Two Week Summary, July 8-21

Monday, July 8: Off.

Tuesday, July 9: 5 miles, 500 feet. Ran up Dakota ridge taking it really easy. My legs were still feeling the weekend a little bit.

Wednesday, July 10: 13 miles, 2200 feet. I decided to join the Boulder Track Club’s Mountain Ultra Trail team for one of their Wednesday long runs to get a little extra mileage in for the week. More on this run in my other blog.

Thursday, July 11: 5.5 miles, 600 feet. Took an easy run up Sunshine Canyon. My legs felt pretty solid despite the long run the day before, which significantly upped my overall confidence level.

Friday, July 12: 4.5 miles, 200 or so feet. Took it really easy on the Boulder Creek Path. Nevertheless, I felt pretty good, and grabbed a bit of a scramble at what is apparently called lovers’ rock. Who knew?

Saturday, July 13: Off.

Sunday, July 14: 12 miles, 2800 feet. Headed over to White Ranch Open Space for a longish run.  More on this in the 13 Project.

Monday, July 15: Off.

Tuesday, July 16: 5.5 miles, 600 feet. Another easy day up Sunshine. The legs felt good, and I planned an adventure for the next day.

Wednesday, July 17: 8 miles, 4000 feet. Easily one of my best runs this year. I decided to head out early, drive up to Loveland Pass, and run over and up to Grizzly Peak. I saw nobody the 3 or so miles over to Grizzly, save for a couple mountain goats that, amazingly, led me directly up the trail. I felt really strong in the high altitude and nailed the final ascent up to Grizzly itself (hitting 1000 feet or so in about 15 minutes at 12000+ feet).

At the top of Grizzly, I ran into a group of summer campers summiting from the other side of the mountain, and chose not to linger, but turned and went back the way I came. I had considered pushing on to Torreys from Grizzly, but opted out, as I still had to get to work at some point that day.

The route back went more smoothly than the route out had, even with many people now on the trail. I chose at the last minute to run over and tag Snikatu, another 13er (my 4^th 13000’ summit of the day, counting two summits of Mt Cupid). This only took an additional 15 minutes, much to the annoyance of the hikers struggling their way to the top.

All in all, an excellent morning up in the mountains. After dropping back down to Loveland Pass, I drove back up to Boulder, and was at my desk and working before 11AM.

Thursday, July 18: 4.5 miles, 200 feet. Boulder Canyon run. I opted for an easy shakedown after the significant vertical the day before.

Friday, July 19: 5.5 miles, 1000 feet. Tempoed up Anemone in 13:46. I can’t remember if this is a PR, or just shy of a PR, but a solid effort.

Saturday, July 20: 4.5 miles, no appreciable elevation. Easy jaunt around the neighborhood in Westminster.

Sunday, July 21: 7.5 miles, 1300 feet. Took it easy on North Table Mountain.

This was the end of a solid three week training block. I’ll grant you that the last week was quite a bit shorter than the first two, which is opposite the normal pattern, but I got a good amount of climbing in there as well.

Unfortunately, it’s looking more and more like this will be my last good training block for a bit. The Thursday after this training block, I ended up in the ER for a fun evening of tests. With a sharp pain in my lower right abdomen, the doctors were all seemingly convinced that I had appendicitis (as was I). Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case. Unfortunately, we don’t actually know what happened. Almost a week later, now, I still am having significant pain in my abdomen, and have a doctors appointment tomorrow that will hopefully clear things out.

To make a longer story short, I have dropped out of the Wild West Relay at this point, and cannot for the immediate future see myself running, hiking, or doing parkour in any significant manner. I am grappling with the disappointment this has caused, and with not being able to be out in the Colorado summer, for which I still had such great plans.

I just hope that the appointment tomorrow clears some things up. 

Left to right, Grays, Grizzly, Cupid in the foreground.

Loveland Pass.

Saw a bunch of goats, leading me up the trail.

2-week Summary: June 24 – July 7

Monday, June 24: Off.

Tuesday, June 25. 6 miles, 600 feet. Ran up Sunshine Canyon for a shakeout run.

Wednesday, June 26: Biking for 25+ miles. Boulder’s annual Bike to Work day saw me ride to work from Westminster to Boulder. From my house, there is not any easy way to get to Boulder on a bike. I decided to skirt Stanley Lake, take Simms Street as far as it went, somehow connect over to the Coalton Trailhead, take the Mayhoffer-Singletree over to Marshall Drive, and head to Boulder from there.

It went well, mostly. I lost my way a bit between Simms and Coalton, where I messed around on singletrack for a while before heading through suburbia, a maze I usually try to avoid whether I am running or biking.

The full route ended up at 22 and a bit miles, according to Strava, and took 1 hour and 38 minutes. If I live in this same house for a while and decide to take this route at all more often, I will invest in a solid cross bike rather than my 29er. It might be a bit harder on the short singletrack sections, but it would make the road sections much easier. 

The remainder of the mileage consisted of bike path from the bus stop to my house at the end of the day.

Note to self: the 29er will not fit on the front of a bus.

Thursday, June 27: 5 miles, minimal elevation. I took the morning off, and ran a fartlek around my neighborhood when I got home. Solid effort.

Friday, June 28: 7 miles, 1000 feet. Took it fairly easy up Anemone in 15:49. After running across the top section, I attempted to take the back route down, but promptly lost the trail and ended up bushwhacking my way back up to the official trail.

Saturday, June 29. 4.5 miles, minimal elevation change. Ran out from the house early in the morning.

Sunday, June 30 Actually took this day off.

This was clearly an easy week for me. I only ran a total of 22 miles, and negligible vertical, after my 37 miles and 10000’ the week before. I had ramped up my training again following the Dirty Thirty for three solid weeks, and thought an easy week might be in order.

That said, I felt I had done plenty during the week, between the running, biking and Parkour. I certainly did not feel that I lost any fitness, but rather gave my body a chance to recover from the punishing week preceding.

Monday, July 1: 7 miles, 500 feet. Ran easy up the Boulder Creek Path to Four Mile and back.

Tuesday, July 2: 6 miles, 600 feet. Ran a Fartlek up Sunshine Canyon, and a Tempo section all the way back to work.

Wednesday, July 3: 4+ miles, 700+’ hiking. I messed around up in the Brainerd lakes area with my fiancée and my brother, who was in town for the week from San Francisco. His lungs were understandably not ready for a lot of exertion up above 10,000’, so we kept it easy and fun on the Mitchell and Blue Lakes Trail.

Impressively, there was still a good amount of snow below treeline.

Audubon

My brother and my fiancee being goofy

Just my brother being goofy. Snow Angel!!

Thursday, July 4: Off. Birthday celebrations for my fiancée and ‘Merica. We slept in, grabbed an excellent brunch at the Huckleberry (PIE!!!), and took the hop down to Denver for the Rockies game. This is the first time we haven’t gone to the Rapids game. I still prefer Soccer to Baseball, but I guess Baseball is the national pastime, and probably more appropriate for the 4^th.

Friday, July 5: 7 miles, 700’. An easy jaunt up over Red Rocks and on up Dakota Ridge from there. I find it amazing how much I love even the brief bit of more engaging terrain that the route over Red Rocks can provide. Anton might just be on to something.

Saturday, July 6: 3 miles, no vert. The legs felt inexplicably tired, given the relatively light week so far, so I headed out for a lackadaisical 3 miler around the neighborhood.

Sunday, July 7: 14+ miles, ~900’.  I decided to head back to the Dirty Bismarck loop. This now-complete loop is near my house, relatively long, with a mix of dirt road, dirt bike path, double track, and single track that provides for good variety, as well as incredible views of Longs and the Indian Peaks. I have also run it on several occasions in a variety of conditions, so it’s a good touch point for my middle-distance fitness.

This day, I decided two things: first, I would never stop the clock (which I have done in the past). Second, I would take the first 11 or so miles at just over conversational pace, and punch it for the last 5k.

My legs were reasonably compliant. I felt solid the whole way, with just a tiny bit of fatigue hitting at the end. Nonetheless, I hit the last 5k in just over 20 minutes, for a solid end-of-run effort. I came it at 1:51 for the loop, which is a fair but not exhausting effort. I also believe it was a PR for me on this loop.

All in all, I felt that this was a fair training week. It was not too long, not too heavy on the vert, but I added a couple significant workouts in for good measure. I can definitely tell that I am getting faster and fitter, but the up-tempo workouts I’ve added in over the past month also take more out of my legs, and require easy days and/or days off in order for my legs to feel recovered. I think I will come close to 50 miles this week, depending on what runs I choose in the middle of the week, and will probably try to hover around there, getting more comfortable with the increased distance, while adding in a bit more speed and vert into the equation.