Mesa Plus

I did end up doing the Mesa Trail last Saturday. My brother is town, so I took off a little earlier than usual and headed out on the full trail.

I've done pieces of this one before, but never the whole thing at once. In particular, I had never done the approach into Eldorado Springs before. So when I crested the ridge and looked at the broad, dirt road of a trail heading down, down, down into the canyon, awe at the view vied with despair at the downhill to come.

I was maybe 6 miles into the run at this point, not yet an hour of running, and most people might wonder at feeling despair at a downhill. However, it was a mile and a half of downhill which I would have to come back up on the way back to Chautauqua. Out and back runs make you dread the downhills as much as you do the uphill.

In any case, at 1:07, I reached the car park at the Eldorado Springs trailhead, and after a brief pause at the outhouse, I tapped the lap button on my watch and headed back towards Boulder and my car.

By the 11 or 12 mile mark, I was somewhat the worse for ware, no longer as adept at avoiding obstacles on the trail in front of my feet. Despite all that, I managed to pick up my heels and sprint down to my car at Chautauqua. The final time on my watch: 2:12. I took two minutes off my time on the way out, on the way back. That deduction despite the fact that the way back is in fact a net uphill.

I had hoped for a time of 2 hours or so for about 13 miles. While I didn't quite make that time, looking later I found that the full trail is in fact more than a half marathon. It is in fact a bit over 14 miles round trip. So I didn't quite make my goal pace, but it was a decent effort.

It took me a while to recover from that one.

As a side note, these are the records for Boulder Trails.

Upcoming Races

Looks like I'll be running in at least two races this month. Yesterday I signed up for the Sombrero Ranch Roundup. While it's only a 4.5 mile race, the time you get there is used directly as a qualifier for the Bolder Boulder. That should give you some idea of the difficulty of the race. According to my friend Jessica, who won her age group there last year, it's a good idea to get out quickly, because it quickly becomes single track where it's difficult to pass. In that sense, it sounds a little like the Golden Leaf (the second race I'm running this month).

It seems that recently my legs, and my mind, have gone through a bit of a re-emergence. I've finally been able to run consistently again for the past week or so. Given how much trouble I'd had with running over the summer, it's a welcome relief. Granted, I don't exactly expect to do all that well in my races this month, but it does bode well for being able to a half in, say, early November this year. At least, that's what I hope to do.

My goal for this week is to run the whole Mesa trail, as a bit of a sounding out of my legs for the Golden Leaf. Mesa is between 12 and 13 miles, and consistently either going uphill or down, so I think it should be a good indication of how my legs might be feeling during my half in Aspen. Here's hoping it goes well.

And I finally bought a water belt, which also carries my camera, so pictures will soon be on their way.

Tight

Gotta say, at the moment, training is not going so well. The motivation is there, but the legs are not showing up.

Granted, for a very long time this summer, the motivation was not there for me, so I did not train as much. Add to that three long trips without much training, and there's not much of a mystery as to why I'm not at my peak.

Mostly, my hamstrings and calves are quite tight. Feels like I've got a golf ball in each calf now. I didn't make much more than a mile on the run this morning.

What does that mean for my race schedule? Well, I still want to try them all, I'm just going to have to go into them with little to no expectation of performance. Unfortunate, for somebody who usually expects a ton out of himself, but that's reality for the moment. I'll just keep plugging away, and train when I can.

Hopefully an ice bath and a break today will help. Meanwhile, I"m off to finish my summer research.

Waay too hot

That's about the extent of it these days. The average high for this month in this part of CO has probably been between 85 and 95.

The result of this? It's been difficult for me to run lately. I end up getting up early (which is difficult for me, since my girlfriend both goes to bed and gets up a great deal later than I tend to) to try to run while it's still "cool." At this point, "cool" means anything below about 75 or so.

This Saturday, that meant getting up at 6:15, meeting my friend Jessica at 7:00, and then driving up up up into the mountains to do our run. Actually, I think this run only requires one or two ups. We ran at Betasso Preserve up the canyon a few miles. Instead of driving the whole way, we opted to take the Canyon Link Trail, which adds about 1.25 miles each way and maybe 500 feet of climbing. With two loops of the Betasso trail, that makes around 9-9.5 miles. And it took us somewhere around an hour and a half to do it. Not our best pace (we did about 10.5 in 1:20 last Saturday) but in our defense, it's not an easy trail.

Training over all? Not going quite as well as I'd hope this time of year, but there are signs that I'm getting better again. At the moment, I have two goal races: the Sombrero Trail Run, and the Golden Leaf Half in Aspen again. I'm leaving for a cross country road trip on Thursday, but we've scheduled time to run into that time, so hopefully that shouldn't be too much of a problem. We shall see.

The other goal for this year: Longs Peak. Late August.

Again, we shall see.

Back at it

Not sure what lead to it, exactly, but I seem to be back in form, if not shape entirely.

On Saturday, I went for a trail run with my friend Mark, who unfortunately will be leaving for Boston at the end of June. So in honor of his last couple weeks here, we went up to Walker Ranch Loop for a run. It's about a 8 mile trail, rife with mountain bikers, and with two considerable climbs. Not sure what the total elevation gain was, but it was reasonably significant. (according to one source, around 1200' over the course of 7.8 miles).

I don't know what it was about that run, but when I got back, even though my legs were exhausted, my will to run, and desire, was back.

Today, as an aftershot to the run above, I opted for Mt Sanitas. As usual, I went up Dakota ridge to East Ridge, and then down the main Mt Sanitas Trail. If I remember that one correctly, it's 1300' of vertical and the loop (from my house) is around 5 miles or so. Both the ascent up East Ridge and the descent down Mt Sanitas are technical and difficult (not sure I've ever managed to keep running the whole way up East Ridge).

After those two runs, my legs are a bit tired, a bit sore, but ready.

I'll have to figure out a way to take my camera on more runs. The views on most of them are quite incredible.

2 months on

It has now been precisely 2 months since my last post. Unacceptable, I know, but posts about the daily drudge of training are not all that interesting, to write or to read.

That, and grad school really got in the way this spring. In early May, during finals, I think I got overly stressed, and my right leg completely tensed up. It was bad enough that I did not run for three+ weeks, and have only been running at this point for a week and a half (about four times a week). But I seem to be doing a fair bit better, so there's hope for this summer yet.

That said, this summer I am not doing my normal training group. I've decided to focus more on trail running and racing, and not do many road races any more. The only road race I have on my schedule at this point is the Pearl Street Mile at the beginning of September. One of my coaches has thrown down a challenge to race him, and hopefully that will be interesting.

Outside of that, my racing plans are: July 5, the Leadville Heavy Half Marathon, August 1-3, the Wild West Relay, September, Golden Leaf Half. We shall see what else comes up this summer. At this point, I'm not even sure I'll be able to do all of those, but we'll see what happens. The key for me right now is just to not run too much. I wore myself out once, and it's not worth it to me to do so again.

Again from the NYT

The New York Times has an excellent periodic column called "Personal Best." More often that not, this column produces an interesting article, often quite applicable to running. The most recent one is quite interesting.

Yes, Running Can Make You High.

Check it out.