Palmer Park Run (What a Difference a Week Makes...)

Previously...

So back up a week and gather some background on why there was no posting here.  It was butt cold.  I was too frozen to type.  Last Saturday, I had quite possibly the coldest experience ever on a run.  I finished with the wool undershirt I was wearing frozen (as in sheet of ice) from my chest to my waist.  Hands frozen too.  Almost called a cab to get home.  Thought about changing the blog to Unhappy Trails.  Sunday was not much better, so we headed over to Ute Valley Park hoping to avoid the bone chilling wind.  We had some snow, but for the most part have missed out on what the Northern Regions received (Denver, Boulder, Ft Collins).  So with the mercury at 20 and wind chill temporarily above 10, we headed over to Ute.

 Kathleen drops in off the west ridge

 Tried to stay down in the valley and out of the wind

Weather moving in fast and we're headed home!

While we mostly avoided the wind, we did not outsmart the cold.  At 7.5 miles, we threw in the towel, cried Uncle, whatever you want to call it.  Judging by the peace and tranquility on the trails, most (sane) folks hopped on a treadmill in a warm room somewhere.  A venti Italian Roast at Starbucks at least made a segue into warming me up post-run.

Shoes - K Nike LunarFly Trail

S -Nike Pegasus

Now for the good stuff!

 Sweet, technical, DRY trails beckoning us 

Today, under vastly different conditions, we headed over to Palmer Park to get in some great trails.  This used to be our summer post-work run.  However, rampant riff-raff and various seedy issues have caused us to avoid evening visits to this park.  Sad how "that" element of society can dictate public use of such an awesome park but it is what it is.  With an inviting cerulean sky and beautiful trails awaiting we took off on what we hoped to be a great run.  

 Kathleen gets things rolling early on the run

 Doesn't look like we're right in the middle of the city?

Palmer Park is one of those rare gems - a rustic, mostly undeveloped park with unbelievable trails that is right in the middle of the city.  Land locked in between neighborhoods and heavy traffic, this jewel has  awesome trails and great rock formations.  Many of the trails are on the techy side, so there are a lot of hardcore mountain bikers that frequent the trails here as well.

 Unlimited views

 Some snow hanging on the northern trails

 Kathleen rocks the final , sunny descent

As we had hoped, the weather was fantastic and the 40's felt like summer after last weekend.  We were able to get in 12 miles on some premiere trails and absolutely enjoyed our run.  Days like this in December are special and we often squeeze out of them the maximum we can for the day because it could be zero next weekend.  But it wasn't today, life is good!

Happy Trails this week!

Shoes - K Nike LunarFly Trail

S - Saucony Peregrine

Mid-Week Special

Unbreakable: The Western States 100

Wednesday evening, we had tickets to see a screening of "Unbreakable" to benefit Friends of the Incline.  Great cause, and a good reason to get out and see a well done documentary covering the 2010 Western States 100 race.  If you get the chance to see a screening of it in your area, we would highly recommend it.  It is being released on DVD next week as well - link to the website from the caption under the video.  After the film, we were privileged to have these two guys spend a little time doing QnA - good times:

Geoff Roes and Tony Krupicka (in case you didn't recognize them...)

Good Tempo Run (and some reading material)

It started out cold this morning, but warmed nicely into the 40's by the time we were running.  We headed out for a tempo run on the Santa Fe Trail (postponed from yesterday), and judging by how the legs felt, the bike intervals tuned them up pretty well!  I wasn't sure what to expect, but the turnover felt really good out of the box and I settled in to a nice steady pace.  The section of Santa Fe Trail we normally use for these runs heads north from Woodmen Road onto the US Air Force Academy.  It is a gradual climb out, but somewhat "rolling up" with a couple hills out past the 4 mile mark.  So the inbound trip is generally "rolling descent" which makes for a good setup to negative split the return...usually.  Today was a challenge as I turned around at the 5 mile out mark, there was a pleasant headwind (sarcastic italics applied...).  Anyway, the run was good and there were lots of people out after the COLD yesterday (guess I should not have been gloating on the 67 degrees Thursday...).  Pushed pretty good on the out and then fought hard to negative split the return trip with the wind.  Ended up having my best pace for this 10 mile section at 7:21/mi.  Here are the splits:

Mile 1 ~ 7:39

Mile 2 ~ 7:13

Mile 3 ~ 7:33

Mile 4 ~ 7:32

Mile 5 ~ 7:49

Mile 6 ~ 7:28

Mile 7 ~ 7:16

Mile 8 ~ 7:10

Mile 9 ~ 7:05

Mile 10 ~ 6:56

Good day out there - sorry, no photo taking when trying not to cough out a lung ;-)  Will most likely try to continue these as much as possible over the winter as they have certainly ramped up the fitness and improved our overall running!  Kathleen had a decent day - not where she should or wants to be at just over an even 8 average but OK considering she is coming out of a serious funk cycle with the Graves - that roller coaster is getting old, but a post for another time will address those issues :)


Shoes - K Nike Lunarfly Trail
S Saucony Kinvara

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I don't often throw out what is on the reading docket but, in the vein of improved overall health, this is the current read, (thanks to ultra runner, Matt Hart, for the recommendation): 

Now, this is potentially dangerous reading for me since my brother in law (and his dad and brother) are king sized wheat farmers.  Ouch.  I would certainly hate to be disowned by part of Kathleen's family.  However, there is some important background info you need to know, just so you don't think I am out on a limb.  Kathleen was having some intestinal distress about 18 months ago (which knowing what we know now may have been partially related to early onset of the Graves) and dietary experimentation ensued - starting with cutting many wheat and gluten products from the diet.   Needless to say, this affected my diet as well (voluntary, mind you) but not nearly to the extent of hers.  There have been several noticeable changes that have resulted from the "gluten-light" diet we adopted.  Aside from the improved intestinal tract health for Kathleen, something unexpected occurred for both of us.  When Kathleen's blood panel was done for Graves in February, her total cholesterol was down 60 points.  Since we have always considered her high-normal level as family linked, we initially thought this drop may have been a side effect of the disease.  But, when I had my annual physical done recently, my total was down 34 points.  Hmmm, head scratcher?  The other significant change for me is that I am carrying 7 to 9 pounds less on average, maintaining a weight I have not seen in over a decade yet gaining on my fitness and strength.  More head scratching...  Now, I am certainly not advocating that everyone drastically changes their diet - we had reasons for it that were our personal choice for experimentation.  However, if you decide to pick up this book and start reading Dr Davis' pages, don't blame me for what might happen.  The documentation he provides is staggering. You might just find yourself thinking about doing this:

Bye, bye wheat....

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Last, but not least, more Christmas goods for you.  One of our old faves, David Crowder Band, has been performing this on their farewell tour - their rendition of Christmas Eve-Sarajevo (Carol of the Bells), ala TSO.  There is some talking at the start - music begins at 1:14 in - Enjoy:

A Saturday Bike....

We awoke to lovely blue skies this fine Saturday morning....  lovely blue skies, ferocious winds, and a crisp wind chill of 11.  For those of you who have dogs - have you ever opened the back door for your dog to go "out" on a cold morning, have the critter poke its head out the door, figuratively say 'I don't think so', put it in frantic 'reverse' and hightail back into the house because it didn't want to venture out into the cold?  Well that was the case for Happy Trails this morning (ahem, not the part of needing to go 'out', if you know what I mean).  We were dressed, ready to head over to the trail for our weekend tempo run, despite watching the trees bending over from the gusty wind, opened the door to go out, had that bitter wind hit our faces and put it in immediate reverse back into the cozy, warm confines of the house.


Hmmm, what to do.  We need our 'scheduled' faster paced run in for the week (that's about as structured as we get).  So, being the 'bad', not-so-tough-as nails duo that we are, we changed from running attire to BIKING
attire.  We decided not to run in the cold but ride instead.  Yes, RIDE.  While it was gale force windy out.  While it was 'we're not ready for the cold' cold out.  Yes, we rode.  Indoors.  On the trainers.  In a warm, cozy house (with some artificial wind - a fan blowing on us - to make us think we were really outside, sort of).  Threw in a Carmichael Training video - Climbing Speed - and proceeded to sweat profusely by doing repeats of Over and Under climbing threshold intervals.  It was all good.  We got a great workout in despite missing our tempo day.  Tomorrow we are hoping to redeem ourselves with a LONG run.... 

The cardinal rule in the HT household has been "No Christmas music until December 1".  I (Kathleen - and yes, I finally did a post) am bad all the way around lately - no run today AND starting Christmas music overload way early.  Oh yeah, adding to my string of badness - I just made a batch of gluten free butter cookies with Nutella sandwiched in between.  We are hoping to post a Christmas playlist with some of our faves but have had trouble getting a full list to download.  So here's one good song to start you off.  


Happy Trails!

Enjoy "The Christmas Song" by Michael Tait