Why I trail run.

Some time ago, Anton Krupicka, fellow Boulder resident and Ultra runner extraordinaire, wrote a piece for running times about why he runs trails (you can read it here). It has quickly become another one of his classic pieces, standing alongside the piece he wrote on why he is a minimalist runner. In this particular piece, as is he is wont to do, he gets more existential and philosophical. In my writing, I prefer using stories and examples to get my idea across, and there is a day last week that exemplifies why I love running trails.

It began as a fairly typical morning run for me. Having run for two and a half hours on Saturday, with the Bolder Boulder on Monday, I had felt somewhat sluggish on my run Tuesday morning. By Wednesday, however, I was feeling back to form enough to give Flagstaff a shot. Running up the trail, just a 10-minute run from my office, I again thought how lucky I was to have such great trails within easy reach.

My legs felt strong on the uphill, bounding easily over rocks and roots and hitting a steady, fast cadence up the steep section. But I had not planned to do the whole trail that day, so about two-thirds of the way up I called it good, turned around, and headed back down the mountain.

How I take the downhill depends far more on how my legs are feeling and how much rest they’ve gotten than my approach to the uphill sections normally does. Some days, when I feel particularly good, I fairly fly down the trail, dancing and skipping over rocks and around trees, with my feet touching down for the briefest moments before rising again. In those times, I feel more like I’m dancing than running. I don’t look for a spot to plant my foot, I let my feet glide lightly over the ground, each footfall being used merely as a reference and means of control.

Other days, such as this one, when my quada are a little sore, I opt for a slower, more relaxed approach. Rather than the dancing steps, the downhill becomes slow and inexorable. And last Wednesday I was particularly glad I took that approach.

Coming around a corner at a sedate pace, I found myself face to face with a deer. He was standing smack in the middle of the trail, looking straight across at me with an expression that said, very clearly, “What the hell are you doing here? This is my trail.”

I slowed, stopped, and we looked at each other for a few breaths. H was a young buck, probably a yearling, two years at the most, and his velvet-covered antlers were going to make him a four-pointer at best. With all the brazen confidence of youth, h stood right in my path, not moving as I walked closer. Finally, when I got to within five feet of him, he gave me one last look, and slowly walked up the side of the hill, joining a group of two more young males.

I continued on for the last mile of the downhill, thinking just how rare that moment had been, and how much I love trail running. When you run, you are necessarily a part of the environment, whether that’s a street, a trail, or a track. There is a connection there, one that you lose with the speed of bikes and the enclosure of a car. You move along through a space, smoothly and efficiently, but there is no denying that you are at the same time a part of that space. That connection, and that feeling of efficient motion, is the essence of my love for trail running.

And as if that run were not surreal enough, a mile and a half later, back on the Boulder Creek Path, I saw two runners coming towards me, on the space to the side of the path where I normally run. And sure enough, there was Scott Jurek, in the trail in front of me, just like that brazen buck.

Only fitting, since his nickname to the Tarahumara translates as “deer.”

A surreal experience, and one that I am not likely to forget any time soon.

The Naked Tour

It has now been four days since The Naked Tour came through Boulder, so I think I had better get this down and posted before I forget about it altogether. As you’ll soon seen, though, that is probably not possible for me.

Context! For those of you who do not know, The Naked Tour is the book signing tour that Christopher McDougall tied to coincide with the paperback release of “Born to Run.” Rather than a normal tour, though, he decided to do something a little different: throughout the tour, he would be joined at different points by other minimalist-type, form-minded runners, usually mentioned in his book. Together they would do the book signing, lead a run, and then do a “cabaret” about running form and technique. The Boulder stop included notables such as Scott Jurek, Eric (check the last name), and Marshall Ulrich in addition to McDougall himself.

I got a message about this from the Boulder Bookstore, and realized that there was no way in hell I could pass up this opportunity. So I duly showed up at the 11AM start, got my copy of “Running on Empty” signed by the author (Ulrich) and waited around for an hour or so before Chris and Scott arrived.

As far as I can remember, I have not mentioned here yet that Scott Jurek was the assistant coach for my high school cross country ski team for a while, when I was just learning. As I read about him more and more in the intervening years, I found it hard to believe that “Coach Jerk” had accomplished all off his various exploits, and that he was by all accounts a very nice guy. I remembered him primarily for yelling at us to do our “tele turns” on the way down hills, which would have made a whole lot more sense had I known then what Telemark Skiing was.

Thank you, Scott. Turns out, here in Colorado I took up Telemark skiing, and your lessons served me well.

So when Scott showed up at the bookstore, I caught him on the way in, looking a little confused as he was unsure of where to go, and held up my old Marshall School XC ski jersey. A bit cheesey, I know, but that’s part of who I am. I directed him upstairs to where the signing was taking place, and went next door to grab a bite and a coffee.

To diverge significantly, Sunday also marked the last day the Bookends Café was in business. This Boulder icon was where I spent many long hours looking for a job and then, once I found one, working on my research for the NWTC at NREL. It was also the place where I wrote the entirety of my Masters thesis. They never gave their reasons for closing, but they will be sorely missed.

After fueling up a bit, we gathered upstairs to plan the run. This was more complicated than expected. Boulder OSMP has a rule that, for groups of more than 25 people, you are required to apply for a permit to use the trails. Well, they informed the Naked Tour of this fact at 5 on Friday, negating even the possibility of getting the proper permits. And, this being Boulder, there were of course more than 25 of us, so we had to split up.

Here we ran into a problem: the route we were taking up Flagstaff was a relatively less-known one. Scott knew where we were going, but Chris did not, so they could not both lead groups up the mountain. So they asked if anybody else knew the route. One person raised their hand, and I’ll give you one guess who it was.

And so, I briefly joined the Naked Tour as a trail guide. As a reward, I got a (very) limited edition Naked Tour running shirt (pics follow), and I also got a tiny bit of notoriety among those who attended.

So we took off. As long as we were on the creek path, there was no problem being in a big group, and we made our way to Eben G. Fine park together, strung out in a long line of runners that reminded me of the days when I used to train with the Bolder Boulder Training Club, now Boldrunning. Once we reached the park, though, we had to split up.

On most trails in Boulder, this would not be a problem, but for whatever reason, few people know the route up Flagstaff from the Creek Path. The route takes Viewpoint trail up the north side of Flagstaff, to Panorama, which traverses the west face, at which point you get on the actual Flagstaff Trail to the summit and the Sunrise Amphitheater, where the Naked Cabaret, as it is called, would hold court.

Chris and Scott decided, naturally enough, to split the group into a fast group and a slower, more strung out group. But Scott and I were the only two who knew where we were going. And, much to my surprise, I was appointed to lead the fast ones to the top.

At the moment, I don’t consider myself to be particularly fast, and the idea of Scott Jurek, THE Scott Jurek, suggesting that I take the fast group to the summit was more than a little intimidating. But, I wasn’t about to say no so, with some quip with the words “assuming I can keep up with them” I took up off up the trail, leading those who considered themselves particularly quick.

For those of you who have not taken the Viewpoint route up Flagstaff, it starts off at a fairly easy slope. We took off at a good clip, talking, laughing, and generally feeling pretty good. After a couple switchbacks, though, the trail takes a definite turn upwards (straight up the side of Flagstaff for a while, in fact). At that point, much of the group started walking.

This honestly surprised me, as I avoid walking on most trails unless I’m out for 15 miles or more. But I slowed my pace a bit and stuck with them, as the gasps started becoming more frequent and more audible. The amount of effort people were putting out was clearly rising rapidly, and we weren’t even a third of the way up the climb yet.

Through most of the climb, I ran with a runner who works at the “Mind, Body, Sole” store in Denver. He had just run the Cheery Creek Sneak 5-miler that morning, and then raced up to Boulder to catch the “once in a lifetime” Naked Tour. We talked generally about minimalist footwear, running in general, and the Colfax Marathon (which he was running in two-weeks’ time).

At each fork in the trail, or road crossing, I stopped and waited to make sure the entire group got headed the right direction. This is particularly critical after the first crossing of Flagstaff road, when there are several forks that are inevitably confusing for the first time runner. I fully expected to get annoyed by the constant waiting, then racing to catch up to the front of the group. But I actually found it rather tun, and somewhat satisfying too.

At the third road crossing, we joined up with a couple local runners who I had seen at the bookstore earlier, but had to head home to change clothes before joining the run. They had just run up the Gregory Canyon route. Remarkably, one of them was running up the trail barefoot, which if you have ever seen the type of trails we have in Boulder is very impressive. They promptly took up station at the front of the group.

The rest of the run went smoothly. The group would string out on the sections where you couldn’t lose the trail, and compress again any time there was a possibility of confusion. On the long last stretch up to the summit area, most people were clearly feeling the climbing we had already done, and many started walking up the log stairs. I still felt remarkably fresh, and so took off to the top with the two runners we met on the way.

And then (once the trailing group had caught up) it was time for the Naket Cabaret at the summit.

The "fast group" at the summit. Scott's girlfriend was nice enough to drive up with the snacks and drinks.

Chris kicked things off, talking mostly about how unexpected the popularity of his book was.

Eric, (I hope I spelled that correctly) was up next. He talked mainly about how he had not planned on training Chris, but Chris was so obviously downtrodden about his running problems that plans changed more than a little.

Marshall Ulrich was up next. He described his new book. I'll post a review of it when I get the chance.

Scott took the last slot. He kept it short and sweet, as it was getting cold up at the summit of Flagstaff. His message basically consisted of "you can do it."

On the way down, I once again took point, and proceeded to fly down the mountain. Nominally responsible for keeping people on the right track again, I mistakenly thought people would probably be able to find their way back down the trail they had just come up. I regularly sprinted ahead to grab some pictures of the stream of runners pouring down Flagstaff.

Runners streaming down Flagstaff. When else are you going to see this? Apparently never, since Chris got a ticket for having too many people on the trails. There was an article about it in the Boulder Daily Camera last week.

This guy is hoping to finish his first 100 miler this year. He got to mile 60 this past year.

It was on one of these sprints that I seem to have lost some people. I took off ahead, to a point I knew would make for some amazing photographs, and camped out for a few seconds before I realized that nobody was coming. I had not stopped at a fork, and people were, understandably, heading down Flagstaff Trail instead of the Panorama trail, whichi is the way we had come up.

After waiting for Marshall Ulrich, of the surgically removed toenails, to catch up so he could direct following runners, I raced down the trail many had mistakenly taken to try and lead any who were confused back to the bookstore. I found one runner who seemed confused, and, trusting that the people who knew Boulder in the lead group could no doubt get them back to the bookstore, I ran with him down 6^th street and back to the bookstore.

Back at the bookstore, the Naked Cabaret continued. Scott answered questions for a while, while Chris signed a bunch of his books for the bookstore to sell later. Unfortunately, as I had other plans for the evening, I had to duck out early and didn’t get the chance to see the rest of the question/answer period, but even so, I had thoroughly enjoyed the day out with the big names, and hope very much to see Scott out on the trails this summer as I extend my distances.

Boulder Distance Classic: Race Report

The promised race report:

Before pulling out of my apartment complex, I double-checked the weather, and saw that it was 35 at 7:15, and was forecast to be around 40 and dry at the start time of 8:30. Duly prepared for the weather (or so I thought) I drove up to Boulder only to find, as I turned into the Reservoir, that it was snowing.

I parked my car at 7:45, thinking that I might be pushing it just a little, but still probably had plenty of time to get my number and chip, change into my shoes and long-sleeve shirt, stop by the Porta-Potty, and make it to the start line in time for the 15k start time of 8:30. 35 minutes later, at 8:20, I finally got my timing chip, and sprinted a “warmup” over to my car to put on my shoes, sprinting from their to the line for the toilets. At about the same time the gun went off, I made it to the front of the line, knowing that if I did not take care of business now, there was no possibility of running the race I had intended.

A minute later, feeling significantly lighter, I tore straight out of the toilet, up the bank to the starting line, crossed the timing mat, and started my race a minute-thirty after the official start. I realized then that, having no warm up, starting late, and with 200 or so people to pass to get to my pace group in the race, I had every excuse to lay back and either not race the way I planned to or drop out entirely.

I didn’t take the excuse. Late or no, I opted to run exactly the way I planned: even splits, sub-7 minute pace. And I duly started picking off the runners who started in front of me. For the first 3 miles or so of the race, I picked off hordes of runners, sometimes stretched 6 or 7 abreast on the narrow race course (running off into the ditch on the side at times to slip by without disrupting their races: after all, they didn’t miss the start, so why should they have to get out of my way?).

For these few miles, I concentrated on picking my own pace, and not getting over-enthusiastic passing others. After the three-mile mark, I started overheating, not realizing that, in my rush to the starting line, I had completely forgotten to take off my hat (a heavy-duty stocking cap with the Colorado Avalanche “A” on the front: a gift from my girlfriend). I dropped the hat off at the next aid station, and took off down Monarch road.

I took my first split at the 5-mile marker: 34:58, just under 7-minute pace. My legs still felt fairly fresh, but I decided not to press too hard. This was, after all, my first race in over two years.

I was fortunate in this race in that I knew nearly every inch of the course. Back when I was running regularly with the Bolder Boulder Training Club, now Boldrunning, our weekly long runs were regularly held at the reservoir, so I came to be very familiar with the area. In this race, that familiarity allowed me to perfectly parcel out my effort, so that I could run at a 7-min pace with the minimal effort.

The next three miles passed in 6:50, 6:55, and 7:03, respectively. Coming into the last 1.3 miles, I started to (finally) feel the pace, and the fact that this was the longest and fastest I had run in well over two years. My right hamstring started to twinge a bit, and I decided that, rather than make a significant surge, I would coast into the finish in a relatively leisurely 8:53.

Place wise, even starting a minute-thirty back, I came in 4^th in my age group and around 44^th overall. The winner and second-place finisher both came in under 50 minutes (I know where I stand in the relative rankings). The most important takeaways from this race are that my pacing at this time is excellent, my fitness is better than I could have hoped and, given the complete lack of speedwork or any sort of taper for this race, I ran a respectable race.

Race

I ran my first race in over two years (since the Summit for Life, December 2008, I believe) today: the 15k at the Boulder Distance Classic. It went well. More to come later.

Up Shadow, Down Fern

Looking out the window of my apartment, towards where Longs Peak would rise if it could be seen, and seeing the inch or so of snow on the ground, I find it hard to believe that I ran my long run this morning in shorts and a t-shirt. Not only that, the run topped out at 8549'.

I was inspired by reading Anton Krupicka's blog to run up Shadow Canyon, starting at the South Mesa Trailhead again, top out South Boulder, and then hop over to Bear Peak and from there down Fern Canyon. Why I was inspired to run a route that even that paragon of fitness described as both "gnarly" and, paraphrasing somewhat, a hellacious climb I would rather not think about. However, I made the plan, and duly left the house, somewhat late, at 8:30 this morning to do just that.

I got out of the car to a near-perfect running day: cloudy, with a bit of rain in the forecast, and temperatures running around 55-60 degrees. Counting on it being at least somewhat colder 3000 feet further up the mountains, I wore my somewhat thicker t-shirt thinking that would probably suffice for the short time I would be at the summit. Properly equipped, or so I thought, I took off up the road-like Mesa Trail to Shadow Canyon Trail.

To my surprise, given their lackluster performance yesterday and despite the long week I put in, my legs felt quite good on the first stretch, and I made it up to the Shadow Canyon cutoff two full minutes faster than I finished the same stretch last week. As I took the cutoff up the canyon, I was thinking that the trail seemed quite wide and easy, much to my surprise. A second surprise came when I saw a shape dart across the trail in front of me, and I realized that it was a squirrel without a tail. Something about that just seemed rather sad to me. The trail changed a little over half a mile farther on, where the trail passes an old hut and immediately switches to a rocky, steep singletrack reminiscent of Royal Arch.

The trail continues in this way another 1.2 miles up to the saddle between South Boulder and Bear. Through this section I surprised myself again by being able to keep up a running cadence far more than I had expected. From the descriptions I had read, I expected to have to power hike the majority of this section, but ended up running about 75% of the time, urged on by the sometimes disbelieving, but always encouraging shouts of the hikers I passed.

This climb seemed to last far longer than the time it actually took (I won't tell you how long, it was almost embarrassing to me), but eventually, with a husky running by my side for the last stretch, I made it up to the saddle. I took a moment to rest, and wait for the husky's human companion to make it up to the saddle, then took off up the trail to South Boulder.

It was here that I encountered the first patches of trampled snow still lingering from the mild winter we had this year. In my road flats, I opted to pick my way carefully up these, and soon came to the boulder pile that marks the top of South Boulder. Here I was rewarded with a fantastic view of the continental divide, and found myself wishing I had not gone minimalist today and had brought my camera. The wind was pushing the mist up through the saddle between South Boulder and a smaller neighbor, and it reminded me of Muir Woods in California, with much smaller trees.

As I stood at the top of my first "summit" for the day, the first flakes of snow began to drift down from the clouds, seemingly only a hundred feet above me. I decided to hightail it over to Bear, top it out, and head down before it got any worse. Unfortunately it got worse as I was heading over to Bear, and by the time I got near the summit, it was windy and snowy enough that I decided to skip scrambling up the boulders to the actual summit, and head down Fern Canyon.

I had forgotten how steep and rocky the first section down the north side of Bear Peak was. There were a few times I almost lost it, but I managed to keep my feet down to Fern Canyon, where the trail heads down towards Mesa through a pine forest. I have always loved this section, particularly heading down it, since the prevalence of pine covering the trail means it is both sheltered from the elements and soft and springy: easy on the legs going down relative to other trails.

Soon enough, I took Shanahan down to the Mesa trail and turned towards the car. I surprised myself again on this section by having far more left than I expected, and practically flying the flats and the slight uphills, although the downhills seemed harder than usual. When I broke through the trees and out to the last, long, curving stretch of the wind and rain, now mixed with snow even at the lower elevations, hit me full in the face, soaking and chilling me instantly.

At this point I decided to book it. I took off, far faster than I thought I'd be able to even on the downhill. I apologize to anybody who may have gotten some gravel kicked towards them, but I fairly flew down the last mile+ of trail to the car, where I promptly turned the heat up full blast, stripped off my wet shoes and shirt, and drove home to fill the rest of my day with spring cleaning, a little laundry, and possibly more than a little Mario Kart Wii.

As I glanced at my watch when I got to the car I realized several things: first, I had run a full hour longer than my long run last week, yet felt almost the same as far as fatigue goes despite the fact that I put in more mileage this week. Second, that meant I am in much better shape than I had previously thought. Third, I had run the section from North Shanahan back to the car a full 6 minutes faster than last week. And fourth, I am going to be very sore tomorrow.

Group Running

I, like most runners I know, generally run on my own. There was a time a few years ago when I regularly ran with a training club, and over the years there have been a few people I would regularly go out for runs with. But for the most part, my day-to-day runs are done alone. Normally, I enjoy company on my runs, but my experience today reminded me just why I normally run solo.

I got into work a bit later than usual this morning, since my girlfriend was heading to San Francisco for a grad school interview and I wanted just a little extra time with her. The second I got to my workspace, my coworker poked his head over the divider and asked if I would like to go for a run at lunch.

Naturally, I said yes.

As I said, I often relish company on a run, but there are times when I do not enjoy it as much.

We stepped out of the door into a beautiful, crisp, sunny spring day and my first warning. The two guys (and the fact that they're guys is important) started talking about where we should run today, and we settled on the Sanitas Valley Trail. I was not planning on doing any sort of elevation that day, and the run itself would be longer than I had planned for the day, but I decided to hang with them any way.

Both set out at a surprising clip on the Creek path. Not to sound cocky, but I rarely feel at all slow in comparison to other runners. When out on the trails, I am almost never passed by anybody else, and I run in Boulder. So when I say they took off at a good clip, they were booking it. I was still feeling the week before, which was my longest in over a year, and the pace felt uncomfortably fast. And for my second mistake, I opted to stay with them.

When we cut off up through Red Rocks on our way to Sanitas, I quickly fell behind the lead runner, though I stayed ahead of the third guy. Over the ridge and down to the start of the Valley Trail, we ran together, but as soon as we headed up Dakota ridge, my two coworkers pushed the pace.

My legs just weren't having it, and I was getting annoyed with the pace pushing. As I mentioned in my last post, last week was my longest in a very long time (ended up being 27 miles, still not impressive, but much better than I've been doing), and my legs were definitely feeling it yesterday and today. So, in my first good move of the day, I let them take off, and proceeded up the trail at my own pace.

As it turns out, my running partners faded a bit towards the top, and while I did not end up catching up, I closed the gap a bit at the top. And I did it without pushing my own pace.

On the downhill back to work, I easily caught up with them at an easy pace.

I should have realized this might be an issue when I agreed to the run. First, the guys I ran with today are sporadic runners, but they are in very good shape nonetheless. So while they are not as steady runners as I am, they can hit a good tempo, and their legs are generally fresher than mine will be unless I am tapering. Second, they are guys. I have generally found myself happier running with girls (for some reason I can never call people my own age men or women, it's always guys or girls). Guys have a tendency to make things into a competition. Girls, as a general rule, seem to more easily relax and hit an easy pace when necessary. That is why, in the past several years, I have run far more with girls. The only guy I have run with is a trail running friend of mine who is, like me, comfortable taking it easy.

Will I run with these guys again? Probably. Will I take the lessons I learned today with me? Hopefully, although I cannot make any promises on that count.

Back to the Trails

This morning, despite the drama of the night before (I'll get to it later), I decided to head up to the South Mesa Trailhead for a good, longish trail run. My original plan was to head up Shadow Canyon and hit South Boulder Peak and, if I was feeling alright, Bear Peak afterwards.

After a good 15 minutes of very slow running up the first long, slow haul on South Mesa Trail, I got to the cutoff to Shadow Canyon to find that the whole area was closed on account of breeding raptors. Discouraged and a bit annoyed by this at first, it may have ended up being a blessing in disguise: even without the climb up South Boulder, I probably put more climbing in today than I have in the past month of running around Westminster and on the Creek path.

I ended up going much farther than I anticipated, hitting one of my normal turnaround points when coming from the other direction and heading back for a good eight mile loop. That puts me a bit over 22 for the week. With a decent run tomorrow, I should easily hit my 26 mile goal, assuming I don't suffer any ill effects from the run today.

Suffice to say it was wonderful to get back on some honest trails today. For those who haven't been there, the south Mesa trail starts on a long, gradual uphill smooth enough to drive a Honda Civic up if you wanted to and it weren't several forms of illegal. Around two miles (maybe?) in, the trail evolves into double track, and then some rather gnarly track-and-a-half. If I had taken my camera along today, I'd show a picture to demonstrate. I soon found myself wishing for actual trail running shoes, as my Brooks Green Silence racing flats just don't cut it on the Boulder trails.

All told, and as usual, my legs felt far better on the trails than they do on the roads, or what passes for trails, around here. This is despite the undoubtably more difficult nature of the running. I think it has more to do with the varied nature of the terrain, which involves a larger array of muscles than you use on the road (stabilizers especially). All in all, it was a great way to top out what was already an excellent week of running. My mileage is increasing steadily, but not too quickly, and I have hopes of getting some excellent runs in this summer.

What surprised me on my run today, tying in with my last post, was the number of people running on the trails with headphones. I find this unfathomable: why would you disconnect yourself from your run that way? You're running on some of the most beautiful trails around, and listening to them is at least as important as seeing and feeling them. I even saw two people obviously running together, each with their headphones in.

I cannot understand that, and it will never be me.

As for the aforementioned drama, we brought home a new cat last night. So far, the introduction to our, admittedly bad, cat has gone reasonably well. Far better than I expected, actually, as our cat has not yet physically attacked the new adoption. However, the combination of cats did not make for the best night's sleep, and had me a bit worried about how the run would go today.

And the introduction continues. It seems to have actually taken a downhill turn this morning. Last night Jacques, our aforementioned bad cat, has hissed and growled at Gabby (assuming that's the name we switch to, rather than Butters). This morning, he proceeded to hiss at me as well.

This is not ok, clearly, and we shall have to find a way to stop it.