Mon - 6.5 miles (1,500') easy with Sam. Falls - Spring Creek - Stout - Herrington - Spring Creek - Soderberg.
Tues - AM: 9 miles intervals. First City Park winter workout of the season. Love these sessions. Warmed up with Sam, Eric, Sarah, Celeste and Kyle, then headed to the cemetery for the workout which went: cemetery mile (.97, but runs like a track mile because of tight turns/footing), fartlek mile from cemetery to Jackson (wheeled mile), fartlek mile on east side of park (.97), 1,200 around Club Tico (.72): 5:24, 5:34, 5:21, 4:00. Ran mostly with Chris Mc, feeling a bit slow so not able or willing to hang on to Sam and Eric.
Weds - Noon: 8.5 miles (1,700') easy with Sam. Falls - Spring Creek - Stout - Loggers - Carey Springs - Towers - Herrington - Spring Creek - Soderberg.
Thurs - AM: 11 miles (1,400') hill tempo. HTH5MO@B with Sam, Celeste & Slush. Beautiful morning out with a big full moon to the west and an orange glow to the east. Out easy to the 5 mile in 40:55 feeling like I didn't want to crank the return too hard. Ran the North Dam hill at a good clip with Sam and then decided to latch on and see how things felt. Passed Sam going up the long hill in the third mile and then decided to let things roll from there. Sam blazed by me coming down the last two hills, but I was pretty much able to hang on to his coattails for a 4:55 last mile. Back in a PR of 30:33 (7:28, 6:17, 5:57, 5:53, 4:55).
PM: 6.5 miles easy on the bike path with FCTR crew.
Fri - Noon: 8.5 miles (1,700') easy. Falls - Spring Creek - Stout - Loggers - Carey Springs - Towers - Herrington - Spring Creek - Soderberg.
Sat - AM: 18.5 miles (5,100') easy. 3:15. Rock - Horsetooth summit - Wathan - Spring Creek - Mill Creek - Link - Valley - Sawmill - Loggers - Carey Springs - Towers - Westridge - Southridge - home long. Super windy out, but really mild at the same time. Just an easy cruise with three different climbs to the top.
Sun 22.5 (4,000') easy. 3:10. Ring the Rez with Eric: Falls - Spring Creek - Stout - Loggers - Mill Creek - Link - Valley to Lory Visitors Center, then 25G, Centennial, 38e around north, east, and south side of the reservoir. Wind was blowing again - sometimes at our back and then sometimes fiercely in our face, especially on the east side of the reservoir. Went easy to steady for the most part, but pushed the last two hills up to my house.
Total: 91 miles (15,400').
Another good week in the books. Pretty structured again, with an interval-type session on Tuesday morning, a tempo effort Thursday morning and then two longer runs on the weekend. I don't really have much on the calendar to warrant the training, but a few things are starting to line up and, quite frankly, I'm already thinking about that all-important base for next summer.
But before all that happens, I've got the Turkey Day 4 miler here in Fort Collins; probably the most competitive road race in Northern Colorado. I've finished successively faster each of the four times I've run this race since we moved to FoCo, so I hope to keep that streak alive this year. That will require something under 21:49, which shouldn't be too tall of an order.
Speaking of race-improvement streaks and future running plans, a little pattern began to emerge after this year's Western States, where I finished third (15:50) after a fourth (16:04) in 2009. That is enough of a trend to leave me thinking hard about next June. If my calculations are correct (and I'm sure they are), I should be bringing home a cougar in 2013 in something close to a course record. But in order for that to happen, I would need to suffer through another round of cougar-less punishment next summer. Two weeks to make the call on that then.
What else? Well, I hear Dakota's been dishing out some vertical beer mile smack talk, but c'mon, I've got 20 years of drinking experience on the kid (and we will be checking IDs at the trailhead). The Grand Canyon R2R2R record is all good and well, but I feel confident in predicting defeat for the curly headed wunderkid on Dec 15 (and 10th for that matter) .
Planning on taking a crack at the Bob Graham Round when I'm back home this Xmas. It's going to be somewhat weather dependent, but if I get a nice window, then I'm definitely going to give it a shot. The Round is a tour of 47 peaks in the Lake District region of northern England, with a staggering 27,000 feet of vertical over an estimated 70 miles. Throw in some winter gnar, and it promises to be quite the challenge.
Pete and I got approval from Lory State Park for the 25/50 mile race this week, so assuming that the county follows suit with approval for the Horsetooth section of the course, then we're full steam ahead. Mark your calendars for May 12 - it'll be an ass whooping.
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42 Nick you must have been checking the Paddy Buckley round as well ;-) May see you on the Wasdale fells in December
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm placing very little faith in the HR lottery going my way, so am increasingly getting my fires stoked by thoughts of WS again next year. We both still need to run the real high-country portion of the course, after all!
ReplyDeleteMy real question is, with no presence in either lottery yet, what are Salomon's plans for continued world domination next year?
T
Bill - 42/47. Either way, it's a ridiculous number of peaks to be bagging on one run. Would be great to see/run with you on the fells - starting to stitch details together with Morgan. The Paddy Buckley, huh!
ReplyDeleteTony - yes indeed, the elusive Red Star and Lyon Ridges; yet another reason to be thinking WS 2012. You'll need to qualify first, though!
Salomon World Domination: I think Kilian has his stall set out for North American Summer Domination in 2012. He'll be at WS, and then I'm sure he'll pop up on the HR list soon enough. Round that out with a 1:12 descent on Pikes (but no CR) and the domination is off to a good start. Ive got a plan for WS, though.
BGR: Nice!
ReplyDeleteNew race: Nice!
2013 WS win: Nice! (especially for TK's 2012 coug.)
A winter BGR? Wow. I'm not sure there are too many people out there that can appreciate just how hard that will be. Great post.
ReplyDeletered star and lyon are really gems on that course. fair amount of climbing through there, maybe 2k worth? saw Ryan Sandes name on the WS app list. should be another deep, competitive field at WS. can't wait.
ReplyDeleteIs there something similar to the Bob Graham Round in Colorado (or US)? If not, maybe you could come up with a similar challenge.
ReplyDeleteNick, I saw you made a date with the Texas rocks this Jan.
ReplyDeleteKevin - Nolan's 14 would be the closest I can think of, although I would guess it is a little less technical than BG, but probably a fair degree harder from an endurance perspective. You could go longer and look at the Colorado Trail, but that is a different beast altogether. From a purely peak-bagging perspective, I can't think of a route that even comes close to BG, but then our mountains are a lot bigger. The Glacier Gorge Traverse in RMNP is 11 peaks between 12&14k'. I think that route is 22-23 miles with about 11.5k' of climb with a couple of exposed class IV/V sections. Seems like the northeast would be a better venue for a mega peak bagging route that is doable in a day. Maybe in the Adirondacks?
ReplyDeleteChris - yup, another round of Texas rock torture on the docket.
http://fastestknowntime.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=mountains&action=display&thread=3
ReplyDeleteMaybe you can get a discount from a few hotels in the area of the 25/50,might be better to stay an extra day after the post-race party!
ReplyDeleteShout if you want a extra pacer for a winter BG, though no doubt Morgan will get you well set up.
ReplyDeleteFind me via Ambitionexceedsability.blogspot.com