Trail with a View

After a quiet week with some rest for the legs, we had quite the social running weekend on tap.  Saturday morning, Kathleen went for a nice trail run at Ute Valley Park early before spending some time at work.  While she was running in Colorado Springs, I made the hour jaunt up to Morrison, in the foothills west of Denver, to meet Tim at Mt. Falcon Open Space.  It would be my first visit there and it is an(other) area with awesome views.  Lots of history surrounding Mt Falcon and early-1900's gazillionaire John Walker - read up on JeffCo's park page link if interested.  Below is the windshield view - heading for the hills.

Continental Divide frames Denver's western skyline along C-470

Red Rocks Amphitheater from Mt Falcon trailhead

Just over the hogbacks that line C-470 to the west, the little town of Morrison sits nestled against the foothills.  Its most famous landmark by far is Red Rocks Amphitheater - a natural marvel and acoustic masterpiece.  When not in use for its commercial intentions, Red Rocks is also a hangout for workout junkies with surrounding trails and running the steps.

View across the hogback to Denver in the distance (far left, in the smog)

This trail system gets down to brass tacks right from the first step out of the parking lot - hope you did not eat a heavy breakfast!  From Castle trail we quickly diverted to the Turkey Trot, which is foot travel only - nice on the steeps because LOTS of mtn. bikes use this park.  The initial ramps had to be 10 - 15% easy, which means there was a good dose of power hiking mixed in with the running.  Add to that an intense eastern sun exposure and we were sweating buckets on the climb.  Eventually, Turkey Trot gets some shade and it was much needed as the grade just does not let up.  When we rejoined Castle trail at 1.7 miles, the grade eased for a bit until we hit another exposed and rocky section of steep climb.  As we climbed through some more forest, we eased out into a saddle and took the spur out on Walker's Dream trail - with the awesome overlook in the above photo.  This was the point where Walker had hoped to build a summer White House for the Presidents to utilize.  After his personal castle across the ridge to the west burned, the dream never materialized and the acreage is now a phenomenal open space park.

Monument on Walker's Dream

US-285 winds it's way into the mountains

The trail system is a lollipop with multiple loop options at the top.  We took the outer part of Castle to the Parmalee trail and dropped in for a wicked steep descent.  This was a nice gulch, with lots of shade, so we lost track of the descending a bit.  When we bottomed out, the drop was almost 600' vertical loss - guess what?  Climb back out.  So up we went - had some great southern vistas, including the photo above looking at the path through the foothills of US-285.  Tim will be driving this route next Saturday morning early to the start of the North Fork 50 mile trail race.  I hope to have a good debut as a pacer, jumping in with him at the 30.5 mile mark where the 50k runners peel off to the finish.  Back on track here, we jumped back on the Castle trail and started the trip down.  Like really, really down.  This was quite possibly the steepest continuous descent I have ever run and my feet and quads were barking after shedding 2000 feet in short order.  It was quite the workout and the views were spectacular.  11.25 miles, 3000'+ on the vertical gain.

Shoes - Asics Trabuco

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Sunday Social Day

We got up at first light Sunday in order to squeeze in a quick run.  It was great to be out early in the cooler air as we ran a good 5 miles on the neighborhood trails.  Kathleen was on schedule to see some folks finish the Summer Roundup Trail Race at Bear Creek Park.  Jill was coming down from Denver for the race and AJH was in town from Vermont and was doing the race as well.  Both did great and Kathleen was able to see them finish the race.  She also got to see our friend J set an age group course record which was awesome!  

Smiling Gals on a sunny Sunday

While Kathleen was off to the race, I switched gear and headed out for a hill climb day on the road bike.  This was to pay homage of the first mountain-top stage in the Tour de France to the thin air atop Morzine-Avoriaz.  I was able to ride 23 miles with 2200' climb, nothing near what those guys rode up in the tour but good enough for a nice brick workout.  I then met up with the gals for brunch and we had a good time.  After brunch, Kathleen joined the brick club and went out for a nice road ride as well - quite a morning!  Happy Trails!

Roundup, Bear Creek, and Section 16

With forecast temperatures in the 70's today, and a taxing day yesterday, we slept in and opted out of driving too far to run.  Instead we headed over to Bear Creek Park to check out the Summer Roundup Trail Race  course and add a bit of extras in as well. The SR is a July staple in Colorado Springs, put on by the fine folks at the Triple Crown of Running.  We did this race a couple years back and are expecting a couple of folks from out of town to be doing it this year.  It is a pretty straight forward race - up, up, and up until the turn around point, then straight back down.  :-)  Pretty standard, Colorado-race-director-sicko-stuff really.  It actually is more attractive than that, so read on...

Cheyenne Mountain from Bear Creek Park

The race starts at Bear Creek Park opposite the dog park.  The race starts in the parking lot to accommodate the herd of runners, then quickly files onto a dirt trail (about 8 feet wide, or so).  A direct left turn shortly after and the climb is on.  If you can swallow enough air to do so, you want to get up front here as the wall of humanity soon packs in at various forms of shuffle/walk/crawl and there is no way to pass.  The lower flanks were holding some humidity this morning and are quite exposed, so despite lower temps, we were dripping sweat in minutes!

A little respite from the climb

Looking up the canyon to our destination

After the initial steep climbs, there is some more rolling terrain where you need to work toward establishing a budgeted effort, keeping some in the tank with the knowledge that more climbing lies ahead.  With the late/cool spring we had, it is still quite green in the park, especially for end of June.

Rolling out of the park, down to Bear Creek Road

There is a descent into the drainage and across a foot bridge and then you spill out onto Bear Creek Road.  You climb this on asphalt up to the gate on High Drive, going against the one-way traffic (blocked on race day).  High drive is back to dirt from this point, not technical but has a few embedded rocks and off camber running.  The first section is really steep and some may well do better taking some walk breaks here.  After the sudden ramps, there is mostly runnable grade where you can again establish a nice climbing rhythm.  From the entrance to High Drive, the climb is about a mile and a quarter or so.  Make the turn, grab some water if you are not carrying any, and get the legs ready for some serious downhill running.

Stopping at the footbridge on Bear Creek Trail

Since we had no racing agenda for the run, we detoured from the race course onto lower Bear Creek Trail.  We forgot, however, how many steps there are on the trail AND how many pedestrians/hikers there would be on a Sunday.  So we hit the second stream crossing and decided to head back out and try Section 16.

... the foot bridge over Bear Creek

The view down the Canyon from Section 16

We hopped back out onto High Drive and dropped down a bit to Section 16 and headed in.  As we suspected,there was fairly low traffic so we started the 2.5 mile climb up Section 16.  We were treated to some shade, a little thunder rolling through the canyon, and lots of great views once we got up on the hill.

Almost to the high point on the saddle, atop Section 16

Kathleen rolling out - ready for a long descent

We hit the high point on the saddle and turned around for the return trip down.  The drop out of Section 16 is one of our favorite run descents in the area - a nice 2.5 mile cruiser down to High Drive.  From there, we are back on course and flying (well, as fast as we *fly*) down High Drive and Bear Creek Road.  The dirty little secret to the race, one you don't notice while on the arduous climb, is that there are three nasty little climbs on the "descent" to the finish.  You must keep some limber on deck in the quads in order to not lose your position on these pesky little buggers.  We had a nice roll into the finish area and put in a fantastic 13.5 miles.  Interesting note - early on in the run, we felt like we were really lagging out today.  We were surprised to check out our stats when we got home and find out we climbed about 3700'.  So we had to stop flogging ourselves at that point and actually felt pretty good about our run.  Hope some of the course descriptions help out those looking to check out this local race - we're always willing to offer more details if you need - just drop a comment.  We will be on the lookout, this week, for some new trail stash on the upcoming holiday weekend.......  Happy Trails!


ALSO - forgot to mention how much we appreciated all the nice comments yesterday!  Thanks for your care and support!

Shoes- K Asics 2150 Trail

S - LaSportiva Wildcat

Summer Roundup Trail Run 12K

Well, today was the big day. We ran the Summer Roundup Trail Run 12K at Bear Creek Regional Park in Colorado Springs. Since we are newer to running, and definitely new to running races - only our second, we had a little nervous energy because of the high level of competition in our area. Just because we are newbies, does not mean we want to be humiliated - we have to make a decent showing, right? The day started with cloudy skies and humidity - unusual for Colorado - and the temp was low 70's at the start. There were a record 667 race finishers. This was race 2 of the Triple Crown of Running series and these folks put on a great event! It is amazing how fast a lot of these people can run. Interesting note, the women's overall winner was Samantha McGlone. For those who follow Ironman Triathlon, she finished second at the World Championships in Hawaii last year! You can see the stunned look of disbelief on Kathleen's face as she received the 1st place trophy for the women's 40-44 age group!! How awesome is that?
We both exceeded our expectations, and more important, we had a blast!!! We might just like this trail running thing after all...
They gave out the coolest trophies - a horseshoe with a brass plate on it. Quite a nice and unique race prize!
Since we are hooked, we might be looking to do the Spring Creek Memorial Trail Race in Steamboat Springs, Colorado later this month. We might get the opportunity to preview the course later this week. If we do, we'll post a report and some photos!

Previewing the Summer Roundup course...again

Being the nervous, new-to-racing types that we are, we felt the need to go check out the Summer Roundup Trail Race course again today. It is a well known "fact" that race directors are a rare breed, known for their sadistic ability to underestimate the scope and difficulty of their courses (i.e. Course description - 1000 feet of climbing - Reality of the altimeter and GPS - 1530 feet of climbing - only a 50% difference). Not that we doubt the validity of this for the Triple Crown of Racing folks - these are the people who put on the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon, but we just had to make sure it was going to really hurt and leave us spent - yes and yes!!! For a 7.5 mile course, this has a bit of a bite to it, especially for newbies like us!
However, we are still going to sign up for the race, or in our case, "event" ... we think! We have low expectations for a top 50% finish! ;-)

The climb at the beginning of the race is actually more deceiving. There is a lot of winding through the scrub oak and there are not long stretches of uphill spread out before you to make you cringe. The hardest part of the start is that the climbing begins in earnest no more that 200 yards into the race. We have to figure out a way to properly warm up for that. There is a "gentler" section of climb from about 1.2 miles to 2.1 miles that will sort out some order for those who don't blow up by starting too hard. The tricky part will be avoiding those whose flames are flickering on the single track descent to the road. The sinister climb comes next - High Drive - a steep dirt road that allows only one-way traffic. This climb stretches out before you and provides those who dare to look up an endless view of the pain that lies ahead. The ascent to the turn-around point is close to 600' in a little over a mile, so hold on and try really hard to find a rhythm. The downhill is pretty good although there is a definite need to control the speed on High Drive.

There are also a couple of short, punchy climbs on the way to the finish that require a little reserve in the tank. One of them, which is .5 mile from the finish, starts at 19% grade according to the GPS - ouch!!! Should be fun at least for a test to see where we are with our fitness and skills. We cooled down in the large grassy field by the parking lot with some barefoot walking and stretches. The cool grass felt relaxing to the feet after a good run. It was a great day on the trails (as always) and good times for the memory bank!!!