I ran a bit over 100 miles in September. Not my best moth,
but there have been some interesting goings-on lately. I am speaking,
naturally, about the flooding that happened in Boulder recently. It is my good
fortune to live in an area of the front range that was relatively unaffected by
flooding. We received about a quarter of the rainfall that fell on Boulder, and
were pretty well safe as long as a giant dam did not burst and send a wall of
water cascading down on us.
Suffice to say that did not happen.
While we were not immediately affected by the flooding, we
have many friends who have been. My sister’s basement flooded, destroying most
of the downstairs electrical equipment. I have friends in Lyons who are looking
at a two- to six-month extended stay away from their house. And of course for
several days every single trail in Boulder County was closed. I got a taste of
road running again for a few days, and was quickly reminded why I prefer
trails.
The first several days after the flood, I ran around Boulder
on the raods, and the power of the flood was evident all over the town.
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| There's a tennis court under there somewhere |
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| Boulder Creek under Broadway. That is normally a bike underpass. It took them a couple weeks to dig that out. |
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| Chautauqua. |
In the past several weeks, they have begun opening the trails
once again, and we have been able to see first hand that, though they were
minimally damaged, the open trails were still affected by the flooding. Deep
erosion ruts are evident on most trails. Rockslides cover the Sanitas Valley,
and most of Mesa and all of Flagstaff are still closed. I have not even been
able to get a glimpse of the trails up Green Mountain, but from some imigase I
saw online, it appeared that at least part of the Saddle Rock Trail is a new
canyon.
As for training, after a sprained ankle (again from Parkour)
and the brief road running malaise, I have plunged back into it. I continue to
do Parkour twice a week (Wednesday and Saturday) and this has vastly increased
my strength and speed, as well as my confidence on difficult descents.
However it has not helped my endurance at all. And if I’m to
run the trail half national championships in Moab on November 2, I definitely
need to work on my mileage. The next two or three weeks I intend to get some
much longer runs in than I have been lately (8 or so miles has been my
longest), the general goal being that, when I tackle the half marathon, it
should feel rather short and easy in comparison.
As ever, we’ll see how it goes.
