The scary thing is it just might happen

But it won't be for a while yet. Last year, towards the end of the summer, my friend Sonya and her boy rode their mountain bikes from Boulder over Rollins Pass to Winter Park. It's a long way, but they seemed to manage ok.

Well, that got me to thinking, I want to run longer races this summer (the Leadville Heavy Half, Pikes Peak, and the Golden Leaf among them), so why not throw an epic run in there somewhere?

That's right, I want to run from Boulder to Winter Park. This would start at my house in Boulder, at an elevation of approximately 5400 feet above sea level. On the way, I would head up through Nederland (8500 feet) and up into Indian Peaks Wilderness over the continental divide (12,250 feet, more or less). And down the other side to end up in Winter Park (9500 feet).

I'm not sure of the exact route yet. I would prefer not to take the same route the bikers did, as there was a lot of road involved. I'd prefer to stay on the trails whenever possible, which might make the route even longer than the 45 miles I'm estimating right now. We shall see.

I have friends who are willing to, in their words, "sit at the brewery and wait for" me to get there, and drive me back (after what I'm certain would be a large dinner). I also have a friend who, since she's planning to run an Ultra later in the month, would run this with me.

The scary part is it might just happen, and it's up to me to 1) train enough so that it's possible and 2) organized so we don't die . . .

A few Pics

Here are a few pics from the recent crazy weather. Wednesday, I went running in another, albeit brief, snow squall. I had to take off my sunglasses for that one. The snow was so wet and sticky that by the time I got home there was a good 1/2" of snow stuck to the lenses. Later that night, full of a bit too much restless energy, due in part to an annoying takehome exam, I opted to go for another run. At that point, it was icy but, aside from a close call with a snowplow, slightly worrisome, I managed ok. 3 miles in 18 minutes. I'm in better shape than I thought.


This one was from last Thursday. I had already shoveled the deck once. This was 12PM.



By later the afternoon, as you can see, the snow was a bit deeper.


The next day, the flatirons looked quite impressive in the sunlight.

And today, weather's in the fifties, and there's a chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. Sounds like the perfect day for a run, followed by a relaxing Friday Happy Hour.

Snow Running

So it's been over a month since I last posted. Actually, it's been closer to two. As this suggests, I've been busier than usual, and I have not been running as much as I usually would.

I'm in the process of finishing off my masters degree in Control Systems Engineering here in Colorado. Part of that requires that I take more credits than I usually would, and the credits I am taking are harder than they usually would be. All in all, that would be enough to eat up my free time and spit it out in tiny pieces. On top of that, I'm writing a masters thesis. On top of that there's a girl Ive been seeing for a bit over three months now.

That said, this last week as been my spring break. Rather than go anywhere warm, I opted to stay in Boulder and a) save money and b) get some work done. I could add a c) run a bunch in there and it would work perfectly. I believe I have the primary theorem for my Masters proven at this point, so my break has already been a success.

On the running front. Saturday afternoon I took off for a Mesa run with my friend Jessica. Neither of us has been running as much as we usually do, so it was a slow run, as evidenced by how quickly the CU mens track team overtook us on the way up. It was slightly depressing. But then, that's not unexpected.

Tuesday, I got my first real intensity workout in: 8x90s hills up Sanitas valley. They went pretty well, though I think I could have pushed myself a fair amount harder had I wanted to. This is the first workout of any intensity I've gotten in since I quit the training club almost a year ago, and it really drove home how much easier it is to push yourself with a team around you. But, I finished the workout, and my legs felt better than I expected them to.

Yesterday I had planned an easy run, in anticipation of a tempo workout today. However, I woke up to 6 inches of snow. That's fine, not that much. But by the time I ran at about 1:30, that had increased to 13 inches. So I decided, what the hell, let's go for a trail run in the powder.

I strapped on my Kahtoola Microspikes and headed out. As ever, the microspikes gave me a near-perfect grip on both the packed snow/ice of the roads and the 12 inches of powder on the trail. I once again ran up Sanitas Valley, as I didn't want to risk the footing on other trails (where you cannot see any rocks or other obstacles under the snow), and a run that normally takes me 25 minutes took closer to 50. The only other people I saw were on snowshoes, out walking their dogs, one of whom quipped "Hey! That's not allowed!" as I 'stormed' past them up the hill.

Easy run it was not, but it was a ton of fun, and a great bit of strength training.

I'll post some pics as soon as I get them off my camera . . .

Crazy Weather

As expected in a mountain climate this time of year, the weather has been a little bit interesting lately. Last week it was in the upper 50's and 60's. I even went out for the first shirtless run of the year at one point. Normally, that does not happen in mid-January, but then, northern Minnesota has a bit of a different climate than Colorado.

In any case, yesterday, far from a shirtless run, it was a bit under 10 degrees and I ran for half my run into a brisk headwind, which made things yet more interesting. And this morning, on my walk to the bus stop, the temperature registered at a rather brisk -5. But that's ok, since where I'm from, the temp was a good ten degrees lower than that.

I have felt rather lazy lately. I've only been running 4-5 days a week. The semester has come on full force, and I'm taking 12 grad credits (which is a %133 course load), and TA'ing at the same time (for a rather less-than-impressive professor). Add to that skiing every Saturday, and trying to fit in a little bit of a social life in there somewhere, and it makes it difficult to find any sort of time to run at all.

So I've been lucky to get in 25 miles per week lately. If I really feel energetic, I get a few miles in after skiing on Saturday. But, as I telemark, I consider skiing a pretty good strength workout (imagine doing lunges down a hill, and you start to get the picture of the kind of workout it is). That said, no matter how tired my legs feel after skiing, my next run always feels amazing, as though I could go forever and not use any energy whatsoever.

I'm going to try to work up my mileage a bunch over the next two months. My next big race is not till April, when I have the Horsetooth Half. After that, it's a 5k to qualify for a decent Bolder Boulder wave, the BB itself, the Leadville Heavy Half in July, and Pikes Peak in August. Somewhere in there, I'll be pacing my friend SH in her attempt at the Leadville 100.

The year begins to take shape. Now the only question is where I might end up after I finish my degree and try to find a job.

Pics to come soon.

Surfing Lake Superior

In the not-too-far-gone days of my childhood in northern Minnesota, I remember my favorite days being the windy summer days on Park Point, when the breakers would come in and we would bodysurf in the biggest freshwater lake in the world. Normally, the water never gets much above 50 degrees just a few inches below the surface, but if there was an East or Northeast Wind, it blew all the surface water towards the point, and if you were tough you could spend upwards of 10 minutes at a time in the water.

In the past decade or so, there has been an increasing population of Freshwater Surfers on the lake, and far from sticking to the warm, windy days in the summer, they surf year round. Now, I've swum in Lake Superior every month of the year, and while it's true that the water is much warmer than the air in the middle of the winter, it's still a risky proposition, and for me usually a "jump in, jump out, warm up" maneuver.

These guys, while fully equipped, are still tough. Here's, yet another, NYT article profiling them.

The Freshwater Surfers.

Cold Running

I've always been a proponent of this myself, but it's good to see that there is at least some evidence behind it. As usual, the NYT has a great article related to running. The "Personal Best" Column continues to be one of my favorites.

So, don't stop running just because you have a cold.

The Bike Path Fartlek

Anybody who has run for a while probably knows what a fartlek is. If not, see my previous post on the subject. Fartleks are some of my favorite workouts, precisely because they require you to be in tune with your running, and at the same time can improve your fitness tremendously. Without a watch, they require even more awareness of your body.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've started running without a watch most times. This requires me to adjust some of my typical workouts (intervals, fartleks, etc) and pay more attention to what I'm physically feeling, rather than what the numbers on my watch are telling me to do. So far I think I like this method.

One of the new workouts I've come up with for watchless training happened almost entirely by accident one night when I had not started running until late in the afternoon, and so had relegated my workout to the Boulder Creek Path, a place I normally avoid for several reasons. First, it's concrete, and I don't like running on roads period. Second, it's dark, and there are sometimes issues with people not paying attention. And third, it's populated by an extraordinary number of bikers, which might be expected on a bike path. However, this third negative allows for a rather interesting workout.

This particular night I was feeling quite randomly enerjectic. At one point, when a biker on a singlespeed passed me up, I decided to tag along behind him to see how long I could keep up. It turned out that it was quite a bit longer than I expected. I started doing this with every bike that passed me. It led to an interesting workout, and one that I now do on a more regular basis: what I call the "Bike Path Fartlek."

The rules are exactly what I just described: every time a bike passes you on the bike path, keep up with it for as long as you can. Granted this only works in select places (Boulder being one of them). It also leads to an incredibly varied workout. Certain bikers will go very slowly, allowing you to tag onto their wheel for a very long time. Others (especially in Boulder and like-minded areas) will blow by you and let you tag on at a full sprint for maybe 5-10 seconds. The most interesting are those that fall in between, where you might hit anything from an 800 pace to a 10k pace.

Let me tell you, it's a phenomenal workout. Uphill bike paths make it yet more interesting (the Canyon in Boulder is a good route for uphill enthusiasts). I do not recommend trying this downhill (it's rather dangerous, really, and hard on your knees).

At this point, I don't actually have a race planned until April sometime, at which point we will see how my methods are working (Horsetooth Half, anybody?).