Got out for a quick study break for a fun trip up the hill. I used spikes going up but I enjoy I nice sloppy downhill so I wore my worn and lug-less Salomon Ultra Sense Pro for a more exhilarating way down.
12/8 - 12/10 - Finals
Minimal sleeping; maximal coding, writing and reading.
12/11, Friday - 2nd-1st-3rd-2nd Flatirons - 6 miles, 3700', 2:44
Snow was predicted for the evening so I felt even more compelled to scramble aside from not being outside for the last four days. Free for All on the 2nd, Direct on the 1st then the North side on the 3rd. I had planned on meeting Eric over at the Regency but his work lasted longer than expected. Instead, I went over to the 2nd and did a tempo effort up the Freeway. I clocked it at 7:12, 45 seconds off PR pace. Yikes!
12/12, Saturday - Green Mtn & Bear Pk - 14 miles, 4700', 3:11
From home (I've been biking to Chautauqua a lot lately) up the 1st/2nd trail to Green. While on my down Bear Canyon I slipped on some ice and fell on my back. The impact ended up destroying the water bottle I had in my back waistband, in effect detonating a water balloon in my trousers. Great, now I'm wet and thirsty. Coming off of Bear without traction was quite the spectacle, I fell probably 10 to 15 times, guiding my slide from hitting trees and rocks, fun stuff. Not wanting to freeze running home I picked up the pace (20:50 5k, which for me, is fast) which in the falling snow gathered quite the accumulation of ice on my eye-lashes and hair.
12/13, Sunday - Aborted Green - 6 miles, 1100', 1:02
Started heading up Saddle Rock feeling terribly so I turned around for a pleasant jog home. The day was brightened, however, by a fantastic session of bouldering in the evening.
Week Totals:
32 miles
12,000ft
8:09
Good grades or good training, some weeks you have to make a choice. Allegedly, I'll be a fully functioning human being after just one more semester of school. Terrifying.
12/14, Monday - AM: Quandary Pk - 7 miles, 3400', 2:47 || PM: Green Mtn - 6 miles, 2500', 1:20
Got up to the high country in the morning with Ford and Jack for a blustery ascent in the high mountains.My gear choice was generally good, I would have liked poles for balance and a face covering in the 35-40mph winds but with a bit of perseverance we made the summit just fine. RMR Green in the evening to top things off.
12/15, Tuesday - Green Mtn - 10 miles, 3000', 2:55
A mammoth dumping of snow fell over the night -- enough to cancel finals -- so I headed up to Green. I was breaking trail most of the way up in the knee deep snow, so the going was insanely slow. A few minutes after I got to the top Ryan showed up following my vaguely broken trail, so we enjoyed the sugary fall back down, but the snow still provided plenty of resistance even with gravity on our side.
12/16, Wednesday - Green Mtn - 10 miles, 3100', 2:48
Surprisingly, conditions were worse than yesterday. The wind had destroyed any broken trail and replaced it with a crunchier more consolidated drift system that seemed to follow the trail. Somehow, even leaving at 9AM I was the first tracks again so I was swimming up and down again. I've learned to just take it easy with bad conditions like this though, there isn't much you can do to go faster.
12/17, Thursday - Green Mtn - 9 miles, 3000', 1:48
Looks like I'm stuck in this groove again. Good. The trench was a little better today, so I was able to make the climb in ~50min, as opposed to the miserable 1:20 it took the previous couple days. The improved conditions are most apparent comparing to yesterday's time! Went for a quick downhill, but didn't quite PR, nor get any closer to Jeff's CR down (I found out later from Jeff that TK went sub-14min pre-flood!). Snowy downhills bombs are too fun to pass up, though.
12/18, Friday - 4 x Green Mtn - 17 miles, 9300', 5:21
I started off pretty frustrated that the wind had destroyed yet another perfectly good trench and that it was I once again who first to arrive and do the dirty work (come on Boulder!). Anyways after the first lap a bunch more people came through and generally cleared things out. Also after lap one, I dropped my car key inside my spare tire on the back of my car, so I wasted a good 10 to 15 minutes delicately extracting the key with twig I fixed into a hook. On good pace vert-wise, hoping to top 10k', but I definitely didn't want to do a fifth lap nor did I care enough to do another 30 minute loop for the extra 700ft.
12/19, Saturday - 4 x Bear Pk - 17 miles, 10000', 5:41
Although I felt horrible on the first lap, it ended up being the fastest lap. The approach from Cragmoor is quite horrible being around 8% grade I feel compelled to run all of it, but its quite hard for me to maintain a run on that with tired legs. Today's fuel was a jar of nutella and a spoon I stashed at the bottom.
12/20, Sunday - 5 x Mt Sanitas - 15 miles, 6100', 4:19
Finished off a tough week with repeats on Sanitas until the BRC group run caught me on lap 5, then I finished off with them so I could get some free breakfast back at the store. Trails were pretty icy, but I still resisted wearing spikes. Only fell once -- which was before sunrise -- so I call that a success.
Week Totals:
92 miles
40,500ft
27:01
Well, that's 8 Green's, 4 Bear's, 6 Sanitas and 1 Quandary in a hard week. I'm pleased.
Wow solid week buddy. I can't imagine being first tracks that many days in a row. I'm sure a few were waiting in their car for the first sucker to break trail lol.
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