Finally Some Sun!

 

Headed over to the Woodmen Park-n-Ride to start a run on the Santa Fe Trail.  Seems our little bonus snow on Friday really upped the ante on our mud/ice scenario on our regular trails, so we figured we would try to at least bag some miles on the more open terrain that SF has to offer.  Plus, at 600' or more lower than our house and some of our favorite singletrack, it got much less snow from the past 2 storms.  The trains were running pretty frequently, this empty one heading back north for more coal.  Pikes Peak looks great with a full blanket of snow, doesn't it?

  

We started out a bit cloudy with a stout headwind, however, that worked to our favor as the wind pushed the clouds off for a while and we got to run a majority of the time in SUNSHINE - oh yeah!  We paid for that a bit in that we had a lot of mud, but with the crushed granite surface, most of it does not stick to the shoes.  Plus, we'll take the sunny runny after some of our grayness of late.  We ran north from Woodmen onto the US Air Force Academy and enjoyed some casual running today - no pace goals, nothing to worry about, just enjoy the run!  Here I am enjoying the splash of sun and glad it made it feel warmer than it was.

  

Happy Trails indeed!

  

 Ice is starting to melt on Monument Creek - maybe Spring will decide to get in gear.

  

Kathleen enjoying the wonderful rays that lift the spirit and warm the soul - almost makes running feel effortless at times!!!

  

Finishing up the run, crossing the footbridge over Monument Creek - little different scenery than some of our regular runs but a little flavor nonetheless from one of our regular haunts.  There was nothing utterly spectacular about our run today, scenery or otherwise - unless of course you figure (as we do) that every day you get to be out and running is a great day.  Life is definitely good!

  

Parting shot - looking back at the trail as it passes under the Mark Dabling and Woodmen interchanges, meandering along Monument Creek.  We were able to enjoy 11 miles, most of it under a sunny sky which made it that much better.  We're holding out hope that Old Man Winter is going to loosen the grip on us and let some Spring weather start to trickle in - plus it is two weeks from time change and longer evenings - bring on the midweek runs!   Happy Trails!

Shoes - K Asics 2150 Trail (think she finally found her Go-To shoe)

S - La Sportiva Wildcat

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...

Snowy Days.....

Saturday Snow Time in Ute Valley!

A little over a month ago, we had a surprise visitor to the blog inquiring about our snow running and whether we had used Yaktrax before.  We have seen folks use them for years, but had never tried them out.  So, wouldn't you know it, we had a little box show up at the house with a couple pairs of Yaktrax Pro traction devices to try out and review.  Sweet!  Only problem was, it quit snowing ...  and we just had cold, no snow, and probably had our secret contact wondering what the heck happened... 

 

We began to wonder if the Yaks jinxed our snowfall!  Not to worry, Old Man Winter came calling again this week - uninvited joker that he is!!!  Snowed some Thursday, then acted like it would let us have a break for the weekend, then BAM - have that - Saturday morning dawned with 3 - 4" of freshies on top of the crusty remnants of the mid-week snow.  Yaktrax time!

  

Suited up for the cold and snow Saturday morn, and headed off to Ute Valley Park to put these babies through the ultimate test - snow covered, technical singletrack - woohoo! 

  

Kathleen going straight up the rocks entering Ute Valley's front side.

  

It was to be another one of those gray, monochromatic weekends - flat light and snow, with a little "running color" thrown in!  It was soooo quiet down in Ute Valley as the fog-like air and snow covered earth muffle most outside noise and narrow your senses to the crunching underfoot and the stark scenery.

  

Bundled runner comin' through!

  

Cold but happy to be out running!

  

Kathleen slaloms through the boulders.  It was great to be out on such a nasty day, running through beautiful scenery like this snow covered landscape.  We finished with 10 miles and VERY tired legs.  For those of you who are not "privileged" to run regularly (or ever) on fresh snow, the additional toll on the body is somewhat hard to describe.  Of course, we generally don't deal with much above-80 degree heat and humidity, so it is not like others don't have their challenges.  But the snow runs are quite draining.

As for the Yaktrax, they earned an initial 4 thumbs up from Happy Trails.  We have run quite a bit in screw shoes for icy conditions, however, there has always been that need for something that works in fresh snow and packed snow.  These devices definitely shined in the snow and snowpack conditions in which we ran Saturday.  We look forward to some more testing, although hopefully not MUCH MORE this year - we're ready for sun and warmer weather...!

Shoes- K Asics 2150 Trail

S Brooks Cascadia

Temp - 24 feels like 16

 ***************************

  The Snow Continues...

 

  

A snowy front has camped out on top of Colorado and is refusing to leave. It is one of those pesky, nuisance fronts that lightly drops snow for a few hours, lets up a bit, then fires right back up. Because of this, the accumulation has not really stacked up in highly visible areas but has made a cumulative impact on our trails. I won't go on any kind of rant about this, as quite frankly, we have had an un-Colorado winter thus far in the precipitation department. It has been cold, and got that way early, but the southern Front Range has been a bit pinched on moisture. When we get the snow it does, however, put a crimp in the trail running - but since we have the gear for it (and no treadmill) we suck it up and head out. Snow fell lightly through the night Saturday night and dusted over what had packed down Saturday. Kathleen was not feeling like slogging through the snow and cold today and opted for an indoor ride on the trainer. So I bundled up and headed out for a solo run at Garden of the Gods. :-(  Photo above is the nice view looking north from the visitor center parking area.

  

Untracked ribbon of singletrack, just waiting for me to drop in!  It was 18 feels like 3 when I left the warm confines of Happy Trails Central - ouch.  Over the years, you build a repertoire of outerwear to enable adrenaline inspired efforts to continue under such conditions, however, it's always that first step out the door of your home (or vehicle if convening at a trailhead) that causes some loathing of the cold. 

  

Yucca and Yaktrax.

  

Top rim of the park - dropping in!

  

Breathtaking...

  

Stopped for a photo under the Giant Footprints.

  

I never get tired of the inspiring views around the Siamese Twins arch.

  

The snow traces ribbons of trail through the stark winter landscape, while the fog backdrop creates almost 3-dimensional photography.  It was eerily quiet in the park.  I saw 1 horse rider, 4 hikers, and 3 runners in an hour and a half - spooky for a weekend in this park!

  

WOW!

  

Desert meets winter!  There was enough snow to bury the cactus but the Yucca were pleading for sunshine!

I was able to knock out 10.5 miles in this beautiful winter wonderland, though the legs were barking at me a bit the last couple miles.  The cumulative onset of fatigue of two days running on fresh snow was quite apparent nearing the end of the run.  I was happy with the effort although the pace on snow runs is a "learned acceptance" that better times are had on dry trails.  C'est la Vie.

Shoes - La Sportiva Wildcat

Temp 18 feels like 3

Once again today, I give two thumbs up to the Yaktrax.  I think they do great on packed snow and untracked snow.  On chunked up, heavy traffic spots they do OK but I don't know of anything else that does better.  I am a bit reserved about ice - both road crossings were sheets of ice and left me debating between these and screws.  More to come on that when there is more ice to play with...

  

Got home from the run, fed my tired legs, and headed out for a walk in the snow with my color coordinated girls!  Can you see Sage smiling?    

Happy Trails this week!

THIS JUST IN:  Matt Hart just posted his new Ultrarunning video for 2009 on his Coaching Endurance blog - If you have not seen his stuff, this guy puts together a presentation that makes you want to forget whatever you have going on, and just go run!  

Weekend's Here ... But Snow's a Comin'

We have done a little jabbering, well okay, let's just say it - WHINING - about the cold.  And it has been cold and it did start early this year.  However, we have been pretty darn dry since early December - good for trails, bad for our prospects of not having the entire state catch fire this summer.  So while we were not happy to have a snow "episode" forecast, we have to bite our tongue because we want trails available to run on this summer!  We were supposed to have one last nice day Saturday before weather arrived.  So we cruised over to Red Rock Canyon hoping to get in some good dirt before the flakes started to fly.  

 

We had a mixture of clouds with a few minutes here and there of the sun poking out.  As you can in the photos, there was not much snow to be found out on the trails.  Kathleen is on the climb of the Red Rock Canyon Path, with a little bit of Pikes Peak showing far off.  We were glad we stayed close to home as the legs were a bit "gray" this weekend, just like the weather!  Maybe it was the 15 & 14 on the weekend last week or a little S.A.D. settling in but they were just plain flat this weekend.

  

The old road across to the quarry area was one of the few places we found mud.

  

Steve catching some rays on the Contemplative Trail.  Looks like a good spot to run and think, eh?

  

The clouds were continuously repositioning themselves - sometimes you could see the Peak, and others just a cloud as in the center of this photo.

  

Temps started to drop during the second half of the run so we were glad that we did not trust the forecast and stayed with a good clothing base.  Climbing up the Roundup Trail, there was a nice outline of Garden of the Gods on the horizon behind Kathleen.

  

Stopping for a group mug shot before dropping down into the canyon on Roundup.  We did find snow and ice in the bottom of the canyon, but not too much.  The park was quite busy today - seems nobody wanted to be out in the snow Sunday ... OR maybe there was a little sporting event taking place ...

  

Nice view down the back canyon.

  

Up on the northern side of the park, peering across the valley to the Garden of the Gods.

  

One last break in the clouds and a nice view of Pikes!

  

Ready to be done and get warm!  While I would love to say it was like The Sound of Music on top of the hill here, it would be a lie.  It was just one of those weekends when the mojo was a no-show.  It is kind of nice when both of us time that weekend together - especially on a crappy weather weekend!  We got in almost 11 miles and it was plenty.   And - no cold soak after this one (or the rest of winter for that matter) - I tried it a couple weeks ago and sat around the house in a down parka trying to warm up!!!  Kathleen got a good laugh though...

Shoes - K Asics 2150 Trail

S - Brooks Cascadia

ARRIVAL

  

The flakes started on queue Sunday morning - gray skies and light snow to start.  While not eager to go hog wild (as mentioned earlier) we at least wanted to make up for a few of the millions who were already parked in front of the pre-pre-pre-pre-game shows with the case of Dorito's, vat of queso dip, and beverages of choice!  We started out by heading up to the Foothills trail bordering Pike National Forest right above our neighborhood.  Snow was just starting to outline the trails and cover up any line of sight to the mountains.  These conditions do provide a unique canvas to highlight a runner's colorful attire on a gray day!

  

Doubletrack below Pikeview Quarry.  There's another couple thousand feet to that mountain (and great opportunity for hill climb practice) - where'd it go?!?!?

  

While we were not supremely motivated to be out running in cold and snow, we did have the trails to ourselves - peaceful and very quiet when the snow is falling!  We also had a good laugh at my expense - Shortly before this photo I hit a well disguised ice flow and immediately hit the deck, butt first!   We really don't have enough snow to have much ice laying around, so it was totally unexpected.  So I'll be sportin' the softball sized heinous bruise on the butt cheek for a while now!

  

Foothills Trail heading up into the national forest.

  

Kathleen cruising through the bare aspen and cottonwood trees.  We actually did not mind being out - got in about 7.5 and called it a day.  Kept some blood moving through the legs on an "off" weekend and that's always a plus.  Snowed off and on through today (Tuesday - I know, we're waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind) but didn't amount to a ton of snow.  We got 8 or 9 inches at our house, so trails are trashed for a while.  Been sitting around with the Prozac drip surfing cheap flights to the desert southwest or the Cali-coast - wanna get away?  Happy Trails - frosty, snow-covered ones that is!

Shoes - K Asics 2150 Trail

S - La Sportiva Wildcat

Putting in the Work

Feeling like we needed some good, hard work today, we headed down to Cheyenne Mountain State Park.  Since it was not supposed to creep out of the 30's much before afternoon, we knew we could get in some decent mileage there without much threat for the mud bog to form.  Add to that the fact that the sun never really crept from behind the cloud filter and we were able to nearly finish our run before encountering any substantial mud.

 

Since our access to anything nearing "mountainous" has been limited aside from running continuous snowpack/ice, we wanted an opportunity to test the mid-winter fitness on a tough track.  CMSP fits the bill for that, and was continuously runnable with the snow/ice sections short and manageable.  With our chosen start to the route, we were treated to a bit more than 4 miles of fairly constant climb.  It has been a while since we've had sustained climbing of that length, so it was good to knock a little carbon off the climbing cylinders and run the RPM's pretty high by the time we topped out on North Talon.  The mountain was looming large as I round the corner at the summit and let out a little "woohoo!" for the arduous climb.

  

Kathleen drops off the North Talon summit and slaloms through the pines, choosing her footing wisely on the rocky slope.  This is another great thing at CMSP - with a mix of technical and smooth trails, you can never go to sleep on the footing - part of what makes trail running so engaging.

  

A little darker (and quite cool) in the forest where North and South Talon intersect.  Even looks chilly!

  

Nearing the bottom of the long descent off of the Talons and heading out on Sundance.  We wanted to get off Sundance early as the lower trails were sure to soften too much as the temp was creeping into the upper 30's.  So we looped around Zook to Blackmer and headed up high again for the other top loop.  While we picked up some clay on the south side of Blackmer, we reached the intersection with Cougar's Shadow in good shape and, being the second highest trail in the park, this trail was still pretty firm from a cold night.

  

We really enjoy picking our way through the boulders on Cougar's Shadow.  While this is no place to set a PR for a given mileage, the effort and concentration required are immensely constructive for a trail runner's skill building.  It is also great strength building for well rounded legs and core - an all-inclusive workout.  Who needs a gym, right?

  

Running through a couple huge boulders on Cougar's Shadow.

  

Stop for a group mug shot - I almost had my feet slide out from under me!!

  

Kathleen heads off of Blackmer, headed out onto Raccoon Ridge.  We were starting to tire a bit, but figured we would catch the lower north loop of Raccoon/Soaring Kestrel/Coyote Run before dropping out at the trailhead.  These longer runs on the weekend are helping us gauge our winter fitness, while keeping a strong base for some good spring buildup. 

  

Finishing up the run and heading down Coyote Run after a satisfying day out on the trails. We never take for granted how much we have available in our area and the great variety of trails at our disposal. We are very fortunate to live in a part of the country where trails and wide open spaces are still treasured and made available for recreational use. With a bit over 14 miles and just shy of 3000' climb, this was a great run for any time of year but especially nice to squeeze in during the middle of winter! 

Shoes - K Brooks Cascadia

S - La Sportiva Wildcat


In other news, depending on a possible prior engagement in July, Steve might be challenged to attempt a 50k at the inaugural North Fork 50/50 in and around the Buffalo Creek recreation area. We have mountain biked there for years and were able to get in a couple long runs there last year. We have always thought it to be a fantastic site for an ultra - now it is. Could change my mind but it is alluring...