternoon I found it more difficult than I thought it should have been, the weights felt heavier, definitely not motivated. Again woke up dizzy at 3 am and was still dizzy when I woke up and had a weird taste in my mouth. Walked the dogs then spent most of the day on the couch. I wasn't exhausted but I felt tired and unmotivated, just brain foggy enough to not want to attempt much. The trails were a mudfest anyway from 4" of snow the day before. No other symptoms. I finally suspected maybe it was a latent reaction to the COVID vaccination I'd had 2 weeks ago and sure enough, Google confirmed that people are having dizziness and a strange taste in their mouths 2 weeks after their first shot. Weird. And a week later the brain fog persists on and off. At least I'm not dizzy. Mostly. The fog lifted briefly on Monday and I thought I was through with it but it seems to be back with a vengeance today. Got all my dog and farm chores done and spent another day on the couch. Hopefully this post comes out somewhat coherent. Not sure if I should go through with shot #2, I guess I see how I feel next week. I do know someone who had actual COVID who had brain fog for months afterwards.

Thanks to the Pause Initiative, now called Initiative 16, I've been learning a lot about the initiative process in Colorado. Apparently not all states have this, the opportunity for any citizen to put any crackpot thing they want on the ballot as long as they get enough signatures. And the amount of signatures isn't all that much. I hate getting involved in politics and I struggle with ways to be effective in my involvement. At the moment Initiative 16 is still at the Title Board phase and a group of ag groups have formed a coalition to fight it. There are many hoops the Initiative has to jump through with the Title Board before the proponents can start gathering signatures and the coalition hopes to get it completely thrown out during this process or at least get the language toned down or changed. The Title Board only addresses certain aspects of the language of the Initiative - does it address only a single topic? Does the language convey the meaning/purpose of the issue that the authors are trying to address? They don't address whether it's constitutional (a part of it isn't) or legal or destructive or batshit crazy.

The initial objection from the ag coalition is that the Initiative addresses more than one subject, that it contains deceptive and incomplete language that doesn't convey the intent and meaning of the initiative and that it contains political catch words. The hearing for the objection is next week. The authors can re-word it and come back if the Title Board agrees with the objection. It's a long, drawn out process that will likely take until the end of the summer and there's not much anyone can do in the meantime other than financially supporting the ag groups. I'm already a member of one of them. So I guess I can save my panicking about it until them. There also seems to be a lot of initial opposition to it, of course the ag community has lost its mind over this but there are initial signs of opposition from Front Range, non-ag folks as well. Fall should get interesting. Hopefully it won't come to that though I imagine they'll try to get something on the ballot because what do they have to lose?

Activist groups are interesting, I've been to a few meetings over a few causes and never got involved beyond that. Because it almost always seems to be more about the egos of the people involved. They're social groups as well, sort of, with really weird dynamics to them. Animal Rights especially so. Because people who truly love animals donate their time and money to groups that directly help animals - rescues, shelters, vet care for low income people, cancer research, etc. They also don't care what their fellow humans eat. A lot of people involved in Animal Rights don't even have pets or particularly like being around animals unless it's part of their activism or a publicity stunt. And I don't get the whole thing of wanting to inflict veganism on everybody else, worrying so much about what other people eat and their values. It sounds exhausting. 

If this does make the ballot I'm interested to see how life for the authors will pan out. One rents a room in a vegan co-op in a multi-million dollar house surrounded by multi-million dollar houses in one of Boulder's toniest neighborhoods. Also Boulder is a smaller place than it seems. As it happens a friend who's coming down to visit this summer knows him. Many people are already irate about this, the effects will be huge and far reaching, and I suspect life may become unpleasant for these guys. Or maybe not, I don't know. I guess we'll find. out.

I'll leave with some photos from a week ago Monday. I stopped to share a moment of whimsy with Mesa Verde before dropping into the awesomeness of the Rib Cage. It was a wonderful, cathartic ride and I was finally done with worrying about Initiative 16. Then I got back to the car to the news of the mass shooting still in progress in Boulder. What can I say other than that I'm not surprised and that it was surreal and unnerving seeing such a familiar place on the news, crawling with SWAT. Even more upsetting was seeing the footage on YouTube of the bodies lying in the parking lot and inside the store and hearing the shots ringing out while the guy with the camera stood in the entryway. Because somebody actually posted this and I actually watched it because I didn't know what I was clicking on. I lived walking distance to that grocery store for 6 months and even after I moved to the opposite end of town I still popped in there on the way back from the mountains or after going to the Indian restaurant around the corner that we often frequented. No words.