Weekly Update: 9/19-25

I started this week with vacillating ideas of mileage. With my first marathon only 12 days away, I needed to taper my mileage, but coming off of a encouraging 60-mile week, it was tough to wean myself from such a high mileage benchmark. For a fleeting moment, I had considered putting in a mid-50 mile effort, though logic soon prevailed and I decided a 40-ish mile week would be the best course of action. The results are as follows:

Wed (9/21) – 6.5 mi (1:29, 600’) Doudy, Spring Brook, Mesa (front ascent), down Towhee, up Homestead – At the Spring Brook junction, I met up with some mule dear and we checked out the stars together just before the sun was to begin its morning ritual rise. After I climbed the first ascent up Mesa, I stopped at the old cabin and just stood watching the sunrise. At that point, I dashed all hopes for making this run a meaningful workout. I instead decided to play around and check out Towhee and Homestead – both trails I rarely travel.

Thurs (9/22) – 9 mi (1:31, 1,000’) Sobo, S Shanahan, Mesa – Nothing special here, except that climbing South Shanahan has become almost trivial it seems. Once I reached the Shanahan/Mesa junction, I just turned south on Mesa and came home. At this point, the low milers were starting to drive me a bit crazy.

Fri (9/23) – 14 mi (2:34, 2,300’) Sobo, Mesa to Skunk Canyon – That’s more like it. The previous two shorter runs got me so anxious to get real miles in that I just tossed the taper idea out the window for one run. Ah, it was nice!

Sun (9/25) – 10 mi (1:58, 1,900’) Blue Sky TH to Towers Trail – I headed up to Fort Collins to do a bit of recon for the race and check out the trails that I have trained the last six months to race on. The race only has an 800’ climb on the Towers section before cutting off onto some other trail, so as I ascended this fairly steep trail, I decided to go to the top. I’m glad I did. This is a pretty serious climb. The trail isn’t technical at all. In fact, it’s basically a fire road, but damn is it steep. Fun little run that sparked some ideas for future endeavors in the Fort.

Weekly Totals:

Miles: 40

Vertical Feet: 5,800

Time: 7:34

Weekly Update: 9/12-9/18

This has been the second week of running Mesa exclusively. I've already begun to notice my strength increase through particular sections of this trail (climbing out of Bear Creek Canyon and the stair step section near NCAR come to mind). Since April, I've run the Mesa Trail 25 times and it has yet to get boring. In fact, this trail is quite the opposite. There is so much variation that it's hard to perfect footwork and rhythm in every section - for me anyway. I'm really excited to run this trail in the winter!

With only two more weeks until my first marathon, Blue Sky, I think I'm in pretty decent shape to tackle it. Next week will be a usual mid-50 or 60-mile week. I had thought about beginning tapering next week, but I think I'll just take it easy the week prior, with a few mellow runs leading up to the race on Sunday. I need to make my way up Fort Collins to do a little recognizances of the course to get familiar. Though, I think all of my training on the Mesa has prepared me well.

Tuesday (9/13) - 11 mi (2:01, 1,600 ft) Sobo/So Shanahan/Mesa

Thursday (9/15) - 14 mi (2:29, 2,300 ft) Sobo/Mesa (to Skunk Canyon and back)

Friday (9/16) - 14 mi (2:39, 2,300 ft) Sobo/Mesa (to Skunk Canyon and back)

Sunday (9/18) - 21 mi (3:40, 3,400 ft) Doudy, Spring Brook, Mesa to Gregory Canyon TH)

Totals for the week:
Miles: 60
Climbing Feet: 9,600
Time: 10:50

Quasi-Boulder Skyline Traverse

With my perpetual craving for more vertical feet, I had to give this a shot – some of it anyway. Rather than doing all five peaks, I focused on two of the three biggies, Green Mountain (8,144') and Bear Peak (8,461'). I had briefly considered tagging South Boulder Peak (8,549'), depending on my physical condition at that point in the run. Obviously, my condition was so that I would omit that third summit.

I started at the South Mesa trailhead around 6:30 a.m. and headed due south for a little warm-up on Doudy Draw. After getting 3 miles (30 mins) on Doudy, I headed north on the Mesa Trail and continued to Chautauqua. I made it to the base of Chautauqua with a split of 1:10 and this is where the fun began. I was really excited to do something different because I typically turn around here and head back to Eldo, but this time I hung a left at Baseline and headed up to Gregory Canyon.

I’ve only run Gregory once before and I obviously forgot exactly how steep it gets through this canyon. Not to mention that Gregory gets sun exposure fairly early and by this time it was shortly after 8 a.m. and temps were already in the mid 60’s. Chugging up Gregory was a formidable challenge, but I knuckled down and proceeded. Once at the top of Gregory, I popped a Gel and headed over to the Ranger trail to begin my ascent up Green.

The Ranger Trail provided a very welcomed reprieve from the sun, but no relief in pitch. This trail offers not only great shade in the lower sections, but also grand views of Rocky Mountain National Park and Indian Peaks in the upper reaches. The grand and switchbacks are a blast too. There were a couple moments where I had to slow down into a brief hike, but considering this new route was new to me, I was fine with staying on the conservative side. Once at the trail junction on Green, I cruised up the last quarter mile to tag the summit of Green Mountain in a total time of 2:46. I didn’t stay on top for long, just long enough to suck down a second Gel and carry on to Bear Peak.

I headed down Green-Bear and over to Bear Peak West Ridge. This was another sun-laden section, that got the sweat pouring a bit, but was a serene little jaunt to the initial ascent up Bear Peak. I reveled in this trail’s fairly smooth, undulating single track and expansive views of both Walker Ranch and Boulder through the frame of Bear Creek Canyon. But my joy quickly turned to agony as I beheld the final climb up to Bear Peak.

This is where the wheels began to fall off and any previous notion to summit South Boulder Peak flew right out the window. On a shorter Green and Bear run, I’ve been able to keep a running cadence up this final ascent on Bear - notwithstanding experiencing the feeling of full cardiac drift. This was not one of those days. The pitch is truly gruesome, but is exactly why I chose this route for a long run.

I wearily stumbled my way to the peak and scrambled up the boulders to get the full-on Bear Peak experience and the delicious views of the mountainous West. I sucked back the last of the GU and headed down to Shadow Canyon, now 3:35 into the run.

I’ve never seen Shadow, but I was extremely excited to experience the severe steepness it deals. My excitement (and smile) quickly faded as I “descended” this trail. I didn’t descend, as much as I tumbled my way down this 1.2-mile, 1,700 vertical feet stretch of boulder-riddled, stair-stepped canyon. It’s been called the longest mile in Boulder and I now completely understand why. The struggle not so quickly came to an end as the trail leveled off and I made it to the Stockton Cabin. I then jumped on to Towhee trail and headed back to the South Mesa trailhead.Exhausted and hot, I dunked legs in the South Boulder Creek before heading home.

20 miles, 6,000 feet of vertical, and 4 hours, 38 minutes later, this run marked a turning point in my training, which will hopefully materialize into higher mileage/vertical feet weeks. Next time I’ll hitting South Boulder Peak too!

Weekly Update: 9/5 - 9/11

Wednesday (9/7) (12 mi, 2,600ft) – Mesa from the Chautauqua side - I’ve never run the Mesa Trail from this end mostly due to my apprehension to climb that foreboding ascent on the Eldorado side in the middle of the run. Though, I was eager to give this a shot on this particular morning. With the sun rising later everyday, the trail was still fairly dark and indiscernible at 6am. I was excited about the weather – light rain and slightly humid. Once I could see the trail with a certain degree of confidence, I set off. My footwork was so-so, but I maintained plenty of energy and kept my descents fairly conservative as to not aggravate the knees. Once I made it over to the Eldo side, I decided to avoid the unpleasant downhill gravel (and the more annoying climb of the same section) to the trailhead and instead, take a right up Shadow Canyon as I have been more than eager to explore this trail. I only went to the Towhee junction, but from my initial assessments, this looks like a fun future endeavor. I headed back to Chautauqua with a spritely pace (mostly to ensure I could get to work by 9am). I can’t wait for more of this autumnal weather.

Thursday (9/8) (11 mi, 1,600ft)– SoBo Creek Trail to S. Fork Shanahan to Mesa – I’ve really grown fond of this route lately. The Sobo trail provides a nice 2 mile flat, easy warm up to the steepness of the ensuing Mesa and South Fork Shanahan sections. Watching the sunrise once I make it to the Mesa/Blue Stem junction is worth every bit of this run too. I had some good energy climbing South Fork Shanahan – enough so to power on through the Mesa and over to Bear Creek Canyon. Heading back home via Mesa, I am continually reminded of how gnarly the stair steps are just after the Fern/North Fork junction.

Friday (9/9) (11 mi, 1,600ft)- SoBo Creek Trail to S. Fork Shanahan to Mesa – I drearily ran the same route as Thursday, though this run was a bit different. I felt totally undisturbed and made deliberate effort to run a strong, but slow run, concentrating solely on my cadence and paying little to no attention to much of anything else in my life. I don’t know if it’s the new terrain this week or the beautifully cool temperatures, but I have had a very enlightening, introspective few days of running.

Sunday (9/11) (20 mi, 6,000ft)– Quasi-Boulder Skyline Traverse – Too much to write for a summary, so peep the link for the details

Totals for the week:

Miles: 54

Climbing Feet: 11,800

Time: 10:53

Weekly Update: 8/29 – 9/4

Tuesday – 10 mi (1:51, 1,600 ft) Sobo Trail, South Fork Shanahan, Mesa, Big Blue Stem – Nice and easy run. The legs felt good. I hadn’t been on Upper Big Blue Stem trail, so I thought I’d cruise down it rather than take Mesa all the way back to Sobo. I’ll definitely toss this trail into the mix more often.

Thursday – 11 mi (2:00, 1,600 ft) Sobo, S. Shanahan, Mesa – The temps were a little warmer this morning, making this a bit more of an effort than I would have liked.

Friday– 11 mi (1:36, 787 ft) Teller Farms – Being too lazy to wake up super early for the Mesa, I chose to sleep a bit more and hit up Teller. It’s funny to compare my time on this relatively flat trail with my time the day before on the Mesa – the same mileage, but 24 minutes faster.

Sunday – 11 mi (1:36, 787 ft) Teller Farms – More of the same old Teller. Hopefully, this will be the end of my runs on this trail for a little while.

Totals for the week:

Miles: 43

Climbing Feet: 4,774

Time: 7:04

Totals for August:

Miles: 188

Climbing Feet: 29,109

Time: 32:34