Metamorphosis Week!

Monday I only ran 18 minutes, as I could feel my knee being funky, but by the end of the week:
-I ran a 24 mile one way trail long run with 4.5K of climbing
-changed shoes/shoe company
-got a brand new Garmin GPS 405cx watch with a heart rate monitor AND
-my wife, Maggie, made her first ascent of Green Mtn at over 8,000ft while 38+ weeks pregnant!

WOW! 

  

Monday

AM 18min; 2.2 Miles; Flat; Started running towards EGF, but the knee still felt “good”, but still a little funny… turned around and went home.

Tuesday

AM 1:51; 13 Miles; 2,900ft; Met up with Aaron for a run at Chautauqua Park.  I Was nervous to go for it today with my knee feeling better, but not 100% yesterday… I went for it and the knee felt great! 

I waited for Aaron at the parking lot until 6:34 then was suddenly sure he was parked at the Gregory Canyon parking lot and not at the main parking lot where I was.  I ran quickly up to the other p.lot (6min) but he wasn’t there and at this point I realized I should have just called him, not smart.  Once at the trailhead I decided to just run.  I ran up Gregory, greenman, to Green.  My split from the TH to Green was a personal best of 39:30 (appx 45 seconds faster) even though I wasn’t pushing it.  I was pretty happy about the new best time after not much running in the last few weeks and especially about my knee feeling better.  I ran down bear canyon, to mesa and back to the parking lot.  I also found Aaron at the parking lot where we chatted and planned for a run in the future, real cool guy!

Wednesday

AM 1:22; 10.5 Miles; flat; Ran from the house with Marcus Allen and met up with Levi about 15 minutes down the road due east.  Looped around onto Boulder creek bike path, up and then back down to Scott Carpenter and back home for an easy and flat recovery run.  It was nice to run with great company and again, it was exciting to feel the knee getting better.

Thursday

AM 1:11; 9.5 Miles; Flat; Levi, Aaron and I did the same workout I did last week on the nice flat trails between Wonderland Lake and Lee Hill road.  7 times 2min hard (sub 5 I believe) with a 3min jog.  Finished with 2, 30 second finishes.  I felt a bit flat from Tuesday and not as fast as last Thursday.  Levi ran ahead of me a few seconds on the 3-7, Aaron a few seconds behind me (except the last 30 second finish!). 

Good to do the speed, but not the best day for me.

Friday Christmas Eve!

PM 2:15; 16 Miles; 3,000ft; Late Friday morning Maggie and I went on a spectacular hike up Green Mtn from Flagstaff Rd on the west ridge of Green mtn trail.  This was a special hike as it was Maggie’s first time up Green and she was also just over 38 weeks pregnant!  The weather was phenomenal, as it has been all week.  On the way back down  (3 miles round trip) we laid down in a meadow and took a short nap in the sunshine.  It was truly an amazing Christmas Eve.  Maggie drove back home and I ran up to the four way intersection just below Green (.2 miles) then down green-bear trail, to bear canyon then up the west ridge bear mtn trail.  I set a 40 minute turn around time but at 40 minutes I could see Bear mtn’s summit starring at me…  I had to go for it.  I pushed on and summited Bear mtn for the first time today, which is taller than Green and a bit steeper in the ascent too.  I was told it wasn’t really run-able, so I took the challenge and for the most part, succeeded in running the whole way.  The view from the top of Bear is certainly better than Green as it is a bit higher and it has no trees obscuring the amazing views of all the snow capped peaks on the western skyline.  The summit is a rocky ridge where you must scramble hands and feet to sit on the knife edged summit.  It was great.  I made the summit in a little less than 32 minutes from the four-way at the base of green just taking it easy.  The run back to the four-way was more up than I remembered and the legs were flat from the speed work yesterday.  All the way back to EGF and then home I realized I probably went a bit longer and higher than I should have considering yesterday and a long run the next day!  After some lunch, I headed to Snow Basin in Rocky Mountain National Park.  I skinned/ski toured up for 2 hrs into deep, deep snow then skied back down, it was beautiful. 

Saturday Merry Christmas!

PM 3:40ish; 24ish Miles; 4,500ft; 132bpm Avr HR; I received my MT101s from NB on Christmas Eve, pretty cool, and I waited to open them until Christmas.  I also got the Garmin 405cx GPS running watch from Maggie and her parents.  What a huge Christmas upgrade!

While running yesterday, I came up with the idea of running from the most northern trailhead off of hwy 93 up and into Eldorado Canyon to walker ranch and then behind Green mtn down Long Canyon to Green Mtn lodge, then flastaff and to the car at Eben G Fine as a new one-way long run route I have never done.  Aaron ate it up and Maggie, she is the best wife ever, dropped us off.  We had no idea how long it would take and neither of us had connected Eldo to Walker ranch… fun.  Of course we ran on the dirt road after Eldo and got lost and realized it was a bit further than we thought as well.  All of this on top of my last 3 days and really just fully recovering from TNF 50… I felt great.  I am running exactly what I love. 

At one point running up an evil pavement section of about a mile I bonked.  I only had 3 GUs and 20oz of water and a small Bkft (we started after 12!) but luckily Aaron had a running back pack with some 1^st endurance gel.  The gel brought me back to life in 10 minutes… I have to check the stuff out, as he swears by it.       

I felt great and ran comfortably to EGF where Aaron took off and I decided I still felt great, so I ran the extra 8 or so minutes back home.  The MT101s were perfect.  The shoes are light, comfortable, the rock guard plate in the forefoot is nice and tread decent… I’m sold.  The GPS watch, phenomenal, the graphs for pace, altitude, hear rate and distance are amazing, I just have to be careful not to turn it off during the run.  Yeah, I had my watch off for a mile or so. 

What a great run! 

Sunday

PM 1:32; 10.5 Miles; 1,800ft; After hiking 4.5 miles with Maggie on the trails of Hall ranch (she is amazing), I ran the loop around Hall.  This was our first time at Hall Ranch and we were really impressed.  Not only is the parking lot only about 25 minutes away from home, it has great quality trails, climbs, views and forest.  The views over by Nelson Loop and Button Rock Trail were phenomenal.  

Yes, there were a ton of bikers, but I can see why and everyone was pretty courteous.  Today I totally forgot to put on the heart rate monitor and inadvertently turned the watch off again, but got most of the run recorded.  I had a blast, legs were a bit beat up, but overall the body, brain and soul are happy to be running miles in the beautiful mountains.  I was doing a lot of daydreaming about being an ultra runner and racing this New Year.  This loop might become part of my training regime…

Weekly Totals

12hrs, 9min of Running

86.2 Miles

12,200ft Climbing