Mar 28 - Apr 10

3/28, Monday - AM: Bike - 21 miles, 700', 1:03 || PM: Green Mtn - 6 miles, 2500', 2:02
Easy bike to Neva Rd in the morning then hiked up Green with poles with a few others who didn't feel like running quick to stay easy on the ITB.

3/29, Tuesday - 2 x Mt Sanitas - 5 miles, 2700', 1:22
Lap 1 with poles and my knee felt great so I went without for the next lap and felt good again.

3/30, Wednesday - AM: Flagstaff Rd - 15 miles, 2:01, 2500'
Trails are still wet snow misery so the vert had to come on the road. Tempo run up Super-Flagstaff from Chautauqua with Hillary and Rachel.

3/31, Thursday - 3 x Mt Sanitas - 8 miles, 3900', 2:15 || PM: Bike - 18 miles
Stuck to Sanitas repeats one more day to guarentee non-slogging trails. Knee felt a little tired by the 3rd so I skipped my planned fourth. Tried biking in the evening but I didn't dress warm enough so I turned around early.

4/1, Friday - AM: 1st Flatiron, Green Mtn - 5 miles, 2700', 1:51 || PM: 1st & 2nd Flatirons - 3 miles, 1500', 0:56
Tried the new Salomon rubber on the Speedcross Pro, out on the 1st and was quite pleased at its stickiness. Followed some postholes to the summit. After picking up the rest of my gear in the afternoon I took the Salomon Wings SG out for a scramble in the evening, and was simialrly pleased with their effectiveness on rock. The rubber is definitely as sticky or stickier than the dot-rubber and Sportiva's I had been using previously.

4/2, Saturday - Longs Peak - 10 miles, 5800', 10:45
Whew that's a long day. Hillary was super stoked to get up Longs in the snow but hadn't had a ton of experience on snow so it was pretty slow going after we got up the Loft. The traverse from Keplinger's to the homestretch was extremely soft too, so that didn't help. Somehow missed the turn tot the narrows going down (Keyhole route), so we did a bunch of extra vert looking for the bulls-eyes that were mostly covered with snow. After being able to glissade quite a bit in the trough we had to put crampons back on for Ledges which almost entirely buried under several feet of snow. Even the Boulderfield was pretty fat with snow.

Traversing across Keplingers, which was sort of dry, unlike the slabs above.

A little off route going down the Homestretch to the Narrows.

Running and sliding down the Trough was a highlight of the day and some of the most fun I've ever had on Longs. Looking forward to getting in a glissade of the Loft!

4/3, Sunday - 1st & 2nd Flatirons, Green Mtn - 5 miles, 3000', 2:00
Randomly met Kyle while parking my bike so did the whole thing together. After the 1st we downclimbed half of Freeway before cutting over to Free for All, which I'm calling Free for Some. Hike to Green then descended perfect snow back down. Probably could have had a shot at PR'ing the descent in these conditions.

Week Totals (running):
61 miles
24,700'
23:14

Week Totals (biking):
95 miles
4,900'
5:39

Perfect week back feeling generally over the ITB injury -- Ginna really saved me there! I think a 1/3 biking and 2/3 running approach is great balance to get in higher volume and staying healthy. Then by sprinkling in one higher intensity workout a week I think I have a good plan heading into Quad Rock 50, which is coming up fairly quickly!

4/4, Monday - AM: Bear Pk & Green Mtn - 11 miles, 4000', 2:05 || PM: Green Mtn - 6 miles, 2500', 1:56
Woke up a bit later than planned so I essentially chugged some coffee flew up to the TH on my bike and tempo'ed the whole thing right back to my bike to bomb back home to grab some food and shower before class. Managed a 16:30 descent down Green even with a quick stop to talk with TK who professed to have "zero injuries" today. Standard RMR Green at night, big crew with some new folks so it was a bit slower than usual.

4/5, Tuesday - AM: Green Mtn - 6 miles, 2500', 1:42 || PM: Salomon Group Run - 3 miles, 1500', 1:06
Easy Green with Hillary in the morning, easy again in the evening with the new Salomon Tuesday group run. Snuck away real quick to downclimb the 2nd before rejoining the group.

Climbing around the back of the 2nd to get a picture of the huge group that showed up! Photo: Nicklaus Combs

4/6, Wednesday - Green Mtn - 8 miles, 2800', 1:46
Went for a tempo effort up the moderately graded Bear Canyon. There turned out to still be quite a bit of lingering ice so I couldn't get quite the rhythm I wanted to;  I then slipped on a wet log and fell completely into the creek! After cursing a few times I was back on my feet and at least tried to give it a good effort whenever conditions allowed. Descended a serpentine route down the frontside.

4/7, Thursday - Climbing Boulder Canyon
One 5.9 warm-up then a couple laps on a 5.10b which really tested me.

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Apr 7, 2016 at 5:01pm PDT

4/8, Friday - Bear Pk & Green Mtn - 10 miles, 4100', 2:02
Cruise up Bear Pk at a good clip with Andrew then ran down the West Ridge which is still holding awkward snow patches. He had class earlier so he ran down Bear Canyon while I continued up to the summit of Green. I descended an essentially straight line down the East side of Green to avoid ice and finished only a couple minutes after Andrew drove off.

4/9, Saturday - 1st, 2nd, Morning After, Challenger, Green, SoBo, Bear, Regency, Royal Arch, 5th, Fist, Green - 15 miles, 8000', 5:28
Just felt like binging a bunch of peaks and slabs. I was able to pull through the 5.7 overhang on Morning After without pause, which would be the highlight of the morning. Felt strong until I started running again en route to the Regency after stopping to chat with some friends out cragging on Dinosaur Rock.Heat really got to me on the 2nd ascent of Green, so I was munching on snowballs on the hike from the Fist to Green.

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Apr 9, 2016 at 9:48am PDT

4/10, Sunday - Sobo, Bear, Green - 21 miles, 8400', 6:05
Starting from Bear Canyon trailhead we did out and backs up Shadow Canyon (to Sobo), Fern Canyon (to Bear) and then up the 1st/2nd trail and down Bear Canyon for Green. Super easy pace all day had me feeling fresh.

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Apr 10, 2016 at 12:25pm PDT

Week Totals:
82 miles
34,500'
26:43

Big week and feeling good. Nice test on the ITB this weekend with longer days and felt tired but never painful at all.

A bit of recovery, injury and vacation

3/7, Monday - Off
Still recovering

3/8, Tuesday - Bike: Boulder Res - 18 miles, 700', 1:11
Generally just rolling around and getting outside. Only pushed the pedals hard enough to maintain forward progress, nothing more.

3/9, Wednesday - Bike: Nelson Rd - 28 miles, 1100', 1:38
Easy with Hillary.

3/10. Thursday - Bike: Hygeine Rd - 34 miles, 1100', 1:49
A little longer today and my butt is not ready for long rides yet, but I'm happy to be out of the MS50 pressures to log all my activities as runs.

3/11, Friday - 1st Flatiron & Green Mtn - 5 miles, 2700', 1:37
Tried to pace off of Hillary to the summit while she took the trail and got crushed. The scramble was 17min but to match a time of someone on the trail you probably need to split like 13min on the face and a 1:45 downclimb. Energy is still quite low.

3/12, Saturday - 2nd Flatiron, 1st Flatiron, 2nd Flatiron, Morning After, Challenger, Fist, Green Mtn - 11 miles, 5400', 4:49
First up was a jaunt to the true summit of the 2nd (rather than Freeway), before the usual direct route on the 1st. Downclimbed the 2nd for a more direct route to the Royal Arch trail which I left once it turned south to head up to Morning After. It was a fairly miserable bushwhack, hopefully there exists a more elegant back there somewhere. I sat at the 5.7 overhang for a bit until I finally figured out the right sequence and it was cake; the fist crack to the top was great but then it took me a good 15min to figure out how to get off the back. I wimped out on the GMP chimney, again. I was able to find a nice line up Challenger climbing a bit of slab before enjoying handcrack and then arete all the way to the summit. Getting the Fist was a massive chore but the scramble and 3rd crack climb of the day was well worth it, the crimp-y downclimb was sort of fun too. Ran into Hillary and Eric on top so I ran back down Bear Canyon with them. Well, my ITB decided to tighten to the point where I couldn't bend my knee at all so I had to walk in extreme pain the last mile. Hillary drove me to my bike at Chautauqua, even biking was teeth grinding pain to get my knee bending at all.

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Mar 12, 2016 at 10:14am PST

3/13, Sunday - Off
ITB crap. Hopefully, this thing cools off quick. Definitely better than yesterday.

Week Totals:
some running
some scrambling
some biking

Week of recovery ending abruptly with some ITB issues -- gah!

3/15, Tuesday- 3 x 2nd Flatiron - 7 miles, 3000', 1:45:53
Definitely not on this rock for the quality of scrambling, but for a workout. Ran from campus for a warm-up then did three all out laps in 7:40, 7:44 and 7:34. Ran into Jack and his buddy on the last two so I hung out for a couple minutes with them when I was done. ITB tightened up a bit but it was tolerable, seems to be slowly releasing.

3/16, Wednesday - Bear Pk, South Boulder Pk, Green Mtn, 13 miles, 4700', 3:30
With Hillary, my ITB felt shaky at the start but seemed to respond alright until the descent down Bear's west ridge. I barely made it up Green and getting back to my bike was a mostly-walk. Bad.

3/17 - Off
Woke up unable to bend my knee. I tried acupuncture with Ginna in the afternoon as a last ditch effort to salvage spring break plans and oh-my goodness did it work. After a series of stabs, shocks and suctions she was able to really get to the underlying issue(s).

3/18 - Off

3/19, Saturday - Hidden Valley - 8 miles, 1600', 1:26
Easy shake out run with Hillary after the drive over to Moab. Nice to escape the ice in Boulder and run unencumbered by excessive warmth and traction gear. ITB felt okay, fragile descending.

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Mar 19, 2016 at 3:08pm PDT

3/20, Sunday - Amasa/Cliffhanger - 12 miles, 2000', 2:05
The first 4 miles had me really getting worried as we made our way to pothole arch, but somehow while on the jeep-packed 4x4 road, Cliffhanger, I figured out how to run painlessly again and we had blast running alongside the cliffs then back down some winding slickrock trails back to the car.

A photo posted by Hillary Allen (@hillygoat_climbs) on Mar 20, 2016 at 12:58pm PDT

Week Totals:
39 miles
11,400'
9:10

3/21, Monday - Druid Arch - 19 miles, 2800', 5:01
Yesterday's outing gave me some excessive confidence and I paid for it today. The first 8 miles we wound up through Lost Canyon alternating between sandy washes and sandstone bluffs with incredible views of the Needles District, Islands in the Sky and in the fat distance, the La Sal Mountains. We made the turn to Druid Arch 10 miles in, more than our map suggested (thus lower on water than planned); the trail up was essentially a very sandy wash that really took a toll on my ITB. When we turned back down I had terrifying realization that I couldn't run anymore, 7 miles from the car with a lot of sand, rocks and canyon in between. It was a very long, painful and frustrating walk back that was only made tolerable not being alone and the incredible terrain I so wished I could have enjoyed even more.

Hillary looking back at the winding canyons we finished up with.

Druid Arch

3/22, Tuesday - Bike - 26 miles, 1100', 1:31
The ITB felt a bit better by the afternoon so rather than sit inside all day I figured to see if at least the bike didn't hurt. It didn't hurt, but it was super windy so anything eastbound I could easily hold 30mph while going west I was pedaling hard just to get down hills.

3/23, Wednesday - Off
Tons of snow here, the only person I know that ran was going to get food from the store.

3/24, Thursday - Roads - 8 miles, 500', 1:10
Easy with Hillary and Phil.

3/25, Friday - Flagstaff Road - 8 miles, 1400', 1:03
4 x 5min hard with 2m30s rest up Flagstaff road. The trails are almost impassable with out heavy the snowfall was. Good (though short) workout but I didn't feel too strong cranking uphill.

3/26, Satuday - 2 x Mt Sanitas - 6 miles, 3100', 1:51
With Hillary and Leonard. Conditions were better than expected but we expected it to be really bad. Thought about going for a 3rd but at this stage of winter snow is more annoying than fun to deal with. Easy pace with poles hiking everything.

3/27, Sunday - AM: Longs Peak Bailout - 7 miles, 2900', 3:31 || PM: Creek - 4.5 miles, 30:15
Was hopeful I could squeek this in but, oh well. I made good time (35min) to treeline then getting to Granite Pass took 90 minutes (in the summer I can almost go TH to summit in that time!). This mostly due to horribly unpredictable snow conditions: alternating between wind-slab, then the wheel-of-fortune for ankle-, knee- and hip-deep punchy postholing. The wind-chill was also around -33F so that was pretty miserable too. I'm just not that hardened of a mountain man; I miss summer! Got home and went for run on the creek path to let out the frustration of turning around.

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Mar 27, 2016 at 11:01am PDT

Week Totals (running):
53 miles
11,100'
13:09

Weird few weeks with weather, vacation, injury, recovery, etc. Lots of fun and some tough breaks too. I did become an ambassador athlete for Salomon though and I'm excited to use and help promote their vast and expanding arsenal of alpine running products. Last, with that Salomon thing I was able to enter the Quad Rock 50 in mid-may so I'm getting right back into training mode.

Mississippi 50

Jack and I flew into New Orleans Friday evening where his Dad picked us up to make the 2 hour drive to Laurel, MS where the race would be held. Mr. Daly would be running the 50k, with 7 or so 50 mile finishes already under is belt. We chatted about strategy and nutrition; I still had no idea what my plan of attack was. Jack being in the best shape of his life was planning on holding 7:30's till he couldn't. I was split between trying to run a smart, conservative and evenly paced race and going for broke and hoping to hold on.

We spent the night in a hotel 25 minutes from the starting line and woke up at 4:15 Saturday morning for the 6AM start. The race runs three 12.x mile loops and two 6.x mile loops through Desoto National Forest which is generally flat, muddy and wet. Thankfully, this year was relatively dry, so aside from the crossings, we had sure footing. The trees are tall southern pine with a dense bushes underneath, certainly a lot more plant life than I'm used. The start was cold enough that we both elected to wear gloves for the first loop.

Chatting with Jack at the starting line.

At the start Jack shot off at low 7's with a couple other guys while I held back and settled in with another guy at 7:40's.There is a short out and back on the 12 miles loop where I was able to see Jack and gauge my place as 3rd/4th with the other guy I was running with. After a conservative first 12 miles I felt well warmed up; when the guy next to me slowed down to eat a gel I thought "Oh, what the heck let's see what we can do" and dropped the pace down to 7:20's. I was feeling fantastic, the early morning rays of sun were piercing through the canopy of foliage above and I was having a ball thrashing through the mud pits (even if I was covering my bottle and gels with mud I would later eat). I assumed 2nd place around mile 16 where the other guy was (already!?) walking. At the out and back, Jack hadn't gained any time on me.

Trying to stay cool as the temperatures rose, luckily, never too hot though.

I came through the marathon at around 3:17 (PR) still feeling good but conscious of impending fatigue. Keeping the mile splits below eight minutes became progressively more labored, but with enough effort I was able to average 7:50's on the final 12 mile loop. Although he was well ahead of me, Jack's gap hadn't grown. Having lead until the final 4 or 5 miles last year, I would learn Jack was scared at this point, but I knew he had nothing to worry about. On the out and back pass I put on my best poker face to look fresh. I'm sure the efficient stride he was running at was no show, though.

Re-supplying at the car before another loop. (photo: Mr. Daly)

Starting the first 6 mile loop I was really starting to feel it. I had been drinking far more water and electrolytes than I normally do along with Coke, though I believe I still wasn't keeping up with my sodium needs. On this loop I would have to make a couple trips to the bushes; of which during the first I experienced the first of the oh-so-familiar leg cramps. This happened in my last 50, only this time I knew how to deal with them and I was almost close enough to the end to smell the barn. My splits fell back into the low 10's including one standout 11:06 where I had to make a trip to the bushes. It was a very long 6 miles.

Mostly naked and mostly miserable trying to get the legs moving again after my last resupply. (photo: Mr. Daly)

Jack's dad had done "only" the 50km so he had already finished - with a 2nd place and near PR - and was now helping us finish up. "Is Jack up there in another galaxy?" I asked, "Oh, he's still flying!" he replied. At this point I was firmly in 2nd and clearly out of the running for 1st barring supernatural intervention so I set my sights on staying under 7 hours. I voiced my doubts and Mr. Daly immediately shot me down. All I had to do was hold low 10's for the remaining 6 miles and I would break 7 handily. It was a real tooth grinder, with some admitted walking but in time I found myself at the threshold where it was time to empty the tank. As my watch ticked over the 6:40 mark I now set my objective as going under the 6:50 mark. I felt like I was at an all out sprint (Strava would indicate it was close to 8:30's -- at best) and every now and again my stride would flinch with a calf or hamstring cramp that had been firing for the past 90 minutes. Turning a corner I could see the finish and pushed it to the line. The clock read 6:47:30

To the finish.

The first thing I wanted to know was Jack's time, his goal a few months ago was essentially what I ran, and he had been out of sight and never really faltered in his pacing. He ran 6:18, 7:37 pace (certainly deservant of whatever explicit phrase I exclaimed)! Jack would be the 4th fastest person ever on the course, my 6:47 put me in 7th all-time (farther back if you include multiple finished by one person). Our "crew" of sorts (Jack, his father and myself) were able to leave with a good haul of hardware all with time to grab some Cajun fried chicken for lunch! Mr. Daly informed me the only time its okay to get fried chicken at a gas station in Mississippi is after an ultra.

John Brower (3rd, 7:03), myself and Jack all clearly happy to be stationary with finisher medals (and visors). It was great day for us all. Race director Dennis Bisnette is on the right.

All of the ultra-running focus may be on big mountain races with insane scenery, but I think I learned a lot from this Mississippi race. The ultra-running scene down south felt so pure and simplistic, these people straight love running and there aren't many bells and whistles to distract you from the reason you're there to begin with. You don't hike, scramble or stop and admire views -- you run. Its cool, and I have a lot more respect for the obvious passion for the simplest form of this sport that is so evident in the flatter-lands. This of course is beside the simple fact that the course itself is super fun. It felt like a high school cross country course combined with a sufferfest with an intimate small-town feel. I was certain I would never want to come back, but with free entry next year (podium get's free entry!), who knows, maybe I'll come back and see if I can go faster!

Pictures - Strava - Results

Bringing home the goods.

Feb 22 - Feb 28

2/22, Monday - AM: Campus - 4mi, 0:28 || PM: Green Mtn - 6mi, 2600', 1:16
Campus loop in the morning. Green ended up being quite the blizzard and I was quite underdressed to be commuting there by bike. Thankfully I was able to get a friend with a truck to give me a ride to the bar then another to give me a ride back home.

2/23, Tuesday - AM: Treadmill - 7mi, 0:50 || PM: Bike Paths - 5.5mi, 0:35
In the morning I did a fartlek workout on the treadmill: 1mi (5:40), 1mi (5:30), 3x0.5mi (5:10 pace). In the evening I went out for another jaunt as I had to make a quick stop at the Engineering Center anyways.

2/24, Wednesday - Bike Paths - 8mi, 300', 1:03
Relaxed pace on the bike paths; saw Scott Jurek though (maybe, Tony says he'd be surprised if Scott was running so it could have been a false alarm)!

2/25, Thursday - Off
Sick (again!). Slept a ton and drank a ton of water, hopefully that helps.

2/26, Friday - 1st Flatiron & Green Mtn - 5 miles, 2700', 1:51
Biked to Chat and felt quite miserable running up so I resigned to just hike the dang thing; at least I was outside doing something today. The 1st was quite exciting with frequent ice fall on the upper reaches. Only the first pitch is in a gully which can be threatened so I made quick work of that. Pitches 3 through the end had a ton of running water which made hold selection a bit more judicious; the slot shortcut was absolutely soaking so I took the standard route. Hiked up to Green and descended very casually but it superb downhill conditions. Nice slow outing, I'm pretty sure I can run from home and do this route as fast or faster.

2/27, Saturday - Mt Meeker (13,911') - 11 miles, 4900', 5:21
Mt Meeker is a super rad mountain, but it gets almost zero attention since it falls 89ft short of the golden number; I'd been meaning to get up it all summer, but was always too lazy to add it to a Longs day. The winter short-cuts weren't quite all broken, so I ended up crawling a bit to avoid some heinous postholing. From Chasm Lake I cut straight south up the Iron Gates, a very loose gravel gully and gained the ridge to Meeker. It was mostly just boulder hopping until the final 100ft or so which had some fun, easy and somewhat exposed scrambling to the summit. Went down the Loft where I passed Bill and his son Derrick who are training for a bid on Denali (how's that for a graduation present!). Made a small detour to check out Chasm Lake and get a better view of some parties in Martha's before hiking back down.

Don't forget to turn around and check out Longs when you're heading up Meeker! That Ship's Prow ridge is just begging to be climbed, I'll have to look into that.

On the way down after the clouds moved in. The Iron Gates are the second scree gully from the left which joins the ridge. Meeker has a pretty cool east face too!

2/28, Sunday - Longs Pk - 11 miles, 5400', 6:27
Jack is a finely tuned machine and I'm just up high trying to cheat my way to extra hemoglobin. More Longs today, planned going up and down the Keyhole but Cables looked too inviting to not at least check out. It ended up being a tricky climb as snow covers the good foot holds but with barely enough for crampons to really bite into. Anyways, I made it through that, summitted and descended the Keyhole. First time on that route in a long time, I always forget just how long the Trough is, even going down. I put crampons back on for the Ledges then went traction free back to the TH.

For all the great pics of Longs, the summit is actually quite boring. Its so big (like 3 football fields) you really can't see much beyond it.

Week Totals:
57 miles
16,400ft
17:54

The week started off very poorly with more sickness mumbo-jumbo, but thankfully I was able to turn my health back around and polish off the weekend with two fantastic days in the alpine. Hopefully being at altitude for 10 hours this weekend will prop up my red blood cell count and I'll be able to keep Jack in sight. Mississippi 50 coming in hot next weekend!

Feb 15 - Feb 21

2/15, Monday - Off
Sick. Actually, happy that I'm sick as it hopefully means I'm not quite as burnt out I thought.

2/16, Tuesday - Scrambling - 8 miles, 2900', 2:34
Left from campus with Jack and missed the Regency but ended up on some rando flatironette right below the Hammerhead which we scrambled. We then went over to Dodge Block on the 2nd which has got to be a sandbagged rating for 5.6 because we both felt pretty gripped on the water slot before the tunnel (5.7-8? We were both in highly non-sticky rubber, which made the final exposed move pretty stressful). Finished with a cheater lap of the 1st via Atalanta then downclimbed the 2nd to avoid the ice.

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Feb 16, 2016 at 3:20pm PST

2/17, Wednesday - Scrambling - 9 miles, 2900', 3:02
Similar route to yesterday. Met Hillary at Chautauqua and we did the Regency/Royal Arch combo before tagging the Hammerhead. I was hoping convince her to try the south side of the 5th, but after downclimbing the fairly exposed Yodeling Moves on Hammerhead it might have been a good idea that we didn't. Finished with an easy lap up the Freeway. Running back home I apparently was averaging 5:45 miles (granted, its downhill) without much perceived effort. Glad to see some payoff of the speedwork I've been doing.

A photo posted by Hillary Allen (@hillygoat_climbs) on Feb 17, 2016 at 10:35am PST

2/18, Thursday - 1st Flatiron - 6 miles, 2000', 1:29
The weather was phenomenal so I took off from campus for a lunch run. I had planned on just running around on trails but the 1st just looked too inviting. The scramble took a bit longer (~25min, on dry rock, no less) in my non-sticky-rubber and extra-cushioned new kicks but it made the subsequent romp back down and onto Kohler-Mesa quite smooth. I guess I can't totally slam the cushy shoes until I've really given them a chance.

2/19, Friday - 1st Flatiron, Green Mtn, Seal - 9 miles, 4300', 2:35
The wind was quite powerful so I gave in and drove to Chautauqua. I had to pause a few times on the 1st to breathe on my hands and tuck them in my shorts to try and get them to warm up, but they ended up being essentially numb the whole scramble. After tagging Green I went down Bear Canyon and scrambled the Seal, which I would frequent far more often were it not so randomly isolated on the Nebel Horn. The 4th class rating Roach gives this rock is fairly sandbagged, it felt more 5.4 (as its listed on MountainProject.com), so I spent more time -- particularly on the downclimb -- then I had planned, so I skipped tagging Bear. I took Enchanted Mesa back down to add in some distance and avoid the pounding of Bluebell Road.

2/20, Saturday - Off
For some reason I had actually zero motivation to even go outside today. Seems like some resurgence of Monday's sickness. Decided to just take off to make myself as ready to go as possible tomorrow.

2/21, Sunday - Longs Peak + Mt Lady Washington- 11 miles, 5500', 7:46
Gave another try at the NW Gully with Kendrick and Peter. They were kindly up for a third round with Longs this month (I couldn't skip class Wednesday to join them for their successful summit), to help me get my February tick mark. The winds were much kinder and we enjoyed relatively tame conditions to the Keyhole although my hands were completely numb at the shelter. After putting on the puffy coat (and every other article of clothing I had) and holding my hands in my pants for 10 minutes I completely regained feeling and we set off through the Keyhole. The climb itself was only a tiny section of 5th class hidden in a few hundred feet of 3rd/4th class scrambling. We soloed the ascent but broke out the rope for rapping down Cables. We were making good time so we decided to traverse the ridge from Chasm View over to Mt Lady Washington, to find out Kendrick had never been on top! Fun stuff.

Peter followed by a hiding Kendrick coming up the gully before the "crux".

Views of Glacier Gorge were...memorable.

The "crux", its an easy 5.1 (which is a pretty generous rating). The standard route goes through the cave formed by the pancake-like rocks, but I elected to climb around it so as to avoid becoming some cave dwelling troll.

View of Mt Lady Washington (left) and Chasm Lake from the bottom of the Cables rappel.

Peter leading the way up with me following with my school backpack; you'd think an Ultimate Direction guy could remedy this issue. ;) Photo by Kendrick

A very mellow week. I fell down the stairs with a cup of barely-not-boiling tea and oatmeal which gave me some nasty burns on my hip and arm plus some hard bruising on my back; so that, with getting sick sorta had me out of commission. Luckily, I was able to get up Longs on Sunday to somewhat salvage the week.

Feb 1 - Feb 14

2/1, Monday - AM: Creek - 5 miles, 0:41 || PM: Green Mtn - 6 miles, 2500', 1:55
The snow was blowing all day long. The morning run felt quite peaceful but the traction was so bad that I ended up with terrible average pace. I the evening I did the usual Green loop with RMR in the now several inches of snow. Without much of a base-layer it was bit choppy but my new La Sportiva Crossover GTX shoes worked perfectly on their first outing. The real highlight (or lowlight) was biking to and from the Southern Sun afterwards. Getting to the bar wasn't too bad but coming home took about an hour (usually takes 10 minutes) due to the snow. I could just never get any traction in the sugary snow.

2/2, Tuesday - Green Mtn - 5 miles, 2800', 3:10
If you want to know really how bad conditions were today, check out that time. It took me 3 hours to go 5 miles! I biked up with my ski poles roped to my back and took the 1st Flatiron access trail to the summit in snow that in places reached hip deep. Luckily, school had been canceled because it took forever. On the descent I broke my pole in some rocks and tore a finger on my glove so I was pretty angry between how slow it went and my broken equipment. Nevertheless, I'm always happy to get out there in the snow.

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Feb 2, 2016 at 2:10pm PST

2/3, Wednesday - Treadmill - 9 miles, 1:06
Too cold and snowy to run fast right now so Jack and I took shelter in the rec center for a workout. 1 x 20min then 3 x 5min. My pace for most of the intervals was somewhere between 5:50 and 6:30 min/mi. I felt okay but nothing special and definitely could not keep my magic carpet moving as fast as Jack's.

2/4, Thursday - Mt Sanitas - 7 miles, 1500', 1:06
School was busy since yesterday morning but I finally got a quick run in.

2/5, Friday - Gold Hill - 24 miles, 3300', 3:44
After getting squashed on this route last week I did it again in order to please Tony and Alberto who both said I went way too slow. It was cold heading up in the morning, but my legs felt good despite my numb fingers and wind battered cheeks. The descent passed normally until I reached the upper creek path which doesn't get city maintenance. All of the snow from the road had been plowed onto the path and almost nobody had tracked it out yet. Being day 3 after the storm I plunged knee deep at times for a couple miles (which ruined my mile average) until I reached the maintenance area where I could cleanly run back home.

2/6, Saturday - Ski: Loveland - 11 miles, 4100', 4:41
Finally got out on some AT skis. Its certainly not doing me any favors for Mississippi training, but it was a good time on the demo setup. I did 2 and a half laps from the base of Loveland up to the divide, or "Route B". I felt like death the whole time (not enough calories, sleep, water, rest...oops), so I only did a half lap on the last one.

2/7, Sunday - Mt Sanitas - 9 miles, 1500', 1:35
Still well behind on sleep but I felt a bit more fresh today until the ice climb up Sanitas; I hiked everything uphill. Huge turnout for the group run which meant the doughnuts and coffee were gone in a blink of an eye. Even cooler was that I won the raffle for guessing the cumulative score of both teams in the Superbowl (34), so I won a free pair of shoes and the Broncos won. Great day.

Pre-run group pic, clearly Guy likes being cold.

Week Totals (only running):
65 miles
11,800'
15:18

Really light on the vertical this week (though including skiing the total gets to a slightly better 16k). School got really busy mid-week and then I stayed up too late for the early mornings on the weekend, so its my own fault I didn't have as a high volume as I should have. One month to Mississippi.

________________________________________________________________

2/8, Monday - Green Mtn - 6 miles, 2500', 1:30

RMR Monday. Snow was perfect for descending, almost PR conditions.

2/9, Tuesday - 2 x 5km - 11 miles, 200', 1:19 || PM: La Sportiva - 7 miles, 0:50
Doing speedwork alone is tough, its so nice to have someone else there that you can go back and forth with. Anyways, this morning I was on my lonesome on the creek path. Temperatures were high 30's which was perfect for a workout. I split 19:11 for the first 5km and 18:54 for the second with a 10 minute easy run between them. Went out for the La Sportiva group run in the evening, which ended up being a bit quicker with ~5 of the miles being at 6:50 pace, legs felt okay though, so I went with it.

2/10, Wednesday - 1st Flatiron + Green Mtn - 5 miles, 2800', 1:34
Given the nice weather, I left our crew of Hillary, Lassen, Cat, Derek and Clare to go up the 1st in an effort to hone my scrambling skills a bit before tomorrow. It really wasn't too bad aside from a few spots where I couldn't just mindlessly follow the usual holds. They passed me coming down just below the summit, so after tagging my summit I pushed the downhill just enough to catch back up.

A photo posted by Ryan Lassen (@rlassen) on Feb 10, 2016 at 7:53am PST

2/11, Thursday - Longs Peak - 6 miles, 3000', 3:06
Kendrick, Peter and I went out hoping to summit via the NW Couloir but got turned around by biblical winds which were so strong any forward progress required crawling. We turned around on the shoulder of Lady Washington in 50+mph winds with gusts around 70mph, the summit gusts would have taken me all the way to Kansas!

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Feb 11, 2016 at 10:13am PST

2/12, Friday - 2nd Flatiron + Green Mtn - 10 miles, 3000', 2:13
Easy up the 2nd to Green with Hillary. She was nervous about the scramble but never even questioned any move besides getting a little spooked on the jump. Met Ryan and Cat on the way down Gregory Canyon.

A photo posted by Hillary Allen (@hillygoat_climbs) on Feb 12, 2016 at 9:34am PST

2/13, Saturday - North Boulder Roads - 18 miles, 800', 2:05
Met Jack early in the fog but he had already ran 5 miles around the Res. We did an 18 miles lollipop loop on dirt roads at a quicker-than-I-wanted pace of 6:57. He then continued to round off his mileage to 30 (averaging 7:04's!) after I bailed off at 18.

2/14, Sunday - Fourmile Canyon - 20 miles, 1700', 3:30
Back to back long run with Jack again. Most startling was that Jack wasn't even remotely tired after yesterday's onslaught of miles and speed; he might have a shot at Western States ticket at Gorge if his MS50 goes well and he has a good race. Anyways, I felt super unmotivated and tired to the point where I was just running with eyes closed hoping to just get it over with and that my headache would go away.. At a certain point I decided to call it and trot back down rather than fight the un-winnable battle with my mind.

Week Totals:
84 miles
17,400'
16:15

Feeling a bit overtrained and missing out on sleep, calories and such lately which is probably a result of averaging 17hrs/80mi/17,000ft for the last 4 weeks without a rest day. Hopefully I can get out of this slump quick for MS50, then I'd like to try and take a week or two completely off (not even biking or scrambling, which is HARD to do. What do I do with time, then?).

Jan 25 - Jan 31

1/25, Monday - AM: Creek Path - 6 miles, 200', 0:44 || PM: Green Mtn - 10 miles, 2900', 1:43
Easy run in the morning around town and RMR run in the evening where I ran from home. On the way home my right calf which was already pretty sore really started to hurt so I walked the last mile or so home.

1/26, Tuesday - Creek Path - 9 miles, 200', 1:01
4 x 10min hard, 3:30 rest with Jack. Kept the intervals at about 6 flat each with a couple miles splits coming in sub-6, something I haven't done in a very long time. By the end of the fourth interval my calf was so shredded I couldn't even jog easy, so I was walking home again. Hopefully, tomorrow's cross-training on the bike will ease the tightness.

1/27, Wednesday - Bike: Boulder Reservoir Loop - 21 miles, 1:12, 700'
Kept the gears low hoping to flush out my calf, it felt a little twitchy on the ride home but never fully flared up.

1/28, Thursday - AM: 1st Flatiron, 3rd Flatiron, Green Mtn, 2nd Flatiron - 9 miles, 3900', 2:36 || PM: 1st Flatiron, 3rd Flatiron, Green Mtn, 2nd Flatiron - 5 miles, 3700', 2:15
Same run twice today, except in the morning I ran from home on icy trails and in the evening I biked to Chautauqua to run on slushy trails (60F today!). I felt fantastic on the 1st clocking a 16min and a 14min ascent then skipped down to the 3rd where everyone was out getting in final climbs before it closes on Monday. The route up to Green from the 3rd is less obvious and a bit more technical; oddly, I did it better in the morning. Downclimbed the 2nd (in a PR 7:37 in the morning) to avoid the ice on the trails; my microspikes broke and are so dull they hardly do anything anyways. Calf felt great today, which is why I felt okay doubling.

1/29, Friday - AM: Logan Mill - 22 miles, 2600', 3:12 || PM: 1st Flatiron, 2nd Flatiron - 2 miles, 1600', 0:50
Tried out a new loop today, Creek/Fourmile/Logan-Mill/Sugarloaf/Creek. The upper mile or so of the creek path was glassy ice so I got slowed down a lot there, but running up Fourmile is always as good as road running gets. Logan Mill is a steep, dirt and switch-backed road connecting Fourmile Canyon to Sugarloaf; it was nice and quiet this morning, I only saw two cars on the 4 miles of winding dirt. Running down the shoulder of Sugarloaf Rd I slipped on some ice and fell...on the road...embarrassing. Taking the Betasso Link back down to Boulder Canyon, I just had to carefully scoot over a bit more ice before striding out the last couple miles. Calf felt 8.5/10, that's a good sign. In the evening I did an easy lap up the 1st (13:44, fastest in a long while) then descended by downclimbing the 2nd (7:25, PR), oddly I felt quite strong on the climb.

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Jan 29, 2016 at 3:51pm PST

1/30, Saturday - Gold Hill - 24 miles, 3300', 4:06
I ended up flipping over the handlebars last night on my bike (tightened the front brake too much) so I had descent bruise on my hip. Between that and yesterday's run, I was hurting start to finish. As yesterday I felt I could just float up the climbs, today every step was a concerted effort. Near the top of the Sunshine Canyon climb, the wind hit in full force which thrashed me about. I descended super slowly with my hip bruise hurting with each step (it never got worse so I'm not too concerned). About halfway down the sheriff stopped me to tell me to watch out for the wind uprooting and blowing burnt trees into the road off hillside. That's like saying "this area is under siege by catapults, keep an eye out," you can't dodge a flying tree trunk and thankfully I didn't see any!

A photo posted by Cordis Hall (@cordisimo) on Jan 30, 2016 at 12:56pm PST

1/31, Sunday - AM: Mt Sanitas - 11 miles, 1600, 1:38 || PM: Streets - 4 miles, 0:34
BRC group run. Last night's pathetic snowfall gave just enough of a dusting to suppress the ice, legs felt pretty good after the first 20 minutes, but energy was a little low. The hike up the ridge definitely loosened my hip bruise up so I was able to actually run a steady clip back home. The actual snow arrived in the evening so I enjoyed a rather peaceful trot to get the mileage to three digits.

Week Totals:
102 miles
20.200ft
18:40

Good first week of honest training for long and flat but still managed 20k' of vert as a result of squeezing in 6 flatties on Thursday. Hope to keep building the volume for another 1-2 weeks before toning it down. Who knew all this flat mileage could be fun?