Week Ending September 22

Mon - Off

Tues - 7.5 miles (1,500') easy. Jogged a few of the trails in Horsetooth from the upper lot to get a look at the situation on the Blue Sky Marathon sections of the park. Falls were roaring and creeks were running in places I'd never seen them, but the trails appeared to be in great shape. Went: Falls - Spring Creek - Stout - Towers - Herrington - Stout Spring Creek - Soderberg. Legs felt okay, but my knees - I have to say - felt 'old'.

Weds - Off

Thurs - 5 miles (1,500') easy. Horsetooth north summit. Great to get back out with the Thursday morning gang - Mike, Justin, Scott, Celeste and Ziggy - for a casual trip to the top of my local rock. I think she's been missing me (and yes, she's most definitely a 'she'). Longs and Meeker were looking kinda white and there was some good fog in the low lying valleys to the west. Beautiful morning and a massive moon above Buckhorn as we were making our way up. So good to be back out running for nothing more that the sake of being out running: #racingisoverrated.

Fri - Off 

Sat - 7 miles (3,500') 14ers. Mike and I got a super early start to make it to Alma for the second annual running of the Kite Lake Triple 'race,' the Democrat-Cameron-Lincoln-Bross '14er' circuit (without an actual tag of the privately situated Bross summit). Heading up Democrat, my calves were immediately barking while aerobically I felt grossly out of shape. Dropped any ideas of trying to do the loop fast and enjoyed the outing for what it was, a rare (this summer) alpine outing, being especially pathetic on the bruising descents. Got around in 1:49, then enjoyed a couple of beers while getting to know the Breckenridge stoner ski/run/mountain crowd a little better. Won a bottle of Breck Bourbon in the raffle - to rival Mike's Kelty fold-up table score - before heading back home. Fun morning.

About 30 seconds in and already realizing that this was a really bad idea.  Pic: Vertical Runner of Breckenridge.

Sun - 6.5 miles (1,700') easy. Woke up with a sore knee, but felt good enough to get out with Tony as planned. On the way down we bumped into Boulder friends who were out enjoying the FoCo trails - a rarity (Boulder'ites in FoCo) - as an alternative to their currently closed and severely compromised open space options.

Total: 26 miles (8,200')

A little more running than planned this week, but it felt good to be out despite a pair of legs that felt like they needed a couple more weeks of inactivity.

Will continue to keep things casual for the near future, hopefully with some quality Larimer peak bagging/bushwhacking/thrashing activity as the main/singular outdoor focus.