If you’re lucky enough to be in the mountains, you’re lucky enough!

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Gray Saturday

Occasionally in February, we start to get "glimpses" of Spring time weather in the Rockies, and sometimes a downright warm day here and there.  Not this year.  Local weather morons people are saying we are on par for one of the coldest winters on record, partially because the darn thing started so early!  Add to that watching a family member struggle to live, and it has been a mental beatdown this winter. Then, just when you think that the dark night of the soul might be lifting, you wake up to another 6 inches of snow and sub-zero temps....
 
Happy Friday - 6" of Prime Colorado Champagne Powder! (2 feels like -14.)
  
Kathleen would forego a run on Friday morning and take the sweet Miss Sage for a nice walk in the snow - what a photogenic girl!
  
Got out early this morning for a run as Kathleen had to head to the office for a bit.  It was gray and cool, but we are so used to those conditions it seemed normal.  Strong Sunny afternoon Friday relieved us of some of our snow, which was nice.  There are two ways to climb the trail along Flying W - north to south and you get .5 mile at ~10% grade, or south to north and you get 1.5 miles at ~5% grade.  So we started north/south and ran into a group of gals out for their breakfast at the top of the hill!!  We passed within 10 feet of a couple of the fawns and they did not even flinch - fairly used to runners.
 
We hit the bottom of the south side at 30th street and turned around to head back over south/north.  Nice little hill work on a Saturday morning.  Kathleen cruises along Flying W trail with a cold Pikes Peak in the background.  With the earlier light, we were able to squeeze in a bit over 9 miles before the sweet half of HappyTrails had to head off to work for a bit.  

Shoes - K Asics 2150 Trail
S Brooks Cascadia

After a bit of recovery (aka, sitting on my duff catching up on blog reading/olympic results/etc.), I headed out for run #2 as I got NO mid-week run in this week.   Going for the boredom route award for the day, I ran the Flying W Loop and was rewarded with a third climb of the day to the top of FW road.  It warmed up to near 40, so mud was abundant on the second time around the trail.  In fact, I must admit that I ran about one third of the loop on the road in protest of running on packed snow and mud.  Tired of it, but it is Mud Season - woohoo!  Brought the iPod along to keep somewhat motivated to run alone - some fresh tunes from Thousand Foot Krutch, Red, and Seventh Day Slumber really helped toward the end of the run.  Don't use a pod much but today it was worth having it along.  Also enjoying the fact that REI started to carry the Chocolate Mint GU gels - ummm.  It's like eating Andes Mints or Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies on the run - tasty!  Logged another 6 miles and called it a day.

Shoes -  Brooks Ravenna

 
In other "exciting" news - we both are signed up to do the Greenland 25K trail race on May 1.  It was getting close to capacity, so we had to go ahead and get our names in.  I want a chance to redeem my second half cramp/meltdown last year and Kathleen will be running it for the first time as she was sick last year.  Should be good fun!  Looking like snow again tomorrow - we're rooting for March to come in "like a Lion" and then, winter can take it's sorry behind elsewhere...

6 comments:

Julie said...

Hi Steve and Kathleen,
The snow really is beautiful..it is to bad that I am ready for it to go away until next year:) Miss Sage is a gorgeous dog! I also liked the picture of the deer...I get to see deer on my runs too. It is the same thing, they are so used to people that they don't even act concerned when I run close to them:)

Thanks for the heads up on the Chocolate Mint Gu as I am a huge fan of Thin Mints:) I hope that you are enjoying your weekend!!

Alyssa said...

Wow, it's inspiring to hear you're still getting out despite the frigid temperatures and mud! I'm definitely hoping winter moves its rump out and we can start enjoying some warmer running weather! At least we are blessed to live in such stunning places; that definitely helps things out a bit.

I'm sorry to hear you've also had energy crashes from oatmeal, too. It's really the only thing I can think of that would have cursed a 9-miler! Usually that wouldn't be an issue for me at all... but I feel somewhat better hearing that this hasn't adequately fueled others, either.

Enjoy your weekend!

Anonymous said...

We just got 6'' of snow it allways makes for fun running. I will be happy for spring so I can wear shorts.

ajh said...

Great pictures. We had fresh snow twice this week but we have had so little this year it has been quite welcome.

Tina @GottaRunNow said...

That race will be fun and something to look forward to. Yes, I like that GU flavor, too! Glad they're selling it year round now.

Unknown said...

Chilly but gorgeous pictures! I'm excited for your run in May, I hope you have sunny skies and dry trails...do you think the snow will melt by then? How about by the 4th of July? We had rain all day today and usually it's "all spring" by now. Oh well, our roses and grass are happy, as is our reservoir! We do need this rain!
Hugs!

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