Weekly Summary 27 Feb - 4 March

One of my better weeks of training... Sub 40 on the middle route of Green, solid tempo, Boulder Basic 25K and Waterton Canyon revisited. 

Monday- 14.68M, 2:00, 925Ft Climbing; Easy run from work up Boulder Creek, trail over to Sanitas, over to Wonderland and loop back to Boulder Creek.  Felt pretty good and wanted a bit more climbing on this easy run.

Tuesday Time Trail Up Green Mtn "Middle Route"-15.24M, 2:37, 2,500Ft Climbing; After some frustration last week with a sub 40 minute effort crushed by drifting, I was ready for battle.
My first split to the lodge up Gregory was around 40 seconds slower than last week, but I was feeling good and didn't let it bother me.  Past the lodge things were going well, despite some funky footing from the old drifts and off cantered angles.  I kept things going and on the stairway, that has not trace of stairs, I was pretty sure I had my sub 40.  I gave way more effort last week, but I still gave a good effort today and managed a 39:13.  As I was pretty close to my 2 minute slower prediction on last week's TT, I am also confident that conditions right now are around 2ish minutes slower than dry or even a track with a little snow.  I am happy to get in the low 39 range and ready to move my TT to the "front side" next week.  

Wednesday-11.1M, 1:37; 550Ft Climbing; Easy run around Wonderland. 

PM: 4.9M, :40, 150Ft Climbing; Easy run up to base of Chat, down bike path. 

Thursday Tempo with Aaron-12.73M, 1:32, 400Ft Climbing; Ran a great tempo around Wonderland with Aaron Kennard this morning.  We did a good warm up then started our 7.2 mile tempo.  After last week's tempo, I wanted to pick up the pace and increase the mileage a touch.  I usually average just under 6:30 for tempo efforts on the hills and trail fo Wonderland, but today I ran my fastest tempo effort.  Here are the splits: 

6:25

6:30

6:08

5:52

6:11

5:48

5:48

Avg: 6:06

Aaron and I ran the tempo together today, which was an awesome treat... we both had a great run.  

PM:4.29M, :35, 150Ft Climbing; Up to EGF park down bike path.  

Friday-14.49M, 1:53, 400Ft Climbing; I planned on running Mesa Trail today but yesterday I felt a little soreness on my lower right calve and things were more tender today.  I kept things flat on the run. Despite my muscle ache, which went away after a few mile, I felt surprisingly good.  I really hope the leg feels good in the AM so I can do a good climbing long run, but I'm a little nervous.  

Saturday "Boulder Basic 25K"-26.2M, 4:44, 6,000Ft Climbing; Got up at around 5:20 to see how the right lower calf was feeling and was pleasently surpised to find it feeling relatively good.  I packed up 5oz of EFS, my hand water bottle, glasses and camera phone.  After pounding a litre of water and a banana,  I was out the door to Chautauqua to start the long run.  Started up to Gregory Canyon and accidently missed the turn-off to hit the trail to Flagstaff, ran down the road from Gregory and up I went enjoying the sunrise beauty.

Pre-sunrise on the way to Flagstaff

  I took the slight detour to hit the pimple of a rock outcrop of the peak of Flagstaff 31 minutes into the run.  Felt great. 

Sunrise from Flagstaff Peak

Headed down, crossed the road and ran to Green Mtn Lodge where I administered my Microspikes.  After the descent on Shadow 2 weeks ago, I was sure to be packing heat this time.  I enjoyed a comfortable ascent up Greenman to make Green Mountain in 1:05. 

Green Goodness

Despite the nice clear warmer weather, the west wind was fierce on the west facing exposures... my hands were numb and I was wishing I had more clothes. 

Down to Bear Canyon and then as I was about to make the turn to head up Bear Peak I can accross this exciting news:



Hmmmm



Seeing a mountain lion in the wilderness is something I would really like.  But yes, it certainly got my hear rate up seeing this sighn.  Good or bad, I was headed up Bear Peak and not down the canyon. 

I made the approach and then steep climb to Bear Peak feeling wonderful in 1:47, but a bit cold.  Once on top of Bear I was able to enjoy the wind block and savored a minute or two looking out east in the calm warm sunshine. 

Looking North East from Bear Peak

I re-entered the wind and mad my way over to South Boulder peak following a poorly routed trail requring a few post hole corrections.  I made the quick ascent up to the final and highest peak of the day, South Boulder Peak in 1:59.  The snow up to SoBo was noticeably dryer due to the cooler temps at the higher elevation. 



A frigid fake smile on South Boulder Peak

Next came the most "dangerous" running descent I have made in Boulder.  Shadow (and Fern) canyon are really steep direct ascents and descents.  Shadow canyon, unlike Fern, has a bit of a south facing ascpect.  The majority of the very steep top 2/3 of the trail was ice pack... solid, slick, shinny ice.  It really wouldn't matter how sharp your spikes are on this descent, as it was just too icy and steep for running and even hiking was very difficult.  I had to hike down and down climb steep snowy terrain and avoid a lot of the trail on the top.  I was moving at a 15+ minute mile pace and was a bit upset that after the hard earned verticle, this is how I would descend. 

I made Mesa trail and was happy to be taking off the spikes (for a while) and running down, not scrambling.  I choose to add the 1.5 mile down and up (800-900ft) as I knew I wasn't going to get the mileage total I wanted staying on the Boulder Basic course.  I made it to the end of the Mesa Trail in 2:37.  

 I was starting to get tired on the ascent back via mesa, but felt way better than two weekends prior when I opted for running the roads home.  Enjoying the views of my day's ascents I ran easy back to the end of the loop and parking lot.  Total time for the Boulder Basic route was 3:19, 3:44 with the extra 3 miles.  From here I had the painful task of "adding on" to get my desired 26.2 marathon distance.  Nothing was fun or enjoyable about the last hour on the roads with the wind.  Was happy to be done and run 26.22 in 4:44 (only 2:17 slower than my PR!). 

  :31:20 to Flagstaff Peak
1:05:30 to Green Mountain
1:47:30 to Bear Peak
1:59:30 to South Boulder
2:37:20 to southern terminous of Mesa Trail
3:44:10 to Parking Lot (about 19 miles total with around 6,000ft climbing)
4:44:12 for 26.22 mile long run

3:19:55 for last year's Boulder Basic route (about 16 miles). 

Recent Waterton Canyon (not my pic)

Sunday A Return to Waterton Canyon-16.6M, 2:14, 1,300Ft Climbing; Sunday after enjoying the Zoo with Maggie, Felix and our friend Jason and his daughter Rachel, we headed to the recently opened Wateton Canyon, which is just west of Chattfield Reservoir SW of Denver. 



The Dam (and reason for the 1.5 year closure for dredging)

 I used to hike, bike and run up Waterton ever now and then when coming to Denver from Colorado Springs.  Back when I used to visit and run the canyon, I was much more of a road runner who loved getting off the trails when possible.  I remember considering Waterton a pretty good climb... how things have changed.  I pushed felix up the closed dirt road paralleilng the South Platte up river to the dam.  Total distance was around 6.5 miles and around 800 feet of climbing.  Even with Felix on the dirt road, the grade felt easy and flat.  From here Jason took Felix back down the road to meet up with Maggie and Rachel and continued on to a snowy, slushy ascent of the ridge to the Colorado Trail.  The east face was at some points thigh deep in snow along the trail, but once on top, I enjoyed a wonderful treat of running a little dry mountain single track... this made me VERY excited for the spring and summer trail running. 
On the way down, I had a blast comfortably hitting 6:40-6:20 pace back to the parking lot. 




End of the road and start of trail

 Synopsis- One of my biggest and best training weeks, which followed two 100+ training weeks... this is good.  Decent vert, leg turn over and mileage for the week.  Feeling very ready for some racing in Washington in a few weeks.

Summary-

120.2 Miles
12,225 Feet Climbing
45 Miles Biking