Category: running

Rollin’…

Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. ~ William Faulkner

The nice thing about being confined to short runs is that they are much easier to squeeze into a hectic schedule. Friends and family in the area make for good times and being able to keep my training schedule is a bonus, for sure.

Friday, I spun a quick 4.5 miles or so on trails and dirt roads near my house. Still feeling no pain but I am having a bit of a plateau where I am unable to get my heartrate down or run as fast as I’d like for the amount of effort required. These things happen and usually one can just roll through them after a few small changes. Overall, I felt great and it wasn’t like my average pace was super slow… just took some more effort than I would prefer to keep up the flow.

Friday night I headed to Denver to meet up with the Roach clan. They are in town for the Harley-Davidson Dealer Meeting (they own Palm Springs Harley-Davidson) and after watching soccer at the Hyatt, headed over to Root Down for a very tasty meal. Pretty cool restaurant, Root Down. They converted an old service station into a hip joint and used sustainable building and recycled materials throughout. The floor was salvaged from an old high-school gym and many of the service station features remain intact. They were even playing awesome 70s-era kung-fu movies in the bar. Good stuff. Tough to get a reservation but the food was awesome and well worth the wait.

Didn’t get home until super late so slept in a little on Saturday then watched the final “real” stage of the Tour. I must say that Contador rode really well and seeing Lance step back into the fray for a podium finish at age 37 after 4 years away from competitive cycling was quite impressive. I was hoping for an Astana sweep but it was great to see some fresh faces out there giving their all to the sport. All in all an exciting Tour. Once the race was over, I hit the trails again for my longest run in what seems like forever. Wait for it…. 5.25 miles! Look out Tony Krupicka, I’m on your heels. (Congrats to Tony, by the way, for crushing in the White River 50 USATF race with a course record 6:32:09… that’s 50 MILES in six and a half hours, people. Awesome.)

Again, felt a little off regarding fitness or whatever is going on but no discomfort in my abdominals so I’ll consider it a win. It was fun to be out in the woods for a run so you won’t catch me complaining.

Post-run, Rach and I headed down to Boulder to meet up with my pops and his special lady, Donna, at the Sunflower Café for lunch. Good eats and great company. They were in town to visit her son who lives with his family in Broomfield and to go to the Rockies game. Hopefully they had better weather than the last time they hit the ballpark. They were on-hand the day the stadium had to be evacuated due to a tornado warning back in June. Excitement abounds.

Rach and I then headed to Broomfield to help out some bunnies and spent the rest of the afternoon at the shelter. There are some awesome little guys there right now (well, there always are) and I spent the afternoon dolling out pets, watching Rach groom and care for a couple special needs bunnies and cleaning up. I even helped one volunteer break into her car so it was a day where I could flex all my special-talent muscles – the petters, sweepers and grand-theft-auto groups got a good work-out.

All in all, a great start to a summer weekend. Hoping to work on the shed foundation today then get to run again tomorrow.

~stubert.

Tiger and Tony are safe…

I’m back, baby. ~ Bender

Running is fun. I know that 96.2% of the population would beg to differ with that statement but when you couple the simplicity of the sport (really, what is more natural for a human?) with the interaction with nature and add the pure rush of it all – running really kicks ass. There, I said it and I feel better for having said it.

People ask me from time to time, “Don’t you get bored?” The answer, for me, is “absolutely not.” Sure, I have some runs that are better than others but I have learned that there really is no such thing as a bad run. I always learn something new and experience the thrill of being outside, enjoying the world around me. When one really gets in the zone, the miles just tic off. Truly a feeling to experience at least once in your life.

So lately, I have throttled down my mileage and so far, this has been a positive move. Sure, I’d like to be able to run longer and look wistfully to the high mountains that surround my home – wishing I could be running among the wildflowers in the thin air of Colorado’s highest peaks. Driving through Leadville on my journey to Gunnison earlier this week, I definitely felt the pang of sadness that this year will not mark my return to that great event. But that is what next year is for. My focus now is to get healthy. So far, so good.

Since getting stabbed two weeks ago, I have kept the mileage low – upping the tempo a bit – and have increased my mileage to runs of 4+ miles. Today, I’ll spin 4.5 and then continue to slowly build back to my “normal” distances. Taking things very slowly right now in order to ensure that I can run pain-free for years to come. Short term sacrifices for long-term gains. Sometimes a tough pill to swallow but definitely the plan I’ll follow.

It’s all about the big picture. And I can see it.

~stubert.

[ed.] – Also, I still suck at golf.

[ed. ed.] – Two items of clarification:

1) I didn’t get stabbed in the prison-yard, Irish pub sense of the word, but by a qualified physician… in the Prison Yard Irish Pub. (If that doesn’t exist, you can’t have it. I thought of it first.)

2) That last sentence of the final paragraph rhymes! That wasn’t even on purpose but you can have that one free of charge. My next post will be entirely written in iambic pentameter.

Short, sweet…

Whoopi-ty-aye-oh ~ Gene Autry

Finally able to get back out on the feet and let me tell you… it feels good. Only running a couple of miles to start but I am feeling strong and have not experienced any discomfort while running on either of my recent outings. Yesterday, I cranked out a couple of miles on our road in 16 minutes. Today, I spun the same route in 15:20 something.

Today’s run was a humid (for here) affair and it was nice to be out on a Sunday morning. Birds were singing, no dust to be seen due to yesterday’s late-afternoon rain showers… good stuff. I just stayed relaxed, focused on my form and enjoyed the run. Yesterday was much of the same with more dust (pre-rain). Still wonderful to be out if only for 15 minutes.

This weekend featured two big races in Colorado: The Hardrock 100 and the Leadville Marathon. The Hardrock is an incredibly challenging course in the southwestern part of the state that features over 33,000 feet of climbing and tops out at over 14,000 feet. Karl Meltzer won again this year (I think this was his 5th victory) in a course record 24:38. Diana Finkel led the women (and all but two of the men!) to win her race in 27:18. Amazing.

The Leadville Marathon was also held over the weekend with another course record being set. Dennis Flanagan finished up in 3:32. The Leadville Marathon heads up Mosquito Pass and tops out at over 13,000 feet. High altitude madness abounds.

~stubert.

Flyin’ solo…

You get your ass out there and you find that fucking dog. ~ Billy Madison

Rach is covering the House Rabbit Society this week while her co-manager, Nancy, is visiting Maine so I am flying solo for the week. Just me and the critters up here at the casa – and quite a few less critters than normal. Rach took down all the critical care guys so the house feels a little empty. I have moved my motorcycle, ski and bike collection in to fill the void and get a little Spring tune-up action going so that is filling the now-empty space. (I kid, I kid.)

On the running front, I am still at it though with ill-definined goals currently. I took Tuesday off to rest and went to see Star Trek, which was entertaining. JJ needs to relax a bit on the lens flairs but it featured an entertaining story, capable acting and good action with just a fine schmear of cheese. And what would Trek be without some cheese?

I ran short on Wednesday and did some surges which got me a couple of thumbs up from passing motorists on the Beav’. I felt great, actually and was able to keep my form solid throughout my run, which is precisely what we are after. So mission accomplished. Short, meet sweet.

Thursday got away from me a little bit with some work wackiness then a quest to find Rach a new headset so that she can actually get some work done while fielding calls at the shelter. I then went to see Sandy to get a little work done on my never-en ading ab problem and by the time I got home, my desire to run had wained quite a bit. I finally levered myself off the couch and just said, “Man, get your ass in gear and go run.” And I listened! Go figure. Usually I buck authority.

The first half of the run was decidedly unpleasant. My poor attitude was coupled with really not feeling well at all. It was late (I didn’t start until after 7p) and I had wacked down some ill-advised snacks just prior to the run. Plus I was feeling a bit exhausted in general. So I ran/walked up a trail near my house with the ultimate goal of reaching Golden Gate Canyon State Park. Clunkiness continued for about 2.5 miles until I started to feel it. The second half of the run went really well and I turned on the heat to finish up with a total time of 1:04 and 6.5 miles – all on dirt and technical trails. I think this is actually as fast as I have ever done this loop so all’s well that end’s well. The lesson learned is “get off your couch, jackass… you might be missing your best run ever!” (Not that this was my best run ever per se, but it could have been and I could have missed it, jeez.)

So I am off again today and have to roll down to Boulder for a meeting. I may try to catch another movie… not sure. Tomorrow is the big race that I am not doing (ugh). I am going to volunteer at Aid Station 3 so say “hi” as you run by or just come out to watch everyone else running the Dirty 30. Sunday I volunteer at the shelter and then am shooting some video for the shelter then am going to figure out how to work in an 11-miler. May turn into my first night run of the season. We’ll see.

On a less awesome note, I ask everyone to employ their good juju and point it toward the mountains of China for a bit. My buddy, Jonny Copp and two climbing partners are past due returning from a first ascent attempt of Dojitsenga, a 5,700-meter peak in the Kangri Garpo range. They are currently at least two days late. This is not really something new for J to the C but any good thoughts you might send his way couldn’t hurt. Read more about it.

As always, I’ll keep you posted.

~stubert.

Sunday run report…

Bob and Stu go running.


Let it flow. Let yourself go. Slow and low, that is the tempo. ~ The Beastie Boys

And a weekly summary! Whee!

Bob and I hit the trails this morning for what turned into a pretty long run. Long enough that we ran out of water and I, being one who can process fluids like wildfire, got into a little trouble.

Click on the photo to get the full effect. Hawk 1, snake 0.

We headed out from Bob and Lindsay’s about 9:30 and did a clockwise loop into the foothills of Boulder. Really a gorgeous day (a little warm for my tastes but I am a great big weirdo – see above). We ran south on Moorhead to the South Campus (or whatever it is called) and then headed up to Big Bluestem. Along the way we stopped for some photos then saw a hawk that had grabbed a snake and was circling above. Cool to see and great for the hawk. The snake… not so much.

It’s getting green out there.

We made our way west to the Mesa Trail then dodged hoards of hikers all the way back to Chautauqua. Seems like every third person we passed knew Bob so we had some nice breaks to check out the scenery and enjoy our time in the outdoors.

Once we hit the Chautauqua, we went over the saddle to the Gregory Canyon trailhead then up and over the first ridge of Flagstaff. By this time, I had run out of water and was starting to bonk a bit so we jammed down to Lolita’s for a fill up. Bob treated me to a great big Gatorade and then I had to find a bathroom. Finally opted for the Library, which had a cool display detailing the inner workings and history of the Boulder ditch system. Yeah, I did say “ditch”.

I saw a lot of this later in the run.

So we meandered our way back to Bob’s and my abs started acting up. Coupled with the dehydration, I was only able to run in short spurts. Oh well. 16 miles total with an unimpressive time of 3:40 or something. That’s okay though, it’s all about time on your feet.

Post run, I had some problems reminiscent of last year’s 50-mile race where I feel like I really have to pee but then can’t. I have to really start working harder on consistent fluid and food consumption. Gonna see if I can set a timer on my watch or something. Running the marathons last fall got me out of the habit of taking sips every 3 minutes and powering down food at a regular clip. Dargh!

So here are the week’s numbers:

Monday: Run, 3.15 miles, 33 minutes
Tuesday: Run, 5.2 miles, 51 minutes
Wednesday: Hike, 8 miles???, 2.15 hours???
Thursday: Run, 4 miles, 35 minutes
Saturday: Run, 6.86 miles, 1 hour 20 minutes
Sunday: Run, 15.9 miles, 3 hours 44 minutes
TOTAL: 43.11 miles, 9 hours 20 minutes

All in all a pretty solid week. I think this week will be fairly mellow leading up to the Dirty 30 on Saturday.

Rach is making origami bunnies right now, which is super awesome. Yet another of her many talents.

~stubert.