High Altitude Training

Howdy, y'all!

It's that time of year again - Midge has ditched the Sperrys and spandex for cowboy boots and running shorts. I've been in Kimball, Nebraska since late Sunday night helping out on the family wheat farm. If Amelia is lurking, there are still no chickens. Sorry!

The Harvest Gods smiling down on us behind a cloud, blessing us with 20 bushel/acre wheat.

While I'm delighted to have dropped the humidity in Cambridge by a few percentage points, the change in elevation is making all of my training rather anaerobic. Kimball is at 4,715 feet - you can feel the air pulling the moisture out of you. There are unfortunately no ergs to be found in rural, arid Nebraska, and my parents weren't super wild about the idea of me checking my road bike for the trip, so I've been hitting the road Forrest Gump-style.

"I'm pretty tired... I think I'll go home now."

The altitude has made running longer distances rather challenging (I look like a goldfish on dry land by about 10 minutes in), and it gets hot by 10am, so I bookend my days with half an hour or so of running, morning and night.

Farming is a lot of physical labor - lifting heavy things, moving augurs, climbing grain bins, etc. The older farmers here have some serious old-man strength - their biceps are much bigger than the lightweight men's, and they get them in the real world, not the weight room. I'm hoping some of this will rub off on me by the time I give back, but I shouldn't give up on the push-ups just yet.

Getting around town is always an adventure. I drive the studly beast pictured below while I'm here, a late-1970s International Scout, otherwise known as "the first SUV". This baby has a pretty casual relationship between reality and its dashboard gauges. Gas gauge says you have a quarter tank left? LOL you're sitting by the side of the road on empty. The speedometer oscillates between 80 and 90 mph when you're really traveling at 70. Steering wheel alignment? What's that?

This thing once blew a tire while traveling 75+ mph on the interstate. Seen behind, the Kimball grain elevator.

Although Kimball has only 2,465 residents, it does have something that the greater Boston area lacks: a Dairy Queen. So far, I've had a chocolate malt on Monday, and a dipped cone on Tuesday. Much of my day (more that 4 hours) revolves around deciding what I will order at DQ after dinner. Should I stick with the classics and get a Dilly Bar tonight? Or should I jazz it up with a S'mores or Mint Oreo Blizzard? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Obligatory DQ picture. Also the face I make while eating DQ.

Miss y'all! 6 weeks until first practice!!