Days Of Doubles

Days of Doubles

With limited time on many days, but a desire to still get in plenty of vertical and run in the mountains, I've been doing a bunch of doubles. Pick a mountain, and tag it twice, while adding in some miles in between to get some solid distance and vert.

I ran Evergreen Mountain twice, with a larger loop then around the north side of the Alderfer/Three Sisters Park up in Evergreen. Running up Evergreen Mountain is pretty fun, as it only gains about 1,200' and the trail is really smooth, allowing you to really push at a nice tempo pace. I was eyeing the granite slabs on the north side on the way up, and after figuring out the landscape, came down and ran up the mountain again, but this time cutting straight up from the junction of the East/West Evergreen Mountain trail and the Summit trail. If you cut straight up and right from the junction, after a couple hundred feet you arrive at the base of a fun series of granite slabs that go for about 200' or so, with many variations. It tops out right at the scenic overlook near the summit. Added a nice alpine flavor to the run, as the slabs were all wet from the rain and they are covered in moss and lichen just like up high. I then tagged the Three Sisters and The Brother for a bit more scrambling.

 Looking south from the summit, which also has some fun scrambling on it.

 Looking down at the slabs from the top.

Looking up one section - you can make it class 2/3 or class 3/4 depending on your line.

Lookout Mountain has come to be my Monday morning run. From my place, I can run up and over it twice on a combo of singletrack and quiet roads for a total of 18 miles and 5,000'. I really like this run because the road sections force me to open up my stride and hold a faster pace then if it was just all trails.

In an effort to escape the heat today, I ventured up to Saxon Mountain to see if it was runnable. This run is great, gaining 2,900' in one solid 6.5 mile climb on a super rocky, but very runable old jeep mining road. Going from 8,500' up to 11,400' it allows one to get in some good climbing and running at a zone that I find difficult. Below 8,500' I don't have any trouble, and anything above 12,000' you generally power hike unless it is flat or downhill. But that zone between 9,000' and 12,000' where one can - and should - still run but where the altitude begins to impact your pace and effort I find the most difficult. So Saxon Mountain is perfect training for this zone and for the higher peaks and bigger summer projects at a relatively early date. A couple of rock slides have happened, so there is no way for any jeeps to get up past about mile 2, making this run even better.

 This slide has completely blocked the road.

 Looking down 2,000' at the endless switchbacks.

 View of Mount Evans from the summit.

Good, rocky terrain - perfect training ground.

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.

Cold

Cold


A bit cold this morning. The temperature reading for Golden was -9F when I started out, which felt about right as I had to gasp for air the moment I stepped outside. The first exposure on super cold days is always a shock. Did the "Golden Triangle" run again, which seems to exploit several of my weaknesses since I feel burnt by the time I get back home. January turned out to be a decent month, despite being sick for a couple days and not running for 7 days: 238.5 miles, 47 hours, 55,400 feet of gain. 3 speed days, nine climbing/bouldering days. A bit down from December, but right where I want to be for this time of year. Really focusing this year as I have several big goals so that I enter the season ready to go, and not like last year with only two months or so of running (but lots of skiing).

 Top of South Table looking at Golden - cool little summit

 Going up Chimney Gulch looking back at South Table in the distance.

 Windy Gap looking at Clear Creek and the Divide.

Snow Day

Snow Day


Well, I couldn't make it up to the Leadville Marathon with all of this new snow (side note - second time I've seen a Subie in a ditch on US 6), so I just did a fun urban run tagging the three high points from my place: Apex, South Table, Lookout. This run turned out to be a better training run than I thought because the trail sections up to each summit were power hiking slogs through powder, while the connectors were plowed bike paths that allowed for a good running pace. The alternation between running 7min pace and power slogging through snow works one of my many weaknesses.