Freaking Gorgeous Day

After yesterday's less than spectacular culmination (Vermonters would recognize the crud we had last evening), Colorado rewarded us with a cookie for our perseverance.  Holy Frak, was today running weather or what?

I had planned to get out for an hour at lunch today, but the lure of the weather was just asking me to go for a bit more.  My boss complied and I found myself with a free hall pass today - took an extra 40 minutes.

interruptus::My wife is asking me to check out some dude on TV::/interruptus

Gearing?  Bikilas and er... somehow my standard "inner shorts" hadn't made it into the bag, so I went "non standard" and "free" the rest of the day:  the wife didn't notice until I remarked about it so all is good...

I ran from Benson up Gregory Canyon to the Tenderfoot Trail.  Google maps suggests that one can actually get down to Canyon Blvd from there, but I've never confirmed it.

Until today:  Trespasser!  There's about 1/4th to 1/2 mile where one should try to blend into the bushes, but damn, what a loop. Gotta find myself at the Red Lion Inn before I move to Bolivia for sure.  Anyway, climb Gregory Canyon turn toward the Flagstaff Amphitheater road, cross it and you're rewarded with a long descent into Boulder Canyon.

There's a half mile or mile on Canyon before you're rescued by the Boulder creek path, but the short scofflaw jaunt is absolutely worth it.  The route would be sweet in reverse too - nice tempo climb (for me)...

Anyway, from Benson Earth Sciences on CU campus, this is about an 11 mile loop which took me 1 hour and 45 minutes.  Great lunch break!

Thanks for reading.
J

Week in review.

So, last week was a waste.  On Saturday some Enanitos Verdes* moved into my chest.

I only wish they serenaded me with something more than a percussive cough.  A year or two ago, I developed pneumonia because I went too hard when I was developing what I thought was a minor cold.  Will never do that again.  Pneumonia is no joke.  Sucked.

I didn't run from Sunday through Wednesday.  Finally on Thursday I had to grab the Beanery from his school and I ran over there with Jackson and the Chariot.  I was still coughing up stuff, but it was a nice frothy white rather than rather dense green.  Friday I was off again, but that was mostly caution and Saturday and Sunday I ran the same 4 mile loop each day.  Today I'll be back at it full time.

One thing I did to mitigate the temptation to go hard on my runs was to run barefoot when I did get out.  Those 4 milers were longer than any previous barefoot run and now the balls of my feet are a bit chaffed.  I'll be running in my Vibrams today to allow for some healing.

Another weird injury occurred because I wear a belt leash around my waist so that I have both hands free when running with Homey.  I have always had a "sensitive" lower back.  It'll go out for little to no good reason and for a week or so I have trouble bending over and picking something up.  I'd never had a problem with the dog around my waist before, but this weekend he was pulling pretty good and I noticed it occasionally messing with my form by rotating my hips forward at the top.  Jackson isn't typically a puller, but he was hyped for the running Saturday for sure, probably because we hadn't been out because I was sick.

Otherwise, I've gotta praise my Eagles for their really nice win yesterday.  They played seemingly well in all phases of the game, and MV7 wasn't the quarterback meaning I could cheer the plays and the players.  Why do I bring this up?  Well, first off, I've been an Eagle fan since before their first super bowl appearance and second, because I was one productive house husband this weekend.  During the game, I baked bread and did laundry and after the game I made dough for pizza.  That was a score!

Thanks for reading.
J

*Enanitos Verdes = Little Green Men (or Green Dwarves)...

Uninvited Guest in my Chest again.

Frak!

Had a tremendous run Saturday in the VFF treks on up in Buffalo Creek.  A 16 mile loop I've ridden on my MTB but never run.

It turned out to be a bit harder of an effort than I wanted, because I found myself running with a bunch of mountain bikers.  We leap frogged at first, but eventually I dropped them.  That was really good for some extra BPM.

I'll post a link to the run.  But in basic, the first 3 miles or so are on Hwy 126 and all uphill.  After that the route gets onto single and double track which climbs until about mile 7 or so.  Then there's a long descent back to the cabin.  In all a 16 mile loop.

I took 2:45, and not only was I happy with my passing and dropping some MTB'ers, but I ran the entire way in VFFs.  That is my longest single run in Five Fingers by 100 percent and my longest day in total by 33.  Pretty sweet.

After I got back to the cabin, my Mom, Nataly, the Beanery, Julie and a whole mess of dogs took a walk on the Colorado Trail to get my Mom re-oriented with the surroundings.  There's a really pleasant location, east of 126 on the FS 1776 where you stand in an unburned copse of trees and can see Pikes Peak, Denver, Mt Evans and Mt Bierstadt.  Cool.

Sunday, I was going to do about an hour long workout which included some intervals, but I woke feeling like crap.  It wasn't my achilles-s either.  Nataly wanted to rake some needles and somebody needed to babysit the Beanery.  So, I decided I'd just put off my workout until lunch today, but when I woke today the gremlins had moved into my chest.

Probably shouldn't have had so much fun chasing down the MTB'ers on Saturday.  Because today, I'm wondering if I'm going to feel a run is warranted tomorrow.

Oh well.
Thanks for reading,
J

McIntosh Lake

Quick hitter update.  Today's workout was supposed to be a tempo effort.  In my world that's somewhere between half and full marathon pace.  The kind of effort you can keep up for 2 hours or so.

The weather is blustery, windy, cloudy and cool.  A perfect fall day.  Reminds me of training for cross country in high school:  New Jersey in Voorhees State Park and in VT on Bump Road.  It's actually snowing in the mountains.  Aside from the wind, I'd call that perfect for running.   Good stuff.

I started out comfortably fast to warm up, but when I hit my lap button suddenly it felt like the race was on.  I settled into an effort comfortably above my tempo effort - not much, but perceptibly.  I was ticking through right around 7 minutes per mile and feeling good.  The weather surely had something to do with that.  There's no way I could run for 2 hours at 7/mile, but I could probably go slightly faster than that in a 10k.  Perhaps I will if I run in the Longmont Turkey Trot again this year.  We shall see.  I'd like to break 42 minutes in a 10k before we head to Bolivia.

I did 2 laps of the trail around McIntosh Lake for a total of 6.9 miles.  My 5 mile "tempo" section was done in 35 minutes and 10 seconds.

Anyway we're going up to the cabin this evening, I'll log a few miles on the Colorado trail tomorrow.  Not sure how many, but I'm looking for 2.5 to 3 hours.

Thanks for reading.
J

Forced day off

Life ended up forcing a day off.

I've kind of been avoiding my boss and needed to join him for some face time.  We had lunch.  Then I got sucked into the project I've actually been avoiding him about and made truly remarkable progress today.  Should finish it tomorrow:  early.

I've got many pictures of this area, but none quite like this.
By wisconsinhiker:  Jon Higgins  This photo was taken on October 25, 2006. 

Lunch with boss precluded me from running then and Deneb at home with mom meant no forced departure time.  Really crushed work.  Triassic Colorado should be done tomorrow except for tunes.  Might even get those added too.  I've been dreading this video, but really liked it today.  It doesn't actually suck.

Anyway, taking today off means that I've had my 2 off days for the week.  Tomorrow I'll run tempo at lunch, Saturday will be "long" at the cabin and Sunday will be a HR based interval workout.  Should end up with 50+ this week.

Thanks for reading
J

Rest? Screw that!

Got out today for a good hard effort - lunch run from work.

I warmed up for 10 minutes and hit the lap button on that darn Garmin.  Five by 6 minutes above 178 bpm with 3 minute walking recovery intervals got underway.

It actually felt relatively easy.  5x6 at essentially my 10k "perceived effort".  I don't particularly enjoy 10k's, but if you're only going that hard for 6 minutes and then walking, it's actually kind of fun..

I ran in my Bikilas.  This forced me to really watch my footsteps on the trail.  I find that pretty darn cool actually.  Five Fingers makes running a very zen thing.  No room for missteps, a wandering mind will reward one with a freaking negative reward for sure:  Must find the least sharp landing - or else!

Out on the trail, I saw folks, waved when not too distracted by rocks and said hi when the trail was smooth.  Overall a very good workout.  The details are on Garmin Connect if you care to check them out.

Anyway at lunch I ran (and walked) 6.5 miles in 1 hour and 6 minutes and feel good about my effort.  I had to leave work at 4 today to get Deneb from daycare, I've been getting in earlier in case I have to "get out" and today was a day I cashed in some accumulated minutes.  Not many though (thankfully), because tomorrow I'll likely be doing the same thing.

Nataly had the car with the car seat, so I "had to" run the 1.7 miles to the daycare center with homey and his chariot.  Must say that today it was a very good thing he's decided he digs riding in it, because when I got there he was apoplectic.  Apparently the kids in his crèche decided that hanging out was awesomer than napping, so nobody slept more than an hour.  Deneb usually takes a 2 and a half hour mid-day nap.  I got there to one tired boy.

He settled down very quickly once we were outside and getting into the stroller and even gave up a couple of chuckles as we went over the cool swoopy - not rectilinear - curbs over by the golf course.  We got home and he was ready just to chill in his own space and read his (one time) popup book while I put together his dinner.

Nataly and I played catch with the baby after dinner, as he ran back and forth between the two of us, laughing the entire time.

Good stuff, good day.  I ran 10 miles and watched my son sprinting from one end of the living room to the other.

Thanks for reading

J

Run Bare?

I started running again last week, but I was slowed by some gimpiness.  Early, it was the knee, later some real tightness in my hamstrings (?).  Pain manifested itself as a significant decrease in flexibility and actual excruciation in my lowest back.  It's worst when I wake up in the morning, and actually got me out of an afternoon of work on Friday, but the symptoms faded over the weekend and acetaminophen takes out the morning gimpiness very quickly.

I ran a few miles and actually really stretched one out on Saturday.  Not sure how fast it was because I haven't been wearing my watch since Friday, but Homey was having trouble hanging on...

It is kind of nice not having that thing strapped to my wrist.  Toward the end of the Stb50, I was feeling encumbered by it.  It actually hurt my wrist enough to where I took it off and clipped it to my waist pack.

Western Grebe
Image from vancouverislandbirds.com/Journal211.html

On Saturday, we all (my mom, Nataly, the Bean, Homey and I) went for a walk around McIntosh Lake.  The lake was really low, and there were tons of birds out - pelicans, geese, a heron and grebes.  I'm not 100 percent on the grebes, they were far off and I didn't have binocs, but the coloring and behavior made sense.

Anyway, the Bean was in his chariot and Homey and I were pushing it, sometimes jogging, sometimes walking, and sometimes chasing his Mom.  He seems to think riding in that thing is about as much fun as he can have sitting down - that's good because I'll be picking him up with it tonight.

Anyway the "running" I did without the watch seemed more fun and less like work without my GPS, so I think I'll start going "bare" there too, at least when a workout doesn't have a specific purpose.  Unfortunately, that won't be the case for today's lunch run, because I've got an agenda - work on speed...
Thanks for reading,
J