Today's "Run"...

Went out with the goal of completing the Boulder Skyline Traverse today, but ran out of water.  That made things a bit tough, especially as I was coming down off of Green Mtn. with a virtually empty 100oz bladder.

My route took me from 19th and the Creek path South via Benson Earth Sciences (for a pee stop) to the Mesa Trail.  Felt pretty good along this portion of the (still) run and really I really enjoyed the views once up on Mesa. Took Mesa to Shadow Canyon and up.  That sucker is a straight up slog.  Steep, technical.   Not much running for a 210 lb dude.  Took 55 minutes.

South from the Shadow Canyon to South Boulder Peak where I forgot to hit my lap button, but it was about 12 minutes and then back north to Bear.

Bear is a treat.  It's bald.  Requires some scrambling to get the summit, but once there you've got 360 degrees of unobstructed view.  On a clear, haze free day, you could probably see Wyoming.  Coming down off of Bear, a dude (Kevin?) and I chatted for a bit and he noted an air show going on down in the Centennial Airport area.  That was sweet, I had been wondering, "What the heck is that weird pillar of smoke over there?" for a while.

The trek from Bear north to Green Mountain went not so well, I'd been not enjoying the sun too much and it was  giving me a bit of tough time.  Combine that with a rocky, technical descent and I found myself not hammering like I would have liked.  Keep the ankles happy - race coming up.  Once the trail turned up though, the wheels almost popped off.  My Camelback got a workout.  I hiked an awful lot of the trail, ran when I could, but that wasn't often.

Up, up, up - to Green.  Not my favorite summit in Boulder.  Too crowded, lots of trees.  Vistas are nice, but Bear is way better.  At this point, people were starting to look at me, perhaps wondering if I was ok.  I'd been conserving water and was really feeling it at this point.  I think I hit the summit of Green in about 4 hours, maybe a little more.  The real relief there was:  It's almost all downhill from here.  Unfortunately, there are still tough technical bits before you get to the nice, wide open, Ranger Trail.

My brain was really starting to fade at this point.  I was able to run most of the way to the Tenderfoot Trail on Flagstaff (it's all downhill), but I wasn't digging it.  At some point before crossing Flagstaff Road, I ran out of Heed (stuff is good btw, sweetened with Maltose and Sugar - not HFCS - Mild Mellon in my pack today).  Got to the ranger station on Flagstaff and discovered that the water fountain was broken and not to be repaired.  Vandals.  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Fortunately this was a weekend and the ranger cottage was actually open.  I'd've been hitch hiking otherwise. Gentleman inside (had a couple of gallons of water - I took a pint) and I chatted for a while.  Turns out his son had ridden the LT100 mountain bike version a 2 weeks ago.  10 hours or something like that.  Cool.

All the rest was down hill.  I hit a trail I'd never been on before that pops out right at Eben G. Fine Park where I expected to have some water, but the fountain was pathetic.  Seriously.  Thought I'd get some water for my pack, but I got water for my mouth and that was all.

Sucked a bunch down and took off for the car, after about 25 meters on the creek path I could no longer take my shoes going "shshshshshshsh" and I took them off.  The last 1.5 miles or so of my run today was barefoot.  Set a couple of folks aback by that - "That guy is running barefoot?!" and another "Dude!  Barefoot!  Hard core man!"

Anyway.  I've got some video from today's "run" and I'll post it later.  Boulder is sweet.
Thanks for reading,
J

P.S.
When I got home I'd come around far enough that Homey and I went out for 3 more miles.  Me in VFF and he barefoot (surprise).  Total for today 22 miles in less than 7 hours.
J