Another Green morning + an intriguing adventure
Last night: 4.25 miles, 0:42 , flat footpaths
This morning: 12.1 miles, 2:37, ~3500′ climbing
Yeah, we actually go out like this:
Last night was a recovery run, just some easy miles before dinner with our little neighborhood group. “Easy” is one of those adjectives that means almost nothing, as there are plenty of runners who will go “easy” for 20 miles at a 6-minute-per-mile pace. For perspective on my run last night, there were two pregnant women whose combined current gestation was north of 13 months. With a quicker solo mile thrown into the mix on my route to and from the group meeting spot, my average pace for the 4.25 flat miles was still over 10-minutes-per-mile pace.
Up today at 4am, I was back at the Flagstaff trail trailhead at 5:15am for another summit of Green Mountain with Matt W. I did a better job keeping up with Matt on the uphills than I did the first time we tried this together. It was more of a hike-run up for me and a run-hike up for Matt but we stayed together and made the summit in 1:17. Matt didn’t have on his trail shoes and he let me take off on the downhill and I felt strong, making it back to the start in 0:53, even with a 2-minute delay for taking the wrong trail split near the end. That was pretty much it for the day’s real trail and ups and downs but I was able to squeeze in another 2.5ish miles along Boulder Creek to help get the time-on-my-feet and daily mileage a bit higher.
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When “normal” 100-milers don’t even provide sufficient training…
Many residents within and guest visiting Colorado will plan for weeks to take a very full day to do a “Fourteener” (aka “14er”), a hike and/or run to the summit of one of 53 14,000-feet mountain peaks in the state. Doing one such summit takes fitness and determination, and usually quite a few hours. During last week’s Wednesday night run I chatted with an ambitious guy named Eric Lee. He was on pace for a 100,000′ climbing month, which is more than most ultrarunners climb in 3-4 months and more than I probably did in the year before arriving in Boulder. Quite impressive.
Eric’s “A” event (not really a race, exactly), is a Labor Day weekend shot at the Nolan’s 14. It is a non-stop run-hike-trek that involves reaching the summit of 14 consecutive 14,000′ peaks. Most haven’t heard of it, even in the ultra-running community, but it is about as difficult a physical feat as I’ve ever heard of. The only harder event I know of is the Barkley Marathons – which averages something like 1 successful attempt a year despite a 60-hour time limit for the 100 mile suffer-fest.
Kind of Like Fun 