Some Changes Are Possible

Six things I started or changed in 2023

Welcome to the final post of 2023, and welcome new subscribers. I’m in vacation mode enjoying time with my grownup kids, who are visiting from LA and Boulder, so this post features quick hits rather than a longer narrative.

As we change the calendar year, many of us also think about changing ourselves, or at least our habits. I don’t think a person can fundamentally change (do you?); we’ll always be products of our upbringing, culture, and values instilled by family and mentors, shaped by the settings of geography and era. But we can change what we do and use, and can learn new things.

I’m thinking about change partly because a reader asked a question, Have you adjusted or changed your approach to training as you’ve aged? I’ll answer that below, but first I’ll share some things I changed—or did differently—in 2023, ranging from mundane and borderline trivial to relatively important and impactful. I’d love to know what you changed in 2023—please share in the comments below!

Six things I changed or did differently in 2023

I belatedly got on Strava.

I was strangely anti-Strava since the year I first heard about it, around 2010. It seemed to me a recipe for peer pressure and showing off rather than for training in a way that best suits an individual’s needs. I wanted to be private about my training and not feel self-conscious when my runs were extra slow and full of walking breaks. (In hindsight, I cared too much about my image and what others think of me, and also overestimated how much anyone would pay attention or care.) Plus, I didn’t need Strava, since I get all the data and functionality I need from the TrainingPeaks platform.

My opinion changed in 2022 when I was working on a newsletter post about an accomplished runner and wanted to view his training stats. I discovered his Strava posts were fun, often silly, and full of short and easy workouts along with impressive ones. I started snooping around other friends’ Stravas and realized it’s neat to see their run routes, which give me ideas of where to run.

Better late than never, I decided to get on Strava on new year’s day 2023 to follow certain runner friends. Strava quickly became one of my favorite social media platforms. I also realized I don’t care what others think of me and my training, and I don’t let “how will this look on Strava?” affect my run or workout. Perhaps I am guilty of taking more photos than I normally would mid-run, because I like to share them when I upload my run workout, but that’s not such a bad thing.

I still use TrainingPeaks to self-coach, because it’s a superior platform for designing and logging workouts and capturing data, but I enjoy Strava as a supportive and more intimate social media space (and I keep it that way by keeping my settings private and being choosy about whom I follow and whom I allow to follow me).

Strava spit out my year-end wrap of stats, which I don’t find very useful because it lumps together all sports (including hiking and skiing, which inflate the mileage and elevation stats). I track run mileage separately on Training Peaks (and I count hiking mileage separately also, a “hike” being when I intend to walk the whole time. I count a run as a run even if it includes a lot of hiking mixed in, as long as I intend to run the runnable stretches along the way).

According to Training Peaks, in 2023 up to Tuesday, December 26, I logged 2019 run miles and 153 hiking miles (compared to Strava’s total of 2412 miles). In any case, I’m grateful and proud of another year logging over 2000!

I switched from Ultimate Direction to Salomon for a hydration vest.

I tend to get stuck in a rut gear-wise and use the same ol’, same ol’, not wanting to invest in new stuff. I used to be an Ultimate Direction ambassador and always used their vests, even though I find their excessive straps to be sloppy. I decided to try a Salomon vest because my UD vest was bugging me during the Antelope Canyon 50 (one of the best and most beautiful races of 2023; story here), and I watched my friend Christina running with her Salomon hugging her torso in a way that looked more clean and comfortable.

I’m so glad I switched to the Salomon Advanced Skin 12 because it fits so much better, no bounce. (I got the small unisex, not their female-specific model. The women’s version comes with weird-shaped soft flasks with straws; the unisex style is better, in my view.) My only beef is it does not accommodate a reservoir well (it’s difficult-to-impossible to get the hose to thread through the back and ride comfortably on the shoulder strap), but that’s OK, I don’t use reservoirs much; I just put extra soft flasks in the back carrying space.

Wearing the Salomon vest at the Telluride Mountain Run in August.

I changed our investments and shopping to be more environmentally sustainable.

In late May during the Mountainfilm fest, I saw an eye-opening documentary film that floored me, called The Grab. I urge you to see it if you get the chance. An investigative journalist connects the dots between numerous land acquisitions and conflicts around the globe, from China buying out one of the U.S.’s largest pork producers, to Saudis buying up acreage in Arizona and draining the aquifer, to a new wave of colonization in Africa as other countries buy up land for ag, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It's all about a scramble for food and water in the 21st century. Corporations and governments are weaponizing our food and water systems. One of the most effective things we as individuals can do is support local and regional independent food sources, eat lower on the food chain, protect public land, and press our state and federal reps to curb the overuse and export of water via beef and alfalfa.

After watching the film, my husband and I met with our portfolio advisor to implement a process to screen out investments in big ag, fast food, dirty energy, and other culprits. We moved a chunk of our money into a green fund to support clean energy and food security and sustainability in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

As an omnivore, I spend about twice as much money to eat half as much meat compared to when I used to eat more meat from supermarkets; now, I pay a premium to shop from our local butcher who sources only from regional small-scale ranchers. I also recently subscribed to a CSA (community-supported agriculture) box for fresh veggies and fruits from regional growers. Our trip a couple of months ago to learn about farming on the Western Slope redoubled my commitment to help protect public lands and small-scale independent farmers. For 2024, I pledge to do more to use less plastic. Learn more here:

A Getaway with a Purpose

I got on menopausal hormonal therapy.

After about five years of hormonal chaos during perimenopause, starting around age 48, I celebrated being fully, finally done at the end of last year with unpredictable heavy periods that mentally made me quasi-bipolar. But, having my estrogen level plunge created a new set of negative or flatlined feelings.

I am grateful to hit my mid-50s at a time when menopause is talked about, and treatment options are more precise and individualized and closer to bio-identical. Women 10 to 20 years older were scared off from HRT or hormone replacement therapy (now called MHT for menopausal hormone therapy) because of the poorly designed Women’s Health Initiative trial results in 2002, which suggested more risks than benefits to HRT. Now, it’s clear that starting MHT soon after the onset of menopause, rather than waiting to start it in older age, has many benefits for most women (but not necessarily all—women should talk to their GYN to determine whether it’s right for them).

Early this year, I began using a low-dose estrogen patch combined with a low dose of progesterone, and it has made me feel more like my younger normal self. In particular, I’m less stiff and achy on a day-to-day basis, regardless of how much I’m running or resting. (Estrogen is linked to joint health and inflammation.) My back and limbs feel more elastic than creaky. I’m also sleeping better through the night, although that is likely also due to less alcohol consumption and better bedtime habits.

I started heavier strength training with CrossFit.

Related to the menopause talk above, I realized my home gym’s weights, which top out at 20-pound dumbbells, aren’t challenging enough. Strength training in midlife and old age is essential to promote bone health and prevent muscle loss. I therefore joined the local CrossFit to try different moves and to lift heavier weights.

After a mostly negative first impression (see the second half of this post), I warmed up to CrossFit thanks to its instructor’s willingness to modify the Workout Of the Day for my level, and thanks to the challenge of trying new, unusual exercises (although I still don’t like barbell moves). I’m now doing CF twice a week and a strength/mobility workout at home once a week.

Doing jump pull-ups (assisted by jumping up from a box below) at CrossFit, something I wouldn’t be able to do at home because I don’t have a pull-up bar. I’d like to be able to do an unassisted pull-up by the end of next year.

I got houseplants and didn’t kill them.

My mother was remarkably skilled at cultivating plants and arranging flowers, thanks largely to her upbringing on Oahu (where her father was stationed with the Navy and they survived the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but that’s another story!). She had a deep relationship with flowers and gardening. She did not pass her green thumb on to me, however—or perhaps I rejected it as one of the many ways that I differentiated my identity from hers. When we moved to Colorado, I gave up completely on gardening and caring for houseplants, convinced they’d die and that they’re more trouble than they’re worth.

For the first four years of living in this house we built, we had a random dusty fake houseplant in one corner leftover from when our house was staged for the architect’s photo shoot. Last spring, upon reading my friend

Kelton Wright

’s post about her love affair with her incredible collection of houseplants—plants that thrive in spite of high-altitude mountain living—I looked at my one fake houseplant with fresh eyes and felt truly embarrassed. Later that week, I dropped it off at our town’s Free Box and drove to a nursery in Montrose to invest in a couple of special plants.

Both have variegated leaves, one with pink tones and the other with yellows. Both are thriving and sprouting baby green leaves. I love them and now think “Wednesday=Watering day.” I also cultivated two beautiful hanging flower baskets this summer (until the elk, standing on hind legs, ate them at night, and I learned to use elk/deer repellent spray). I know Mom would love them, and I think of her when I care for them.

Have you adjusted or changed your approach to training as you’ve aged?

The answer to that reader’s question is, generally speaking, no! For the most part, I do what I’ve always done for more than a decade: I race several ultras yearly and make an annual plan to train for them (as explained in last week’s post), and then each weekend, I take 10 minutes or so to plan my week’s training on the TrainingPeaks app. I ask myself, “Which day(s) can I do a harder, high-quality run?” and I aim for two or three hard runs, depending on where I am in the training block. One is usually the weekend long run, one is a form of speedwork, and one might be a medium-length higher intensity run or steep run/hike. The rest of the week’s runs are a much easier effort, following the old adage, “Make your easy days easy and your hard days hard.” I also schedule in strength/mobility at least twice a week, plus I figure out when I’m going to exercise our horses.

I believe this routine has ingrained consistency and, I hope, will set me up to run like this man, Wally Hesseltine, when I’m 80. (I sometimes shared the trail with Wally years ago in the East Bay Area and hence feel even more inspired by that article!)

The adjustments that come with aging involve taking more recovery if my body feels like it needs it; letting myself take longer to warm up (e.g. hiking the first quarter mile or so of a run); and realistically budgeting more time for a certain number of miles because my pace is significantly slower than when I was in my 40s and living at sea level. I’m also lifting heavier weights with fewer reps when strength training (as discussed in the CrossFit part above). The pandemic got me hooked on a YouTube yogi, and I try to do her short yoga videos at home a couple of times a week, too, because balance and mobility are so important for preventing falls and promoting flexibility as we age.

Mostly, however, I stick to the same general training routine, which works!

“Mountain Running & Living”

On a final note, I will be changing this newsletter’s name. Starting next week, I’ll drop the “Colorado” so it is simply “Mountain Running & Living.” (The URL will stay the same.) The name change reflects the fact that although I write from my perspective here in southwest Colorado, the newsletter is not very Colorado-centric, and readers come from all over the country and many from around the globe. I don’t want the “Colorado” in the newsletter name to limit its appeal to non-Colorado readers. I’d love to hear if you think this is a good or bad move.

And last week, the MidPacker Podcast released an interview with me. I enjoy this podcast’s focus on midpacker/midlife runners, so I started subscribing. Here is the link to the interview with me in case you want to hear about my background and some offbeat stories.

Thank you for reading this newsletter. What do you want to read about here in 2024? I always welcome your feedback; you can email me or comment below.

Happy new year!

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