On the one hand, my overall feel and fitness level was decent, even though I had "only" covered 14+ miles. On the other, the 3,000 feet of ups and downs took its toll, and I felt pretty thrashed. Even though I've been doing this type of distance for a while on weekends, it was a reality check.
Distance was 14.89 miles, time 4:14, and elevation gain/loss 3,163 feet.
Unfortunately GarminConnect.com stopped showing "moving time" for workouts :\ so I used SportTracks to calculate it, and it appears I spent about an hour not "moving", between gear changes, rest stops, etc.
There were quite a few runners out, and I saw Shad running the other way as I was a couple of miles into my run, as well as at least one guy who ran the Boulder Basic. I am rather slow so I got passed most of the time. Boulder can be hard on the ego.
GZ suggested I try the old Mesa trail spur into the town of Eldorado Springs, which I had coincidentally thought of running this weekend, so run it I did. It's not terribly runnable since it's rocky and not maintained (as far as I can tell), but it was fun to do something different and it's better than the gravel road to the South Mesa parking lot. This is a shot from the trail over towards Eldorado Canyon:
As I was descending and was about 50 yards up on the hillside, I passed behind a house where a dog started barking (one of many) and it turned out to be a beagle that started running up through the tangled brush and rocks, barking loudly. I thought it was going to come all the way up to the trail.
Since I had never done so, I wandered a few streets in town. This oddly facial building looks like a stone house in southern Europe, and is from the pool, which is currently closed for the season:
The trail starts/ends on a side street behind the pool. It's on a loop street, and to get to the trail I had to run the canine gauntlet: I could choose between two black dogs on short lines defending their turf (they could just barely reach the street) and the other side with the aggressive beagle. I opted for the beagle side, thinking it lived farther over and might not hear me. Wrong - it was right on the street to the trailhead! As I approached the house, the hill-climbing beagle ran out of his yard barking, and started circling behind me. Thankfully the owner was out in her yard.
"Basil! Basil!" she admonished, and insisted "He's friendly."
"It doesn't seem like it" I said. I'm sure he's friendly to her, but I was the one with the barking dog angling towards my backside.
I did get some laughs out of it re-living the incident on the way back up out of town on the trail. I expected to hike most of the ascent back out of Eldo, but did run a bit. Then there's a short stretch of downhill down the road, then uphill off the road, then downhill across the meadow, then uphill out of the meadow. Repeat for an hour. I ran things that were small steps, but hiked anything steep.
After I got back to the car, I contemplated going out again, but it was turning windy and I had already spent enough time. I was ready to be done.
I also need to give some thought to energy while running, since I'm pretty sure I tend to do my longer runs on too little gas.
Spring gear mix. Three helmets, three backpacks, bike shoes, an extra pair of running shoes, ski poles, portable shovel (which is really more for emergencies than the alpine touring I never do), yadda yadda:
This week I felt like my every-other-day exertions were catching up to me a bit, and I had some lingering tendinitis in the right knee going into this run. I may take an extra day off before my next one.
I also had some PF tenderness in the left foot including some elusive burning pain, often when I stepped right on a rock. I don't think the rock shield is as good in the Lone Peaks as in some other shoes like the Cascadia and the MT110. I don't blame the shoe, I've had it before the Altras, but it's bothersome that it's still around.
