The Sun Returns!

It is fantastic to get a view of Pikes peak in the morning with a blanket of fresh snow ... in January! When it is almost May, not as much excitement but when it comes with bluebird skies and sunshine, we'll still take it. Our snow tapered off yesterday afternoon and the rain ended late last night, so it was sunny day and time to get some miles. I had considered getting some good miles on Gold Camp Road - the old mining road from Colorado Springs to Cripple Creek. Kathleen was going to hang out at the truck and knit so she could at least get out of the house for a while. So we drove up Cheyenne Canyon and started to get a bit nervous at the amount of snow we were seeing, especially since most of town was melting out so fast from the wet snow. We arrived at the trailhead to find shin deep snow - no thanks for a 10 to 12 mile run! So I brought her home and decided to run a couple laps of the Flying W Loop that we use near home - you'll get pictures of Gold Camp at a later date, though ;-)
I figured the double loop on Flying W might not be a bad idea since the Greenland race course will also be two nearly identical loops. This is me at the base of the first climb up Flying W - about the only spot I had a good shot of the Peak from this loop. So my theory was to get in a run with two laps and two distinct climbs to somewhat model the 25k course and then test my pacing. It worked really well although my route today was shorter at just over 11 miles but it had almost 200' more climb, so it was a pretty good dummy route. I was quite comfortable with the pace, staying conservative on the first ascent and pushing a bit more on the second. I ended up with 8:23 average, faster than I have ever done the single loop of FW, so I was pleased.

Here's the Greenland course map and elevation profile from USATF.

Here is what I did today.

Actually turned out to be a nice day and a good run. My biggest concerns for the races are always starting too fast with all the adrenaline at the gun and/or hitting a lull somewhere in the middle that sucks the wind out of your pace. If I can fight those two off, I think it will be a good run for me.

Asics Gel Trabuco

********************

Just in case you're wondering, the other half of Happy Trails, my lovely Kathleen, has been attempting to use up her anxious energy from not running by doing a lot of knitting. It is not working well, but she may get to venture out on a small outing next weekend - we'll see. The mocha colored Alpaca on the right is Mr Logan and he was kind enough to "donate" some fur last summer that was spun into the wool that Kathleen used to make this:

The Logan Bag

She likes to find things when we are out of town that help commemorate different places we have visited - so this is now one of our Taos memories. Thanks Logan!

Happy Trails everyone and have a great week!