Summits

I felt a little bit off this summer. My schedule never seemed to settle. I was consistent looking for a new apartment on the weekends, and climbing and working on the weekdays. I had planned to do a wide array of 14ers over the course of the summer, but never got to them.

I did, however, get a few in this September. Quandary, Bierstadt, and Evans fell in quick succession. Quite a shift given that previously I had not done any peaks in September, but it was quite fun. I have found, and I don't know whether this is a normal situation or not, that the weather was much more cooperative in September than in July or August. I didn't encounter any major storms on the three peaks I bagged.

In any case, here are a few pics from the hikes.

Quandary: Looking West from the summit.

And looking east, back where we came from



Beirstadt was my first solo fourteener. I only saw 8 other people on this hike, which is a record low for a 14er. The first pic is me on the summit. I tried to get Grays and Torreys in the background.

The notorious sawtooth between Bierstadt and Evans.



Evans was by far the easiest 14er I've ever done. It helps when you can drive up to 12800 feet. But, we saw six mountain goats on the mountain, all told. That's six more than I've seen before.


The required summit pic.

On the way down, we got a fantastic view of Colorado's fall colors.


There was talk of doing Sherman the weekend after Evans, but those plans never panned out.

Overall, though, I would call September a very successful month for 14ers.

Breakthroughs

I believe that one of the main reasons so many people enjoy running is the potential for breakthroughs. I believe I've written a post on this sometime in the past, but I cannot quite remember, so at the risk of repeating myself, I am writing one now.

In my experience, there are very few sports other than running that contain the possibility for such massive breakthroughs. Normally in my case it has to do more with overcoming some mental hurdle than a physical breakthrough. You are running along one day, out for a mid-distance, easy workout, and rather than turning around, or taking the left fork, you keep going, or take the right one.

Before you know it, you're much farther out from your house than you ever intended. In fact, you're pretty sure that this is turning into the longest run you've done so far this training cycle, or even in your life. And yet, somehow, your body feels fine. Better than fine. Your body starts telling you "I can go like this for as long as you want me to." And best of all, you believe it.

These are by far my favorite runs. And naturally, I had one this morning. Having changed from "real" running shoes over to the fivefingers, I have necessarily reduced my training by quite a bit. Quite simply, my feet and calves were not any where near strong or conditioned enough to train seriously in the minimal coverings yet. This was expected, and I knew to deal with it. And my training was not going particularly well in any case, so I made the leap.

Today, I ran twice as far in my Sprints as I ever have before. I just kept going at what I thought was the end of my favorite trail around here, and it felt fantastic. And then, at the end of my run, I found a detour: there was a construction crew out laying tar on the asphalt outside my apartment building, so I was force to run an extra half mile on top of the run I'd already completed.

It felt fantastic!

This ties in with the theories expounded upon in the latest running book I am reading. The book is called simply "Run," by Matt Fitzgerald. The subtitle calls it "The mind-body method of running by feel," and that says it all. Rather than rigidly following a particular training plan, you listen to what your body is telling you, via your brain, and tailor your workouts accordingly. That's not to say that you don't have a plan, but rather you leave yourself open to adapting it according to what works best for your body.

A particular theme in this book is listening to your feelings of confidence. Use whatever training techniques and workouts that make you the most confident in your ability to race well. There's a reason that certain workouts make you feel more confident, and that is because they are in fact doing the most for your body.

But confidence in itself is important as well. Up until today, I was not feeling very confident in my fivefinger shoes. But I ran both longer and on a much rougher trail today than I have up until this point, and suddenly I feel as though these foot gloves might just work for me, and more than that, might just be fantastic!

That is not to say that I won't be taking tomorrow easy.

Now, on to the important business of the day. I have not had much luck with my computer ever since our cat spilled water all over it one night. At the moment, it seems to be working two out of three days, but I'm worried that ratio might be falling. So I am off now to try it again and see whether I can get it to work today. If not, I may be forced to buy a new one.

The Altar of Consistency

The Altar of Consistency is a phrase used in the book Once a Runner, one of the quintessential running books (recently republished). It's used there in the context of a runner who, whatever the day, whatever the weather, and however he's feeling, runs twice a day.

Recently, I read another, nominally, running book, What I talk about when I talk about running by Haruki Murakami. This book is more of a memoir of Murakami-san's life since he started running around the age of thirty. He also mentions something along the same lines, saying that you have to let your legs know what is expected of them. In his case, this means running six days a week, regardless of his schedule.

At the moment, I am engaged in a similar activity. Several months ago, in my last post in fact, I reported buying a pair of Fivefingers to see how they might work for me. I am still getting used to them, since this summer has not been the best for my running consistency. I am in the process of fixing that. And while I'm on the topic, the Fivefingers seem to be doing their job. I'm getting much more used to them, which is in fact a part of this post. But I've noticed that, since I can only forefoot strike in them, and never heel strike, I have fewer problems relating to my overpronation when I'm running.

Back to the previous topic, I've started running every day. Absolutely every day, in fact. I did a 14er yesterday (my first solo attempt, pics to come later), running a significant portion of Mt Bierstadt. And today, I got up, admittedly late, and went for a short run.

And my legs responded by saying, after the run, "now what? Bring it on."

So that seems to be working well for me.

As an addition to that consistency training, I put in a second requirement: that I write every day I run. I don't need to write in this blog, but I do need to write something each day I run.

I decided to do this because one of my goals, one of the items on my bucket list for life, is to write a full book. I am not clear on what type I want to write, or what would be the best way to go about it. My mother seems set on the idea that I should write a "popular science" book, or something similar (popular control systems?) since in her opinion I am extremely good at explaining complicated ideas in a simple and understandable manner. I'l admit I always thought about writing a novel (Sci-Fi or Fantasy seems the most likely). But, who knows, with this daily running/writing thing, maybe I'll end up writing some sort of memoir day-by-day.

The reason for this is that, in every book on writing I've ever read (not many), and on every author's web page, the biggest advice they have for budding authors is to write.

Thus, I only write on the days I run which, currently, is every day.