Old School Classics, Slabby FAs, Spring Trails

Old School Classics, Slabby FAs, Spring Trails


Did a bit of house cleaning the other day and pulled out these old school classics. From an article by Arthur Lydiard from 1971 in "New Views of Speed Training":

"There are very many athletes in the US who train like hell. And when the season starts, they continue to train very hard. I used to train my athletes so they could race. We didn't train to train. When we started to race, we trained very lightly. The two key words are fresh and sharp. You have to be fresh and you have to be sharp is you want to race well."

I see Lydiard's words of advice here just as pertinent then as now. There are plenty of ultra and other runners out there who seem to train way too much, and come into races flat. I know I've been victim of this myself, and with the option to race all year, it is hard to distinguish between training and racing. It also depends on your goals - I know I have several for this summer, some of which can be viewed as "training" runs despite their length and difficulty. Still, the idea of incorporating some form of periodization into your training seems to be the smart way to go - if you don't, you will likely get injured, burnt out, or hit a plateau.

I've been doing track sessions now for 5 weeks, once a week. I do 4x400s and 4x800s with 400 jogs inbetween, as well as some warmups and cool downs. My time for the 400s has improved by 4 seconds and my time for the 800s has improved by 9 seconds. Small, but important gains. I don't have a running background, so I don't have any highschool or college numbers to compare my times to. I'll keep at it as much as I can over the summer and see what happens, but after 3 more sessions I'll switch up the distances to 600s and 1200s to change up the stimulus. Then, after 8 sessions I'll drop back down to the 400s and 800s and hopefully see a good improvement.

The only problem with my little speed work is that I've ramped up the vertical now that summer is approaching for my summer objectives. I've averaged 54,000' of vert per month since November, but am on track this month to hit 75,000' or so. My legs and lungs may be getting stronger, but they are also getting slower, thus the speed work once a week, plus some faster home runs. Some photos from my recent outings.

 Shots from the trails out of Pine, Colorado - miles and miles of flowy singletrack.

 Shot of the Continental Divide from a double Lookout Mountain morning.

 The "Wall" in Deer Creek - I love running the outer perimeter of this park.

The view from the top of Golden Eagle Peak, aka Bill Couch Mountain.

During my recent run out on some trails in Pine, I also had fun climbing up some slabs off in the woods. Adding slabs or some other scrambling to the run spices things up a bit and is a fun way to change up the rhythm. There are a lot of FAs waiting to be had and plenty of places to explore. I usually climb in this area in the fall when it is not so hot and the ticks are not out, but I had to get some photos for a book I'm working on. 

 This was a fun slab FA climb, following the crack/seam system - about 120' and class 4/5 climbing

I did some small stuff around this feature, but it is about 3 pitches worth of perfect climbing all waiting for some first ascents.

G & T 23 and Deer Creek

G & T 23 and Deer Creek

I ran the Deer Creek half marathon course on Wednesday, thinking that it would be fairly melted out. Little did I know, but it was one giant icy bobsled route. I didn't bring any traction, so I had to go a bit slow, but the course is really great. A solid climb at the start, and then nice rolling terrain for the rest of the time, with a fast downhill in the last two miles. At 13+ miles and 3,000+ feet of gain, it runs a lot faster then other similar trails in the area, especially those in the Boulder area. Not sure why, but it has a really nice flow almost the entire time.

Number 23 in the G & T challenge today. Started off cold and really windy. On the ridges there were times when I really had to go on all fours to keep from being blown off. By the time I was coming back down, however, things seemed to be calming down and warming up. Early starts may not be the best in winter - but you do get the entire basin to yourself which will never happen in summer.

Planning on doing the Leadville Snowshoe Marathon next Saturday as long as the roads are good and I can get up there in my car with summer tires. Should be fun - never been in a snowshoe race. I'm looking at it as a great 26 mile run at 10,000' and not really a race.

Deer Creek and Grays and Torreys

Deer Creek and Grays and Torreys


Amazing what a day can do, and what a week can do. Two days ago I ran the outer loop of Deer Creek Canyon, the southern most park in the Jefferson County system and one of the best. With a more "southern" feel because of all of the gamble oak, the trails at Deer Creek offer a spectacular ~12 mile loop run with around 2,800' of gain. The colors were just past peak, but still showing well. Earlier this spring I ran the Fear the Deer race, which covers the same trails but adds the two out-and-backs to make it a solid 13 miles. Without the extra mile, I was able to run the loop in 1:43 at a nice MAF pace (or what I believe to be MAF pace since I don't have a heart rate monitor, but basically a nice sustainable cruising speed).

Yesterday, I made my weekly trip up Grays and Torreys. Last week when I ran them, the trail above the big sign was snow packed and slick in spots, but not too bad. This week, it was an entirely different story. From I-70 and up there is now snow. Running up the road to the trailhead was not bad (took me an extra 2 minutes), but from then on it was post holing and breaking trail. Some tracks went up to the big sign, but after that the wind had totally covered the trail with several inches of snow. In many places I was post holing up to me knees and hips. Even up higher it was still a slog breaking trail through several inches to a foot of snow. I ran 10 miles, hiked 3 miles and slid 1 mile. With these conditions it took me 4 hours car to car from Bakersville - +45 minutes slower then in the summer. Now all of that hard work of breaking trail has been covered up with last nights storm.

Deer Creek/Apache Canyon Bouldering in New Mexico

I'm a little back-logged on old posts, but I guess that is the way things go when you spend more time outside in the mountains then in front of a computer. However, there are still a couple of posts I need to get up on the last trip to northern New Mexico for some trail running and bouldering.

While I was ostensibly in Santa Fe for a conference (the SfAAs), we still managed to find time to get out for several good bouldering sessions and a couple long trail runs. One of the best bouldering spots found close to Santa Fe is Deer Canyon. Mistakenly called Apache Canyon, this little bouldering playground reminds me of a way cooler version of Morrison. The main overhanging section has as many problems and eliminates as you can imagine. There are some power problems going straight up, or you can traverse into some sloppy fun from either the left or right.

Behind this main section rests two more massive boulders that deserve mention. The first one has a real gem on its northwest side. An angling arete problem, this one is a show stopper unless you are strong, able to squeeze open hand holds, and can keep your feet pasted. It goes at around V10.

The boulder right next door also has some fun problems on it, although one of the nicer lines has two modified handholds which kinda takes away from the area. Up the hill are a couple more boulders with some undone lines, as well as up the creek. However, the main concentration are right in this one area.

This place is great in the fall when the little Deer Creek has dried up and all of the low sit-starts are open. Easy to get a full session in and tick a couple of really nice V5-V10 problems. After a good session, head back to Santa Fe for some solid New Mexican food.