Week Ending May 6

Mon - Noon: 5 miles (1,000') easy. Falls loop.
PM: 6 miles (700') easy. Valley trails.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
January: 330 miles (45,200')
February: 445 miles (58,500')
March: 501.5 (79,600')
April: 430 (66,800')
 
Total: 1,706.5 miles (250,100')
Avg: 427 miles (62,525')
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2012 Summits (58): 
Horsetooth (7,255') (27)
Arthurs (5)
Palisade
Milner
Alexander
Green Mountain (7,335')
7,725'
7,098' (Poll Mtn range)
Goat Hill
Reservoir Ridge
7,260' (Ziggy Point)
8,415' (Leila Peak)
Mount Ethel
Buckhorn Mountain
5,740' (1)
5,740' (2)
7,178'
Table Mountain (7,074')
5,773' or 'Aggie Peak'
Green Ridge (7,402')
Spruce Mountain (7,781')
Storm Mountain (9,918')
Sullivan Stump (7,778')
Lily Mountain (9,786')
Round Mountain
Crosier Mountain (9,250') (3)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Tues - AM: 7.5 miles intervals. Last Tuesday morning workout of the 'off season.' We revert to Tuesday nights at the CSU track in a couple of weeks. Workout was 2 x road mile, 2 x 1,200. Ran with Chris Mac for all of these: 5:24, 5:15, 3:59, 3:51. Been a few weeks since I've done an interval workout, but these felt decent enough. Felt good to spin the wheels a bit.    
PM: 7.5 miles (1,800') easy. Falls - Spring Creek - Wathan - Rock - Soderberg. Felt some good flow on this one, especially up Wathan. Hopefully turning the corner on a week or two of post Lake Sonoma-, flu-induced fatigue.

Weds - Noon: 6 miles (700') easy. Valley trails.
PM: 6.5 miles easy. Bike paths before FCRC board meeting.  

Thurs - AM: 10.5 miles (2,700') easy. Early morning cruise with Slush and Mike. Good to be back on the Thursday morning schedule. Falls - Spring Creek - Herrington - Towers - Secret Trail - Rock - Horsetooth Summit - Rock - Audra - Southridge. 
PM: 10.5 miles (2,000'). Towers hard. 29:20 (6 second PR). Started out conservative and feeling a little bloated from lingering stomach bug issues, but soon settled into a steady rhythm once on the hill. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to push out a hard effort, but the Stout split was in the ball park and things felt reasonably controlled, so I committed from there. Thought I was going to spank my PR and go under 29 minutes given how smooth I was feeling, but I guess I wasn't moving quite as well as I thought. A PR is a PR, though. Splits w differential versus PR splits: Towers: 2:58 (+13 secs), Stout: 8:46 (+3), Herrington: 16:25 (-18), Spring Creek: 24:57, Top: 29:20 (-6).

Fri - Noon: 8 miles (2,100') easy. Falls - Spring Creek - Wathan - Horsetooth Summit - Audra - Southridge - Soderberg. Hot one today, but was feeling good. Think I might be over the hump with regards to fatigue and stomach buggery. 
PM: 5 miles (1,000') easy. Falls loop.

Sat - AM: 14.5 miles (5,100') Hills. Longs Peak (14,259'). From the East Longs TH to the summit via Keyhole route. Original plan was to summit Lady Washington (a ranked Larimer County peak), but at the Boulder Field, I decided to forge on and tag Longs with the idea of picking up MLW on the way back down. Running was good enough through the trees, with a firm pack of snow from Goblins Forest to treeline and then pretty much clear the rest of the way up. Wind was blowing a gale through the keyhole (no surprise there), and there was some ice sketch traversing the ledgy sections past the Keyhole, and a fair bit of snow in the Trough, but it was largely good going. Took things pretty easy for the most part. Wind was fierce past the Trough and I was freezing my nads off, so didn't linger on the summit (tag and go). By the time I was back at the Boulder Field, I was pretty much done with being whipped around by the wind, so forewent MLW in favor of a route-one return home to Get Stuff Done. Bumped into The Slow Man between the BF and Granite Pass on the way down. Goblins: 14:40, Chasm: 45:00, Granite: 59:42, BF: 1:19:21, Keyhole: 1:32:36, Trough top: 2:04:40, Summit: 2:17:10, Down: 2:00.  

Sun - AM: 23 miles (1,600') long. Ran the 14 miles from home to help out at the 'Bagel Hill' aid station (mile 6/19) on the Fort Collins Marathon (and Half) course, then ran with Pete for four miles to the 23 mile marker before backtracking a half mile to run with Sarah for her last 3.5 miles en route to a sub three hour finish in her first marathon; good for second overall. Also had the pleasure of running with Luke Crespin (running right at Pete's pace) and ultrarunning rock star Brooks Williams who was up from the Springs with his soon-to-be bride in for her first half marathon. Fun morning, legs felt great. Roar.
 
Total: 110 miles (18,700')

Couldn't resist the call of the high country this weekend to officially get the 2012 alpine running season underway ... in May. There is a ton of above-timberline terrain already snow free, which is really bad news for the watershed and forests, but great news for runners, and I intend to make the most of it. Obviously I can't do the live-out-of-the-truck thing (lived those years already), so I'll be setting the alarm early this summer.

Quad Rock on Saturday, then volcanoes and Pyrenean peaks the week thereafter. Burch has been prognosticating about the men's race over at his joint. I think he's missed a few names. Stapanovich will be a factor, Jim Rebenack went under 4 hours (comfortably) at Chuckanut, then the word on the local wire is that Antonelli has been pumping out quadruple Towers sessions in preparation. And I'm not even going to start on Hinterberg. But I'm still betting the house on Burch. 

Some of those guys are going to get beaten by the women's winner, who in my book is going to be one of Leila Degrave, Steph Lynn, or Jenny Pierce. The car is going on Steph, with a back-up long shot bet on Kristel Liddle who has reportedly been consuming hills for breakfast, lunch and dinner in training.

In the 25, we've got the brothers Goding, Towers Sam, barefoot Kyle, old man Jaime and late-entrant Crandall. Not going to call that one, but I think it will be close. If Cat Speights runs like she did yesterday in the marathon, then she takes the 25 mile tiara for the women. Does anyone go under 3:10 or 7:20 for the men? I don't think so. 3:50 or 8:45 for the women? I'm thinking not, but those are the arbitrary, we-don't-have-a-course-record-yet standards that I just made up.

The fun starts at 5:00 AM Saturday morning. I think we're ready.