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.

Foot Gloves!

While reading the book "Born to Run," by Christopher MacDougall, I decided to head to my local shoe store to try on a pair of Vibram Fivefingers. For those of you who don't know, they are, as the title of this post suggests, basically gloves for your feet. They have separated toes, with a sole of Vibram rubber. The basic idea is to give you a barefoot feel for the ground while still giving a good grip and mild protection.

Upon first donning these "shoes," I liked the feel. I was tempted to give them a shot. But I wasn't sold just yet.

I went home and proceeded to research barefoot running, using Google Scholar searches and my access to the CU library to see what was out there. I found peer-reviewed journal articles about the increase in running injuries with the advent of more supportive, and restrictive, and cushioning, running shoes (which began with Nike). I read articles about the benefits of minimalist and barefoot running. I read Alan Webb's story about his barefoot training.

In the face of mounting evidence, and my own experience in my reduced injury rate having switched to a forefoot strike, I decided to go back and buy a pair.

I was surprised to find that everywhere I looked was out of most models. I ended up buying three different pairs, and ending up with the Sprint model. And so begins my barefoot experiment.

At the moment, I'm fairly limited in my use of them. I run short distances in them each day, starting with a quarter mile and increasing to the point where I'm now running half a mile in them. So far I have noticed a few different sore muscles, which is only to be expected when changing running form. Other than that, I notice less of a difference than I may have expected.

I do, however, like the feel of them. They give me more of a sense of what my foot is actually doing then my other shoes.

As I said, we shall see how these work.

Hail

A very short post to get back into this:

In case you were wondering, getting hailed on when you are running hurts.

I've been biking in the hail before, and figured that was pretty bad. You are, after all, hunched over, baring your back to the brunt of the hailstones. However, if you have an ounce of sense, you're wearing a helmet, so it is much more difficult for the hail to actually strike you full on the head.

However, when running, I know very few people who wear helmets. This frees up your head for the full brunt of nature's vindictiveness. Even relatively small hailstones feel like a pincushion's worth of needles striking your head point-downwards.

So let me reiterate: getting hailed on when you are running hurts.

A lot

Backpacking, Part 2

After all the excitement of our attempts to leave for the trip, we did actually make it to the trailhead sometime around 2PM. In actuality, that was much earlier than we had gotten to the trailhead our last backpacking trip. I think we got there about 6PM that time, and I made it to the campsite just as dusk was falling.

When Kris and I got to the trailhead, the rest of the group had already taken off, leaving one behind to let us know to catch up. That we did in about a mile or two. Then, as a group, we took off for Bob and Betty Lakes, where we'd be spending the night. It was about a 6 1/2 mile hike or so, with around 3000 feet of elevation gain. Not so simple with all your gear on your back.

After stopping a couple times to let squalls pass, we actually did make it to the campsite. Predictably, that close to the divide, it was cold and windy. We set up camp quickly, and tried to settle in. And, after some difficulty with making numb fingers tie knots in monofilament, I braved the wind and threw a few casts into the water.

Quite to my surprise, my second cast landed me a little brook trout, which I promptly released.

It would prove to be the only fish caught that trip.

The wind proved a bit much, and I ended after that minor feat with an impressive line snarl for my trouble. I opted to call it quits, make dinner (mmm ramen . . .) and head for bed with the sun.

Sleep was hard to come by. Throughout that night, the wind was gusting at, I'm guessing, between 40 and 60 mph. My little Halfdome tent handled it well, but I did not get much (read any) sleep. And me being me, I woke up earlier than everybody else.

It was a gray, cold day.

Our plan was to scout up the Continental Divide (or High Lonesome) trail, which we were hoping to follow the next day to hop over to Devil's Thumb Lake. But after looking at the divide, or at least in the general direction as seen above, we opted out of that plan, and decided to head down valley instead, following the view below.

Much more inviting. There were, however, a number of rather pretty, if small, wildflowers near our first campsite.



Actually, there were quite a few more than this, but I liked these.

This little guy was our camp mascot. Fortunately, he never found his way into our food supplies. That would have made it all the more annoying up there. This was something like my 8th attempt to take a picture of him. Every other time, just as I was focusing in on him, he disappeared. I think he was just waiting till he could pose properly . . .

A pic of the rest of the gang. Left to right: Kris, Luke, Lelah, Rachel, Phil. (Click the picture to enlarge).

Shortly after that pic, and another mile or so onwards and downwards, I realized I had left my little tackle box up at the first campsite. So, naturally, I told the rest to go on, and ran back up the mile and a half and 800 feet of elevation to go get it. And, right in the middle, I got nailed by a hailstorm, fully vindicating our decision to leave and head down.

Not much more to report after that. We made it down to our campsite for night two, off the trail and by a creek under some large evergreens. It proved much more comfortable, if much buggier, than the previous site. And, following a failed fishing expedition to Lost Lake, we opted to sleep (for 11 hours) and head out in the morning.


It's a cheesy shot, I know, but they all lined up on the bridge so nicely, that I couldn't resist taking a shot. This is the last 20 feet or so of hiking, right by the trailhead. Left to Right: Lelah (rather hidden behind Rachel), Rachel, Kris, Phil, and Luke.

Not the most successful of backpacking trips ever. But as Calvin says, in an impersonation of his dad, "being miserable builds character." It wasn't all miserable, but we certainly had some character building on this trip . . .