A New Perspective on the Flatirons

Last Thursday, before I got my new trail shoes but after I got my new orthotics, I had to take a day off running. I had intended to take the day off entirely, but it was a misty, rainy day. Those are my favorite for trail running: everything just seems fresher, somehow. That, and it's never as horribly warm.

So, rather than trail running, I went for one of my favorite hikes: Saddle Rock in Chautauqua here in Boulder. It's a rather steep, fairly short hike, and the views from the top are generally spectacular. You get a view across at Flagstaff, and down into Boulder as well.

And since I wasn't running, it was easy to take my camera along and get a few good pics.


The Rock for which the trail is named. I didn't get a great pic of the actual "saddle" part, but you can see, it's up there a bit.

From the top, as I mentioned, you get some great views. Being spring, the Chautauqua Meadow is actually green, instead of the dead brown it turns later in the summer. It was somehow prettier when I took the picture.

At this point, I looked up farther, at the back of one of the Flatirons, and opted to hike to it. After a significant climb, I scrambled around on the rocks for a while, and found a niche that provided a bit of a different perspective on the Flatirons.

I thought it was pretty cool how close the angle of the Flatiron I was on was to the next one over.

The best part of the hike? I got a call in the middle of it saying that my new shoes had come in. When I got to Fleet Feet to pick them up, the person who sold them to me turned out to be a fellow Colby grad.

Small world.

Today, I'm going for a short Dakota Ridge/Sanitas Valley Run. Tomorrow, hopefully Betasso Preserve with Jessica.

Nemesis: Spring

Two days ago I picked up a book I'd been intending to read for some time: "No Shortcuts to the Top," by Ed Viesturs. For those who may not know, Viesturs is one of the world's pre-eminent Himalayan climbers, having summited all 14 of the world's 8000 meter peaks without the use of suplemental oxygen. He is also known for his rather conservative approach to climbing, emphasized by his motto "Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory." In my, completely uneducated, relatively uninformed opinion, that shows far more integrity and daring than the gung ho style adopted by many mountaineers.

All that aside, one of the chapters in the book is entitled "Nemesis: Annapurna." Annapurna is the deadliest of the 8000 meter peaks by some measures, and the last one Viesturs knocked off his list, and became, quite literally, a nemesis for him.

I've decided that my nemesis, at least as far as running goes, is spring. I don't know what it is about this season, but I have trouble running through it. I generally manage pretty well through January and February, which by all rights should be the most difficult months, being the coldest on the whole. Once March comes around, however, things start to go wrong. I start to accrue little injuries that, while not seeming significant in and of themselves, add up and lead to something larger.

Last year, it was a quad/hamstring issue that kept me from training. This year, it was an IT band problem, which stemmed, I believe, from the breakdown of my orthotics. Whatever it happens to be, I end up not training much in April, and rarely in May. And then, seemingly magically, though probably due to the rest I'm forced to take, sometime in May I get back into it in time for the summer/fall/winter seasons.

My nemesis is spring.

Just last Friday, I got a new pair of orthotics. This is just in time for me to be very tempted to run the Bolder Boulder on Memorial day. But, as I well know, that would be a poor choice at this point. So once again, I will be watching from Folsom Stadium.

Part of me is very disappointed about this, but part of me accepts it as almost inevitable. And, the fact of the matter is that this blog is very appropriately titled "Racing Through the Wilderness." At heart, I am a trail runner. While I would not say I despise running on roads, I definitely do not love it as I do trail running. Road running almost bores me, while, even when running the same trails day after day, trail running nevertheless offers variety. I also believe that it is primarily because I tend to run on the roads so much more in the winter months that, by the spring, my legs are so beat up that they give in.

Simply put: every trail is different. Beyond relatively superficial differences, roads are generally similar to each other.

I, for one, am glad that summer is coming.