On Sunday my buddy Jobe and I tackled Longs Peaks. I picked him up from the Group Publishing parking lot at 1:50 am and we were running the trail by 2:50 am (I didn’t sleep that night), in pitch black, with our head lamps on. We hiked/ran as much as we could.
We summitted in just over 4 hours and spent 20 minutes on the top, I think we were the 3rd team to summit that morning. It’s the most amazing view I’ve ever seen. 14,240 ft reeks havoc on your lungs and we were burning on the way up. On the way down we were moving fast, even running a lot of the sections until Jobe took a fall onto his knee and popped his right ankle. Jobe’s the man though and kept moving fast while suffering.
The GPS info below is missing 1 hour of data. Our total time was 8:40. For some reason the watch turned off. The actual hike 14.7 miles long.
We celebrated the day with taco’s for Taco Bell in Estes Park.
The hike was perfect prep for the Steamboat 50. I needed to have that much time and effort put on my legs and feet. Thanks again to Emergent Fitness for forcing me to do all of the back squats, the legs felt really good. After being up for 36 hours, the Sunday afternoon nap and epsom salt bath felt really good!
Cyclocross at New Belgium in Fort Collins is right around the corner. The first race in the series starts on September 7. Click here to check out the 2010 American Cycling Association cyclocross calendar.
I decided on this race because I wanted to get some intense/fast training miles in at elevation (9,200 ft to 9,600 ft). To date, I’ve done ZERO speed work in my training which I knew would be a big factor in my overall time. The race started at the base of Eldora and took us thru some beautiful single track and forested areas. None of the climbs were to bad, but at elevation, you feel everything. At mile 2.5 I re-rolled my right ankle which forced me to stop for a minute to recover. I was able to run thru it but it took a lot of needed energy away. Bummer. There were 2 VERY large water crossings at mile 5. You couldn’t avoid either of them forcing you to run with soaked feet and legs. Because of water on the course, they couldn’t get a full 11k in, leaving us with 5.79 miles total.
Details:
206 total racers
00:54:48 (62 overall)
During the race I learned 5 things…
1. I’m not fast running up hill
2. I’m “ok” fast running on flats
3. I’m really fast running downhill (don’t laugh, some people aren’t)
4. There was a LOT fast woman trail runners
5. Rolling your ankle in a race sucks
With Julie and the boys being out of town I came up with the bright idea of hiking Long’s Peak next weekend…as I research more I’m not sure why. My buddy Jobe and I will be giving it a shot this Sunday with a goal time of 10 – 12 hours. I’d like to see how fast I can go but I know I’ll be suffering before it’s over.
I’ve been training at Emergent Fitness for the last 7 months. We do a lot of pull-ups while we train but I’ve always had to use the bands to be able to do even one. Last week I knocked out my first official totally real, no band, strict pull-up. Sweet!
Thanks to coach Jeff, Brad, Chris and John for their incredible coaching. I know it takes a lot of effort to whip this pizza loving boy into shape.
Last week Julie gave me a pass to come home late so I could get a long mid-week training run in. I heard from my buddy Mike that Round Mountain up Big Thompson Canyon was a great one.
It rained for the 20 minute drive up to the trail head but when I parked it stopped. This run has a TON of lose rock on it and the rain didn’t help make it any more stable. The run offers everything, step climbs, beautiful scenery, amazing summer flowers, lot’s of trees and an overall a good time. If you look at the GPS profile, it goes straight up, and then straight back down making for a lot of hiking on the way up. The summit is a little disappointing but the rest of the run makes up for it.
If you live in Northern Colorado, I’d highly recommend checking out this run/hike.
To make a long story short, today’s run destroyed me to the point where I wanted to stop. I just wasn’t feeling it. This was the closest I’ve been to bonking in a really long time. Overall I had a strong training week, I think I may have overdone it a little however.
