March Summary

199 miles with 34216 feet of vertical

Trail (12 runs) 178 miles, 31261 feet, 35 hours
Track (2) 13 miles, 2 hours
Treadmill (1) 4 miles, 2955 feet, 1 hour
Road (1), 4 miles, 1 hour
Weight room (8), 4 hours
Rest days (15)

42 hours total

Not bad total numbers considering I took half of the month off.  Less than a third of Pete's miles for March.  And yes, Brownie, a little over half of your 350 but soon my "long" runs will consist of a lot of 1-2 mile per hour climbs up tall mountains, so I'll keep that mileage reasonably low.  Only 104 days to Hardrock!

So after hardly being able to run in the last 2 weeks, I got out for a rare mid-Saturday trip to the trails today.  It's great to live in such an active town, but damn, was everyone out on the trails today?  Was hoping for a quick run at Coyote Ridge.  The ranger informs me that there is no parking left.  So I cruise up to Soderberg trailhead thinking I'll get in a Towers climb.  Soderberg lot full.  Horsetooth Rock?  Sorry.  Finally, I snatch the only available parking spot at Blue Sky trailhead.  Not the ideal spot to start from, but I got in a good 9-mile tempo run on the relatively easy terrain of the Blue Sky trail, dodging mountain bikes the whole way.  I am looking forward to getting back to my early morning routine where I am the first to the trailhead, and usually still the only car in the lot when I finish.

RIP Caballo Blanco.

March Mileage Madness 2012

It was March Madness FCTR-style.  In other words, let's run a heck of a lot of miles. Like last year, Alex, Ean, and the May family graciously hosted the annual March Mileage Madness run.  Unlike last year, I actually ran this time.  The plan for many of us was to leave the May house bright and early, complete a full circumnavigation of Horsetooth Reservoir, and summit the 2 famous rocks (Horsetooth and Arthurs) along the way.  A 35 plus mile excursion that would be my first complete loop around "The Res".

The warm weather all week has finally got all our trails in prime condition, but thankfully it stayed cool today.  Really couldn't complain except for when the winds picked up in the afternoon.  This created a killer headwind that made the last 5 miles feel like 20.

With people taking off at different times and running various routes, I was able to hook up with lots of different people to run with, making for a very fun day out on the trails.  About 7 and a half hours out there today.  I can probably cut off an hour if I were only to count "moving" time, so really the pace was pretty decent.  The post-run BBQ and beer back at the May's provided more than enough motivation to "get er done".  Most of us found our post-run "slackline" talents to be quite poor, however.  Was it the miles or the beers?

According to my Garmin: 35.5 miles with 5706 feet of vertical.

Here are a few pics from the day.  All of my pics can be seen here.

Nick and Sam leaving Horsetooth Rock.

Pete hitting the summit of Horsetooth.



Nick C leading the charge up Westridge.

Pete, Steph, and Slush cruising down Mill Creek.

The crew atop a blustery Arthurs Rock.

Marie, Brian, and Ean entering Pineridge.

Ean showing us all how it is done on the slackline.

PPM 2012

First official race commitment for 2012.  Pikes Peak, I'll be back!  Hopefully the Ascent will fill quickly so I can resist the urge to "Double" again.  I've got to keep the legs fresh so I can push Kilian to that course record.  At the very least, "Whisper" and I are gonna try to chalk up the top brother/sister team.  Do we get a big rock for that?  Of course, this all hinges on me surviving something in mid-July first.