Week Ending Feb.15

Mon - 12 miles (2,550 ft). 1:53. Horsetooth Falls to Spring Creek to Stout to Sawmill to Loggers to Mill Creek. Down Spring Creek to Horsetooth Falls and home. No energy, groin was hurting and a generally miserable run.

Tues - 12 miles (2,550 ft). 1:48. Saw the chiropractor this morning in hopes that he could get me out of my nagging-pain funk. He tossed me around, drilled, hammered, yanked, pulled and twisted. I came out of his office feeling like a new man. He told me to take five days off, so I got home and promptly re-ran my run from yesterday. I ran the route five minutes faster on an effort that felt 25% easier. Not entirely sure what to make of today's run, but just yesterday I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it to Fruita. Today, I feel like I have a shot of at least making it through Big Horn.

Weds - 8 miles (1,900 ft). 1:15. Felt sluggish in the legs, but great physically. Looking forward to running the Red Rocks in Vegas this weekend.

Thurs - 10 miles (1,600 ft). 1:32. Service drive to Spring Creek to Herrington to Stout to Loggers to Towers. Down Herrington to Spring Creek/service drive and home. Felt decent, although heel (PF) was sore.

Fri - 9.5 miles. 1:05. Treadmill at the hotel in Vegas. Wanted to run some 5:30 miles, but treadmill wouldn't go any faster than 10mph. Still worked up a good sweat, then went out and drank copious amounts of beer.

Sat - 0 miles. Wanted to get out to Red Rocks to run, but couldn't find a car to rent. Busy weekend, apparently. And I thought the economy was in the tank! Went out, drank beer and gambled instead. Handed back about $100 of the $200 I won on Friday. I probably put eight or nine beers away while playing Pai Gow, which works out to $11-$12 a beer plus tips.

Sun - 18.5 miles (500 ft). 2:18. With no way to drive out to a trailhead, I was left with the option of running on the treadmill for a couple of hours, pounding pavement or bagging the run altogether. As enticing as the latter option sounded, I managed to drag myself out for a tour of miserable East Las Vegas. Ran all the way east on Tropicana to a wetlands nature reserve where they had a little two-mile trail loop, and then headed back via Harmon to the hotel. Could have been worse, but Vegas is one ugly city once you get past the silliness of 'The Strip'.

Total: 70 miles (9,100 ft) Week started out great and kind of went downhill once I got to Vegas. Decent week on balance, but very disappointed I couldn't get my act together and get a car for Vegas. I had been looking forward to running the ~20 mile outer trail loop of the Red Rocks. Oh well.