Category: run

Patience makes perfect…

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. ~ John Quincy Adams

Yesterday: Run – Zoo Loop (GGCSP), 3 hours 15 minutes
Today: Massage/Hike/Walk – Somewhere, 1 hour
Tomorrow: Golf/Yankees Game – Denver

FINALLY a good run.

Yesterday’s run felt great and I have no residual aches or pains this morning. Everything just clicked… from tempo to food to hydration. Hoping this is an indicator of things to come.

I headed out into the forest behind my house and wound my way up to Gap Road where I linked up with Elk Trail in Golden Gate Canyon State Park. GGCSP is one of the gems of the Front Range and, for whatever reason, not too many people seem to know about it. (Which, frankly, is okay by me.) Elk Trail is mostly downhill and starts in the conifers and slowly moves down through meadows and aspen groves, past an old homestead then eventually links up with Mule Deer Trail.

This whole area was once rife with Bootleggers and the remnants of their presence can still be found if you know where to look. There are abandoned cabins, rusted out delivery vans and the like dotting the canyons and hillsides in and around the Park. If you know where to look, you can see evidence of some interesting history.

Mule Deer rises up from the valley floor through the forest to a gorgeous high-meadow where another homestead once existed. This is one of my favorite spots in the Park where Coyote Trail meets Mule Deer. There is a small spring nearby and wildlife abounds (though I didn’t see much during yesterday’s venture). Rach loves it up here and we hike Coyote often.

Mule Deer continues through more arid terrain and eventually dumps back to some tricky, steep singletrack before it connects with Raccoon Trail. This is another favorite – a fairly mellow 2.5 mile loop that wraps through diverse terrain. The wildflowers were starting to peek out through the grass all along the route – boding well for this summer’s season. From Raccoon, I hooked up with the campground loop, refilled my water and headed back home the way I came. More of a popsicle than a loop per se. I was home in just under 3:15 and then sat in the creek for awhile to soak my legs. The remainder of the day was spent freelancing and hanging out with Rach.

Lessons learned:

  • Start out slowly: This is key to being able to set a decent pace long-term and to ensure that you don’t blow up early on in the run.
  • Clif Shots are gross – but are your friend: You have to just gulp these things down but they seem to help a bit. I still like the Margarita Shot Blocks better.
  • Pizza doesn’t work for a Stu: Dean Karnazes swears by it but it didn’t really work so great for me. Perhaps it was the Soy cheese or the fact that Rach makes really yummy spicy pizza but my stomach couldn’t take it.

View the full run album here.

My pops is coming to town tomorrow for a belated Father’s Day celebration. We are going to play a round of golf then go to the Rockies/Yankees game. Dad’s a big Yankees fan so I try to get tickets whenever they come to town. I am really looking forward to spending some time with him enjoying the summer weather. It is not supposed to be too hot tomorrow nor is it supposed to rain so we should be in good shape.

Okay, off to get some work done before meetings in Boulder.

See you out there.

~stubert

Must. Fight. Urge. To. Sleep. In…

I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death. ~ Nas

Friday: Run – Boulder Res, ~ 1 hour
Yesterday: Bunnies, ~4 hours
Today: Run – GGCSP, ~ 2 hours
Tomorrow: Massage – InMotion, 1 hour

I guess I missed a day there. Friday was good. I finished up work and went for a lunch run around the Res. I warmed up around Coot Lake and then ran around Boulder Res in 40:52. That isn’t blazingly fast but is a personal best for me on this route. It is an average of sub-8-minute miles so that is WAY faster than I will ever run at Leadville. I just tried to keep a fairly steady pace the whole time and to keep from maxxing out my heartrate. Mission accomplished. I did experience some stomach cramps for a portion of the run but was able to just run through them. So that is encouraging. Overall, I felt okay for a change.

Several of us got together after work for Happy Hour. It was a lot of fun to have some of my co-workers get together for a send-off. I will really miss the people with whom I have worked for the past several years and really hope to stay in touch with them.

Yesterday (catching up), Rach and I spent the day at the Colorado House Rabbit Society’s Spring Fling. There was a great turn-out and people seemed to have a good time. It was a little warm for the bunnies so we put ours in the shade and gave them a frozen bottle of water to huddle around. They seemed to have a decent time overall. I think it worked well as a fundraiser with lots of people participating in the silent auction, buying items from the gift shop and whatnot. Fun times.

Today, I am trying to get out the door for a run over in the State Park near our house. I’ll probably head out from here and then do a big loop through the park and back home. I have a TON of contract/freelance work to accomplish this weekend so I need to get back in time to bang out some design work and code for a couple of clients. I am actually hoping to switch my schedule to work more weekends and take off days mid-week and I am guessing it will take a little while to get that sorted out. Right now my worst problem is rolling out of the sack at a decent time. I typically have been getting up very early each morning to go to work but the past few days I have felt the need to sleep in. I have to get back in the mode of getting up early so that I can be sure to get everything accomplished.

Tomorrow, I have some errands to run in Boulder and will be seeing Shirley for a massage. Right now, I don’t really have any soreness so I must be doing something right. I bet Shirley will find something to work over, however. She seems to have a knack for that.

Ok kiddies. I should have some photos coming soon since I did get my camera the other day. Hoping to be able to spice things up with some shots for you guys.

See you out there.

~stubert

Tick, tick, tick…

Ten-thousand years I’ve been stuck in this bottle but now I’m free. Free. FREEEEE! – The Gits

Yesterday: Nuttin’
Today: Run – Boulder Res area, ~ 1 hour
Tomorrow: Ride/Bunny stuff – Altitude/Broomfield

Today is my last day at work. I am simultaneously sad, ecstatic, nervous, gassy, contemplative and um… I guess that is it. And I’m not really gassy. I just thought I’d throw that in there to see if you were paying attention.

Yesterday I felt like hammered crap when I got home so decided that I should just take it easy for the night. I am not feeling 100% today but am a lot better than I was yesterday. I had planned to take today off but brought in all my stuff to run at lunch. Tomorrow we have the Spring Fling at the House Rabbit Society and then I am gearing up for a long run on Sunday to finish up what turned out to be a pretty weak week. (Nice.)

Next week is chaos with a ton of freelance stuff to get done, golf and a baseball game with my pops, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity and training. I think things should settle down a little bit in the weeks to come as I get into a routine working from home and whatnot. At least that is what I am hoping happens.

So that pretty much covers it for today.

Don’t you go changin’.

~stubert

Suffer-fest…

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream. ~ Paulo Coehlo

Yesterday: Run – Local Rollinsville trails, 4 hours
Today: Ride or hike – Casa del Critters, ~ 1 hour
Tomorrow: Off

Yesterday’s run was interesting. I felt pretty dreadful for most of the run with short bursts of time that felt decent. Not sure what was going on but I was having real problems getting into a groove. All day my legs felt heavy and clumsy. I think that some of this could be attributed to the high pollen count and the fact that I am experiencing some allergy-type reactions to the current state of the ecosystem. It could also be that I have just reached a bit of a plateau and need to fight through it. Or both! Good times.

I headed out with the intention of repeating my long run of a few weeks ago that took me to Nederland but shifted gears a bit to run more in the forest and explore some new trails. I did find a new singletrack just by chance off of North Beaver road. I was bushwhacking in the direction of Magnolia road when I stumbled across an old mining road that then turned into some decent singletrack. Not knowing the real name, I have dubbed this section “Smitty” and hope to explore it more on later ventures out.

This trail dumped out to an offshoot of Mag which I followed West to the Habitrail and then back to Rollinsville and home. I then took full advantage of our creek with a good soak. I need to figure out how to make it deeper, however. I think skinnier will be the trick to achieve a level of flow that fully covers my legs.

I believe that I am feeling the benefits of that soak today as my legs are only a little sore and don’t feel too tired. I will probably go for a short ride or hike later but just got word from Pete that he was thinking of going for a run. I might be into that as well.

Movie time: Yesterday and the day before we watched the 1940 and 1944 versions of the classic film, Gaslight. I must say that the ’44 version is vastly superior in every way. It is a little dated but features a fairly sophisticated plot (especially for the time it was created), solid writing and fine acting. Skip the ’40 version, however. It is actually pretty bad.

Enjoy.

~stubert

Edit: Stories like this make running Leadville seem plausible. Now to channel my inner monk.

The wind, it blows…

Bear Peak (in winter)


And this time, no tears. ~ Tobias Fünke

New format for you format luvvers:

Yesterday: Run – Cirque de Bear Peak, ~15 miles, 3 hours 15 minutes
Today: Ride – Casa del Critters (maybe), ~1 hour
Tomorrow: Run – Golden Gate Canyon State Park, 2 hours

Yesterday’s run went fairly well. The wind in the foothills was nothing short of incredible. Gusts up to 90 mph and not a warm breeze to say the least. Luke, Bob and I headed out of Eldorado Springs about 6:00 and ran through the park for awhile to Eldorado Springs Trail (or something like that). Then up we went to a beautiful rolling trail that overlooked the canyon. This dropped down to Walker Ranch where we proceeded to take an unmapped road, bushwhack back to the planned road and drop down into Bear Canyon on the front side of the Flatirons.

I felt okay for the most part though Luke was really pushing the pace. We were chasing the sunlight a bit so it was good that he kept us moving at a steady clip though my heartrate was not where I wanted it to be. I think the combo of taking a couple of weeks off and allergy season have my system a little taxed. I seemed to feel better the longer we ran with the exception of very tight hamstrings and calves – probably holdovers from my hard effort on Tuesday.

We jammed down Bear and I managed to keep up with Luke pretty well which, if you haven’t guessed already, is a tough chore. He just flies downhill and try as I might, I still haven’t been able to keep up the whole way down Bear ever. I turned my ankle pretty well at one point but it seems to be okay, just a little sore today. My tendonitis issue seems to be behind me as I had no problems and no residual effects this morning. That is great news.

We ran South along Mesa Trail in the fading light, wary of bears and big kitties but saw none. The last mile and a half or so was on a severely overgrown trail that would have been tough to run in daylight, much less in the conditions we were experiencing post sundown. We made it back to the Eldorado Springs Pool at about 9:15. We dropped Bob back at his house and Luke and Nichole treated me to a hot shower, warm tea and yummy PB & strawberries on Bible bread. Good stuff.

The trees in Boulder took the brunt of this wind storm with several large branches and trees toppled in the road as I drove home. The weather this year has been nutty. We typically experience high winds on occasion but nothing like what we have experienced over the course of the last 6 months. Not sure what is going on but I worry about the effect of these climate changes on the flora and fauna. It is one thing to have marked change occur over the course of one’s lifetime but for these changes to be coming so quickly it a bit unnerving.

And I leave you with a poem written by Marge Piercy sent to me by Pete:

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t blame them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fundraising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

See you out there.

~stubert