I. CAN'T. BREATHE.

Today was day 2 of running in Colorado.  At dinner last night a friend of mine, that is a Colorado native, told me that the second day of running would be harder than the first... he was right.  I had no reason to doubt him but to hear it then experience it just drove the point home harder.

Forrest and I decided to try a different route today and ended up running about 5 minutes along a mostly level route then 15 minutes that was all uphill.  The lack of oxygen was real clear as I headed uphill gasping for more oxygen all the way.  At 20 minutes we turned around and ran the 16 miles back to our hotel.  It got a little easier toward the end of the run (maybe because it was downhill) so maybe there is hope for tomorrow when I go trail running with my Colorado-native friend.

I figure we were running at about a 12 minute mile pace but my lungs felt like I was running at something under a 9 minute mile pace.  Of course the real problem may be the cool, clean air that I am breathing here rather than the humid, polluted air of Georgia.  Either way this has been an interesting experiment.