Monday, January 6th
AM—2
Miles—0:17—0’—Orrick Roads
First run after eleven days off with a vicious cold.
Brutally cold this morning with -30F wind chills.
Tuesday, January 7th
PM—5
Miles—0:38—0’—Orrick Roads
Considerably warmer today. Went out with a jacket and
tights, but could have got by with just a long-sleeved shirt and shorts. Legs
still felt crappy after coming off my cold.
Wednesday, January 8th
OFF—Drive from
Missouri to Colorado
Thursday, January 9th
AM—11
Miles—3:41—4,100’—Green Mountain and Bear Peak
I arrived in Boulder around 6AM this morning. Before 7AM I
had my running clothes on and was heading up Green Mountain. The combination of
being at sea level the past six weeks and the trails being covered in snow made
it a chore to get to the summit. I called JV from the summit to arrange a
rendezvous somewhere along Fern. The trip up Bear was pretty miserable.
Relentless winds, being in the shade, and plenty of snow drifts left me chilled
to the bone. The descent of Fern was a blast with perfect snow pack all the
way. Felt great to experience the burn of elevation again after six weeks
without even seeing a mountain.
Friday, January 10th
AM—6 Miles—1:23—1,600’—Flagstaff Mountain
I started off from Settlers
Park with super tight hamstrings that had me questioning my decision to run.
They eventually loosened up and I was able to run somewhat. The snow and ice
helped keep my pace slow-as-hell, which isn’t a bad thing since I’m trying to
ease back into things. I hit the summit in ~50 minutes versus my PR of 29
minutes. The descent started out rough with my quads wondering what the hell
was going on. They eventually accepted the fact that we were running downhill
and I hit a comfortable pace for the remaining descent. The round trip was
terribly unimpressive—1:23 versus a PR of 0:49. Oh, the joys of getting
acclimated…
Saturday, January 11th
AM—13 Miles—2:52—3,800’—Green
Mountain
I started off with the intention of a Mesa Trail
out-and-back, but my legs felt descent when I reached the Bear Canyon junction
so I decided to take the easy way up Green Mountain. The initial climb out of
Chautauqua was into a fierce headwind the entire way. There were a few places
in Bear Canyon that I power hiked due to snow-induced bad footing. Once I hit
the West Ridge trail I hiked all the way to the summit since the snow was an
unconsolidated mess. I was a bit please with how good my legs and lungs felt
today given how crappy they felt the previous two days. On the way down I ran
into Basit and Shad, chatted with them for a few minutes, decided to join them
for another ascent of Green, decided to bail on the second summit of Green
since I’d only had a couple of apples to eat all day, and then made my way back
to Chautauqua. Always a blast to descend on perfectly packed snow even if you
are wearing an old pair of 110’s with no tread and held together by Shoe Goo.
Sunday, January 12th
AM—3 Miles—1:22—2,000’—Mount
Sanitas
While sitting at the coffeeshop I came to the conclusion
that I should take today pretty easy. So, I decided to head up Sanitas and
explore around the mountain a little bit. I tried to stay off the trail as much
as possible and enjoyed some easy scrambling/bouldering when the opportunity presented
itself. I found some sweet goat trails on the way down and never stepped foot
on the actual trail until reaching the staircases near the very bottom. Love
that off-trail stuff.
Miles—40
Time— 10 hours 16
minutes
Elevation Gain— 11,500
feet
Well, 2014 got off to a bit of a rough start with me being
sick the first five days of January. I’m not terribly sure that going out for a
run in -30 wind chills was the best way to celebrate being over my cold, but it
felt great to finally run again.
The first few days of running in Boulder were a bit of a
challenge and left me wondering how long it would take to get acclimated again.
Fortunately, come Saturday and Sunday I started feeling close(er) to normal.
Right now the biggest challenge is running in the snow; I haven’t really ran in
snow since winter 2011-12. I almost forgot how fun it is to cruise down
perfectly packed snow.
I’m definitely excited to be back in Boulder and running up/down
mountains again. In four days of running in Boulder I surpassed the total
elevation gain I had for the entire month of December running in Missouri.
Oh, almost forgot to mention that I registered for my first
race of 2014—the Free State Trail Runs 100km in Lawrence, KS. Not sure what
made me decide on this one since it doesn’t seem to be particularly scenic or
challenging in terms of elevation gain. I think I picked it mainly because of
the timing. It’s on April 19th. I was looking for an early season
100km. Guess I found it.
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| Looking down at Boulder on my way up Bear Peak. Feels good to be home... |
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| Green Mountain on a windy morning |
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