Training Week 19-25 Jan 2015

Weekly Totals:

Miles Run: 50.5
Hours Run: 9:03
Running Elevation Gain: 6,260'

Miles Biked: 125.6
Hours Biked: 7:25
Biking Elevation Gain: 3,753'
Total Power: 5614 kJ

Total Training Time: 16:29
Total Elevation Gain: 10,013'

Summary: Laid down a big week this week. Maintained my 50 MPH running base and continued to increase the bike. With newly added time on the trainer and rollers, I was able to increase volume a bit. Highlight was a 50 mi "long" bike ride on Sat where I rode the furthest of my life I believe. Funny thing is that I actually planned 40 and felt it wasn't enough so I added an extra bit. Given time, I had plenty of energy to go much further. I was able to do that one ride on a single Gu and probably could have done without it but wanted to keep energy up and at least some glycogen store for my run the following day. Between snowshoeing in the Falcon Blizzard, the long bike, and ice skating at Section 16, this week was an adventure for sure. I'm contemplating going to the daily post instead of weekly summary but not sure still.

Mon 19 Jan: No running today. Just bike home from work in the morning and back to work in the evening. Don't like taking early week days off of running but legs are a bit tired anyhow and 2 bikes is good during work days. Gotta have fam time too!

Biking Stats 1:

• Bike: Cross
• Miles: 14
• Time: 59:33
• Avg Speed: 14 MPH
• Power: 201 W (718 KJ)
• AVG HR: NA
• Gain: 866

Biking Stats 2:

• Bike: Cross 
• Miles: 14
• Time: 41:58
• Avg Speed: 20 MPH
• Power: 213 W (537 KJ)
• AVG HR: NA
• Gain: 151

Tues 20 Jan: A short bike today and then a medium run around the hood. Went to breakfast with the boss after work and we took my bike in his car. Rode from Sandy's back home. Afternoon, got out during nap time for a jaunt up Rock Island trail to Stapleton and up Eastonville to the HS, up around the Cross Country course around the school, across the construction site and back through the hood. Took a detour by water treatment plant and added another quarter to half mile of trail vs. pavement! Since HRM has been acting up, I decided to run free today and kick it up a slight notch.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 11.2
• Time: 1:34:49
• Pace: 8:26 /mi includes walking cooldown. 
• AVG HR: NA
• Gain: 269'
• Weather: Snowy
• Route: see above

Biking Stats:

• Bike: Cross
• Miles: 9.4
• Time: 35:56
• Avg Speed: 15.8
• Power: 258 W (556 KJ)
• AVG HR: NA
• Gain: 651'

Wed 21 Jan: Was going to do the incline today but decided to wait for later in the week. Turns out early morn would have been the best time. I decided to ride on the bike trainer instead to get some spins in. Since my speed/cadence sensor I ordered hasn't arrived yet, I am going off the stats given the same time and effort on the recumbent bike at the gym last week. It proceeded to snow hard the remainder of the day. Not wanting to succumb to the dreadmill (still haven't yet this season) I decided while I could run in 6" of snow sans snow shoes, I would wear them to change things up and also pack the home trail. Last snow, that thing was pretty unrunnable for a week so I fixed that. Did about 6.5 mi and ensured I will be able to do standard runs until it melts off.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 6.5
• Time: 1:22:12
• Pace: 12:55
• AVG HR: NA
• Gain: 43'
• Weather: Hard snow
• Route: Rock Island to Stapleton and back

Biking Stats:

• Bike: Cross on Trainer
• Miles: 20
• Time: 1:10:00
• Avg Speed: 17.1
• Power: na
• AVG HR: na 
• Gain: 0

Thurs 22 Jan: My rollers also came in the other day. I decided to ride those vice the trainer this morning. Felt much more real although it took more concentration, it seemed to pass the boringness of stationary riding better. Problem is that it is louder and woke up the wife so no more rollers when she is sleeping. Originally was going to do the incline again early today and spinners later but the roads were horrible to drive across town. I didn't mind that it was 6 deg but it was nice to wait for warmer. Ended up doing the incline in the afternoon. I decided to push a little harder since I didn't have my HRM and hoped to get sub 30 min. Not only did I do that, I think I got a PR at like 29:17 or something. A year ago today apparently was my last PR at 29:33. After descending back to Barr, I wanted to get 8 mi instead of 6.3 so I turned towards the mountain and ran up to No Name creek before turning around and descending. The trail was not well packed above the incline stem trail so it was interesting going. The descent, I had to keep stopping for the dog so he could get the accumulated snow out of his paws.  I'm contemplating my long run this weekend. Wanting mileage and gain but don't know how the trails will be. CRUD seems to be staying low and I don't desire to wait for Sun to do Incline Club because that means skipping the bike to and from work. Thinking about 3 or 4 full laps of the incline returning to memorial park each time. That or maybe Rampart range road will be packed well enough. Also thinking of pairing the sect 16 IC run from Memorial park with the incline for a nice 22 mi and 5k of gain. Need to start figuring in long bike rides dang ol'snow.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 8
• Time: 1:41
• Pace: 12:35
• AVG HR: 
• Gain: 2,721
• Weather: sunny to start then shady and low 20s to finish.
• Route: Mem park to Incline, descend connector and up to No Name before returning to Mem park via Barr trail.

Biking Stats:

• Bike: Cross on rollers
• Miles: 17
• Time: 1:00:00
• Avg Speed: 17
• Power: na
• AVG HR: na 
• Gain: 0

Fri 23 Jan: No bike this morning. I decided I should take at least one day off this week from biking. Planning on running 8 mi later and contemplating the weekend. Deciding between Long run sat with ride into work Sat night and home Sun morn and ride back in Sun night (missing a long bike effort), or possibly doing the long bike tomorrow, driving into work and running with IC on Sunday for less of a long run. Option 2 allows for a long bike but loses the bikes to work (that aren't guaranteed because of wind and weather) as well as probably the Sunday night bike to work. Overall bike volume for the week and next week would be lower in consequence for a longer ride on Saturday. I do know the long efforts are what really count for what I am doing though. Either way. The wife is not happy with my training volume as of late.

Ended up with an 8 mile afternoon run. Was a bit windy and had more snow than expected but felt good overall despite being slowed down.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 8
• Time: 1:14:41
• Pace: 9:20
• AVG HR: 143
• Gain: 167
• Weather: 12 MPH N Wind steady.
• Route: Rock Island to Stapleton Up to path through hood back to house.

Sat 24 Jan: Ended up going with option 2. Slept in today and had breakfast with the fam before taking what I think was the furthest ride of my life although I felt I could have gone much farther provided the time. With biking the road, you go places... A lot of places. The plan was a 40ish mile loop in 2.5 to 3 hours and I ended up doing 51 in just under 3 despite the climbing and headwind. No run today. It was the first ride with my cadence/speed sensor I got that syncs with my watch so I got to monitor cadence. Primary goal was to average 80 RPM. I think I ended up at 76 so not bad. The HRM worked OK except for when my jersey was flapping in the wind. There were a couple of times, I looked down and it said 190s and I was just cruising downhill so...

Biking Stats:

• Bike: Cross
• Miles: 51.2
• Time: 2:58:05
• Avg Speed: 17.3 MPH
• Power: 230 W AVG (2,453 KJ)
• AVG HR: 156'
• Gain: 2,089'
• Cadence: 76 RPM

Sun 25 Jan: Got the long run in today. Showed up for Incline club but didn't want to run the UPT to LRR due to possible nasty Ice on Barr trail so I decided on Intemann to Sect 16. Today was my 4th show for IC this year so I am once again a real member and no longer a virtual member for the 3rd year standing. Even the way I went, I can confidently say that the trails were the iciest that I have ever run in my short running career. I have been fine all year and really all few years up to this point with no screws or traction devices but today I would have liked something. Intemann and section 16 were a couple inch thick ice most of the way. It was a lot of hiking and running on the side in the snow to stay afloat and on my feet. Somehow looking at Strava, I still got some second best times on things. Knowing how far I had to go to make my 50 for the week, I tagged on a bit extra from the end and ran up into the Garden and a ways up Rampart Range Road. Somewhere towards the first few miles of the run, a slip torqued my right quad in a weird way and it was pinching the rest of the day. I dialed back the final few miles after I got back on the roads to cater to it although I felt good and probably could have run faster. Will be probably dialing it back a notch this week. Looking at my training log, I made a big jump in the biking this week so I need to ensure I get adequate rest as well.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 16.85
• Time: 3:10:58
• Pace: 11:20
• AVG HR: HRM still jacked... Grrr.
• Gain: 3,071'
• Weather: 25 to start. 50 to finish. Crazy.
• Route:Mem park in Manitou up Crystal Park Road to Intemann, around sect 16 steep side first and back to town with extra bit up RRR.

Training Week 13 to 19 Jan 2014

Weekly Totals:
-No diet stats other than beer this week. That whole school thing is eating up my time and I got too far behind and can't remember what I ate. Just look at last week and that's pretty close minus a full out Mexican Meal one night and Jimmy Johns another.  

Miles: 74.3

Time: 12:13

Gain: 9,705'

Beers: 6 (and 3 glasses of wine)

Monday 13 Jan: Didn't have time to run on a lunch break today so I hit the treadmill at the gym at night. It was one of those nice Woodbridge treadmills. I was going 8 miles but my body was showing signs that was not a good idea. I was about a minute per mile slower at my normal 155 MAF pace than normal and worsening so I cooled down and called it a day at 6 miles. I hate cutting it short but clearly my body needed it. I then went to bed by 8:30 and slept until 6 AM.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 6
• Time: 55:15
• Pace: 9:13
• Gain: 0
• Surface: woodbridge treadmill 
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: I listened to my heart and it said to stop so I did.
• Weather: Inside is hot!

Diet Stats:

• Beers: 0

Tuesday 14 Jan: Was worried from yesterday and strapped for time so I got in a quick 4 miles at work with no real warmup or cooldown but got some good circuits after.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 4
• Time: 30:31
• Pace: 7:37
• Gain: 89'
• Surface: Pavement
• Additional: 3 circuits of - 20 decline situps, 10 pullups, 20 hanging leg raises, and 20 pushups
• Feelings: Wish I could have had more. The MAF was fixed from yesterday but went for short mileage nonetheless.
• Weather: Brisk and breezy

Diet Stats:       

• Beers: 0

Wednesday 15 January: Kicked a hard 8 miles today. The first 4 was a little slower and I probably only had time for that if I warmed up and cooled down properly but I got greedy with the lower mileage the past few days and got my 8. This was all on the dirt and rocks.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 8
• Time: 57:49
• Pace: 7:13
• Gain: 191
• Surface: Pavement
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: Felt very good and HR was much lower than when I did this last week.
• Weather: Can't remember

Diet Stats:

• Beers: 0

Thursday 16 Jan: Manitou Incline today before work. I think this may have been my fastest time car to car from Memorial park in Manitou despite the icy trails and complete darkness because I had to be at work at 7:30 vice the normal 8 AM. The plan was to get another 8 in the afternoon and then 8 same Friday before the fatass but my car got stolen while my dad was borrowing it and I had to deal with that. I think actual incline first to last step was around 31:30. Not bad after the hard 8 yesterday afternoon!

Running Stats:

• Miles: 6
• Time: 1:18:09
• Pace: 13:01
• Gain: 2,310'
• Surface: Dirt, Ice, Rocks, Trail, some street
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: Great but HR was a bit high.
• Weather: 30ish and maybe 10mph wind.

Diet Stats:

• Beers: 0

Friday 17 Jan: Today was back to the routine daily lunch 8 mile with full warmup and cooldown. That's a half mile walk to begin and end and half a mile after/before those at a slow jog. I was supposed to do the incline this morning again too but woke up and it was 14 degrees (feels like neg 2 in Manitou). I didn't wanna go see how cold it was at the top.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 8
• Time: 1:10:35
• Pace: 8:49
• Gain: 250'
• Surface: All on the dirt!
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: Great
• Weather: Warm for winter but slightly windy.

Diet Stats:

•    Beers: 0

Saturday 16 Nov: Ponderous Posterior Fatass today. Did the fatass run plus some bonuses such as kindergarten rock at the Garden and then around the north side of the Garden trails over to balanced rock and then up Manitou to the Incline, continuing on up Rocky Mtn. and Mt. Manitou which are both new summits for me. From Mt. Manitou back down through experimental forest to Barr trail and back down to Ruxton splitting off on Intemann and up and over to Red Mountain (both summits) which is also new for me and back down and across intemann getting lost in upper Manitou and making my way back down and around the high school on intemann again and down through the graveyard to Crystal Park Rd. and back up that to Intemann and over to Section 16 and the top of RRCOS and all of the way to the farthest east ridge back down to 31st street! Great times and met some new friends!

Running Stats:

• Miles: 27.8
• Time: 5:19:36
• Pace: 11:30
• Gain: 6,657
• Surface: Everything including a rock climb.
• Additional: Haha. Just 12 oz curls after.
• Feelings: Great. A little fatigued the last few miles obviously.
• Weather: 60 and sunny!

Diet Stats:

• Beers: 3

Sunday 17 Nov: Unexpected 2 a day today. Was lucky to get 1 run let alone 2. First run was 6.5 running out Rock Island Trail to Stapleton Rd. and back with the dog. For a recovery, I felt pretty good and still able to keep my Heartrate in the 145 to 150 zone as opposed to the normal 155. Got the full normal warmup and cooldown and Baz was hurting pretty bigtime. He needs to be getting out more and I am bad about that lately. Ran in the Merrell Trail Glove zero drop, zero cushion shoes both runs today. First run was great. Second I was regretting it, especially the second half on the pavement.

Running Stats for run 1:

• Miles: 6.5
• Time: 57:39
• Pace: 8:52
• Gain: 44'
• Surface: Dirt path
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: Tired quads but able to have a  great pace despite.
• Weather: 60, sunny, and slight breeze.

Running Stats for run 2:

• Miles: 8
• Time: 1:03:30
• Pace: 7:56
• Gain: 170'
• Surface: Gravel/Pavement
• Additional: NA 
• Feelings: Last few miles got a little rough on the pavement.
• Weather: Started upper 50s and got darker and colder to 40 deg.

Diet Stats:  

• Beers: 3

Training week 6 to 12 January 2014

Weekly Totals:

Miles: 70.8

Time: 13:29

Gain: 11,506'

Beers: 7

Monday 6 Jan: Hips were a little sore today after the treadmill last night. Still had a pretty feel good standard 8 mile loop at work. Signed up for Villa Sport with the fam today so it will be fun to introduce some swimming and whatnot. So just have to say that Chocolate Lasagna (2 servings) is not the best idea 45 min before a run. I had so stop less than half a mile before the end to unload that, but man it was good.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 8
• Time: 1:10:22
• Pace: 8:47 (includes half mile jog and half mile walking cooldown)
• Gain: 250'
• Surface: 1/2 pavement, 1/2 gravel and snow
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: Hips a bit sore from treadmill the day prior.
• Weather: Low 20s and breezy but sunny.

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: 2 Fried eggs and 2 slabs of ham, green tea with honey, and 2 cups black coffee
• Morning Snack: some chocolate candies at work
• Lunch: Early lunch gourmet salad with leftover bbq chicken and... CHOCOLATE LASAGNA
• Afternoon Snack: cup of snap peas, cup of almonds.
• Dinner: Lamb Chops with Mushroom, green onion, orange marmelade, and soy, cous cous, and brussel sprouts.
• Beers: 0

Tuesday 12 Jan: Started the day right with the incline again before work starting at about 5:35 AM. Ran from Manitou but actual just 1st to last step was about 33 or so minutes without giving an all out effort still. The packed snow got a bit slippy for the last 50 feet or so. Then the spur down to Barr was a bit slippy (especially without a headlamp) but the snow on Barr was much grippier than the ice on Sat. Overall a great run and looking forward to the standard lunch time 8 mile this afternoon.

Running Stats for run 1:

• Miles: 6.02
• Time: 1:23:47
• Pace: 13:55
• Gain: 2,300'
• Surface: Packed snow mostly on trail
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: Legs a little sluggish for first 15-20 min (maybe cause I didn't really warmup) and then the light turned on and it was better from there.
• Weather: Low 30s and breezy but still dark.

Running Stats for run 2:

• Miles: 8
• Time: 1:07:50
• Pace: 8:28 (includes warmup and cooldown)
• Gain: 250'
• Surface: Pavement
• Additional: 3 circuits of the following- 25 decline situps, 10 pullups, 20 pushups
• Feelings: pretty spry. Didn't really feel this morning.
• Weather: Upper 40s to start with almost no wind, lower 40s with chilly breeze to finish.

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: 2 hard boiled eggs, 2 slabs of ham, and 2 slices of habanero pepper jack cheese, 2 cups black coffee
• Morning Snack:
• Lunch: Cantaloupe, Beef Kielbasa, String Cheese, Broccoli, Cottage Cheese, and egg, cheese, and rice burrito.
• Afternoon Snack: Chocolate lasagna (post run today) 
• Dinner: 2 servings of black bean and beef soup over rice and a side salad with ACV for dressing, and a large serving of ice cream for dessert.
• Beers: 0 (glass of Holy Cross Abbey wine)

Wednesday 13 Jan: Thought for a while that I wasn't going to get to squeeze in the run and today would be my rest day. Turned out I squeezed the normal lunch distance but at a tempo 7:30 pace. For the amount of miles stacked in the past 7 days, I'm surprised my body could handle it and could have gone faster. Anyhow, good day besides not warming up or cooling down. Did kind of bad on the food though. 

Running Stats:

• Miles: 8
• Time: 59:32
• Pace: 7:26
• Gain: 192'
• Surface: Pavement
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: Great
• Weather: Upper 20s with a cool breeze but sort of sunny.

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: Green tea with honey, emergen-c with garlic, echinecia, vitamin c, and astaxanthan, 2 hard boiled eggs, 2 cups black coffee, 1 serving oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins
• Lunch: Among many little chocolates at work also had snap peas, cured ham, string cheese, walnuts
• Afternoon Snack: 3/8 of a cheese quesadilla
• Dinner: 5/8 of a Red Baron Frozen pizza, 1 serving ice cream, 1 piece habanero cheddar cheese, some cottage cheese, a few berries
• Beers: 0

Thursday 14 Jan: Was planning to finally run with CRUD this morning on the Thursday morning run up Cheyenne Canyon and even had all my stuff ready but decided to save the legs for the Fatass on Sat. Ended up doing the standard lunch double loop but did some extras to get the 9. Tried to keep the HR at 150 vs. the standard 155. Today made a 7 day mileage of 83 or so miles!

Running Stats:

• Miles: 9
• Time: 1:23:55
• Pace: 9:19
• Gain: 253'
• Surface: All Pavement
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: Pretty good but legs a little tired.
• Weather: Sunny, 30s and breezy.

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: 2 Hard Boiled Eggs, Cheese, Ham, 2 cups black coffee, green tea with honey.
• Morning Snack: Chocolate candies at work.
• Lunch: Snap Peas, pistachios, turkey kielbasa, broccoli, cutie
• Afternoon Snack: Kneaders 1/2 turkey bacon sandwich and salad.
• Dinner: Lasagna, steamed broccoli, Ice Cream
• Beers: 0

Friday 15 Nov: Rest day. With 8 great days in a row and over 80 miles, my legs felt good but I decided to give them an all day rest for the fatass plus I believe rest is important at least 1 day a week anyhow. No walking in or out at work, no stairs! I felt lazy but the healing was nice.

Running Stats:

•            NA

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: Fancy Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, 2 Cups Black Coffee, Green Tea with Honey, Chai Tea with Cream and Blue Agave
• Morning Snack: Chocolate Candies
• Lunch: Cous Cous, Turkey Kielbasa, Snap peas, cutie, apple
• Dinner: Texas Roadhouse- 11oz Rare Sirloin Steak, Mashed Potatoes with Gravy, Salad with oil and vinegar, 2 Rolls with honey butter and half an order of Snake Bites
• Beers: 1

Saturday 16 Jan: After dinner last night, I realized that I forgot my shoes of all things for the Fatass so I went to REI and got the new pair I needed but hadn't budgeted for this month. I got the Brooks Pure Grit 2 because I have tried those before and liked them although the New Balance Minimus did feel great. After sleeping in the truck bed in the Superior COSTCO parking lot, I did the Boulder Frozen Front Range Marathon Fatass which I may do a separate blog entry for later. 28 Miles and over 8,000' of elevation gain made for a fun day in the windiest wind of my life. Is and 8:23 pace good for a Marathon? No not per mile... Total time. I think it was given the deep snow, wind, and elevation gain considering maybe less than 10 out of almost 60 starters even finished. I felt good to stroll into the finish as the first ones with a new friend who has placed top 10 at Leadville and has several other 100s under his belt.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 27.8
• Time: 8:23
• Pace: Moving pace 14:41
• Gain: 8,268'
• Surface: Ice, Dirt, Mud, Slush, Rocks, Deep Snow
• Additional: Are you kidding?
• Feelings: Great throughout. Never pushed hardest and always waited for the group.
• Weather: Upper 40s with 80 MPH gusts!

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: 2 Hard boiled Eggs, Turkey Kielbasa, Black Coffee, Vitamin Water
• Morning Snack: Bacon
• Lunch: Almonds, Clif Shot, Dried Cranberries, Hammer Perpetuem
• Afternoon Snack: Clif Shot Blocks 1/2 Pack, Chips, Mountain Dew, Hammer Perpetuem, Dried Mango
• Dinner: Chipotle Steak Burrito
• Beers: 4 (Mountain Sun Brewery, all Java Porter)

Sunday 17 Nov:

Running Stats: Actually feeling able to run many more, I choose today as a family day. Ran the treadmill at the gym with the wife. With the normal walking warmup and cooldown as prescribed by Dr. Maffetone, the middle 2 miles still went at an 8 minute per mile at the 155 Heart Rate MAF pace that I know so well.

• Miles: 4
• Time: 37:28
• Pace: 9:22
• Gain: 0
• Surface: Rubber 
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: Good. A little dehydrated still.
• Weather: Indoors

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: Mushroom, Asparagus, Basil, and Mozzarella Omelet
• Lunch: Turkey Kielbasa, String Cheese
• Afternoon Snack: Snap Peas, Cashews, Wasabi Peas
• Dinner: Refried bean and cheese dip with chips and hot salsa
• Beers: 2

Training Week 30 Dec 2013 to 5 Jan 2014

December Monthly Totals:

Miles: 226

Time: 43 Hours

Gain: 24,469'

Beers: 37 (plus half a dozen glasses of wine and several- at least 8 mixed drinks)

This Week Weekly Totals:

Miles: 60.8

Time: 9:14

Gain: 5,293

Beers: 5 (and 2 glasses wine and several mixed drinks on new years eve)

Monday 30 Dec: Off day today. The legs felt great despite the long fun run yesterday but I am trying to focus on spending time with the family and getting stuff down the house on my week of staycation. With more free time than normal and somehow I can't find the time to update this daily so today and tomorrow may not list all the food I ate because I can't remember what happened 2 days ago.

Running Stats:

•             NA
• Did squeeze in 3 sets of 20 pushups while bathing my son.

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: Black Coffee, Creamed Egg on Toast
• Lunch: Gourmet salad
• Dinner: Brined and Roasted chicken, and roasted vegetables (home grown potatoes, green and red bell, red onion, in olive oil and rosemary.
• Beers: 1

Tuesday 31 Dec: Snuck in an 8 miles today. Decided to set aside the Maffetone stuff and lay the hammer down. Besides the upset stomach and 2 pit stops to empty the guts, my actual moving time was like a 7:16 pace. The first 3 miles, were sub 7 min pace and then after the turnaround at 4 mi, I had a strong headwind and it was hard to hold pace. Despite that, this was my second fastest 8 mile ever. Got in some elevation gain at the Cheyenne mountain zoo hiking around with the family too but not counting it. Probably a couple miles and a few hundred feet.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 8 + .3 cooldown
• Time: 58:05 + 4:47
• Pace: 7:14
• Gain: 44
• Surface: Gravel
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: Well other than an upset stomach at 3.8 and 6.1 miles, pretty good. Haven't turned it up like that in months.
• Weather: Strong headwind on the return 10-12+ mph

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: coffee, Cheese Grits, 2 Fried Eggs, and 1.5 strips bacon
• Lunch: Bag full of mixed veggies and bag full of leftover meats, cheeses and water
• Afternoon Snack: Hot cocoa and coffee at the zoo.
• Dinner: Home made fondu
• Beers: 2 (and several mixed drinks)

Wednesday 1 Jan: Hmmmm. Another nice but unneeded rest day although I was a bit sore from laying down the hammer yesterday. I just did stuff around the house all day that has been piling up. When you run a lot, that kind of happens so a stacation is nice. Got out to my sister's house for dinner and a movie testing their new surround sound too.

Running Stats:

•             NA

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: Leftover Creamed Egg on toast and black coffee, and OJ
• Lunch: Leftover grilled eggplant, Annie's Mac and Cheese with Beef Kielbasa, and leftover roasted vegetables.
• Dinner: Artichoke and Green Chili appetizer on french bread slices with lots of melted cheese, chicken wrapped in bacon and cheese, whole wheat spaghetti noodles soaked in butter, steamed broccoli with melted cheese on top, 2 biscuits and home made popcorn.
• Beers: 2 (and 1 glass wine)

Thursday 2 Jan: Wasn't planning on 2 faster days but I ran the first lap with Joe from work and after the first 4 miles of chatting it up, we average about a 7:20 pace. When he turned in to call it, I went for another lap and it felt easier because I wasn't chatting anymore. Man I need to stop this fast running stuff. It is addicting but it's gonna get me hurt. The 2 days off early in the week is too much rest apparently. Hoping for 2 a day tomorrow with the incline before work and the standard 8 during lunch break. This is because I realized my first race, the Salida Run through time trail marathon is in just 2 and a half months. I'm still in a base building period but need to probably start doing speed work once per week and keep getting elevation gain and mileage. Ideally I would like to build to at least 80 MPW before my taper for that but it has to all balance with family and work. I believe balance is healthy and important for sustainability including sleep and rest for the increased work not to mention I have school starting back soon as well. Getting up early is an option but I need my beauty rest, my long runs, and my elevation gain to make all this work.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 8.01 + .45 Cooldown
• Time: 58:55
• Pace: 7:22
• Gain:  249'
• Surface: All paved
• Additional: finally decided to go for more. 3 sets of decline (45 degree) situps alternated with 3 sets of 10 full dead hang Marine Corps style pullups.
• Feelings: Felt pretty awesome
• Weather: 42 and 10 mph wind

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: 2 Fried Eggs and 2 Slices Canadian Bacon, 2 Cups Black Coffee, and Green Tea with honey
• Lunch: String Cheese and Gourmet Salad with Roasted Chicken and ACV with Olive Oil Dressing.
• Afternoon Snack: Cup of Almonds, Cutie, and an apple 
• Dinner: Ribeye Steak Fajitas, Black Refried Beans, and Cantaloupe
• Beers: 0

Friday 3 Jan: Started this morning with the incline with my friend Sean. It was nice to get out with him after a resting and healing period. Nice steady pace. Not too fast and averaged at or below MAF while ascending. Then a gentle trot down the icy Barr trail back to Memorial Park at the bottom of Manitou where we started for 6 miles and 2k feet of much needed ascent. Second run out was afternoon lunch run at work. Ran 8 miles (the standard work lunch double 4 mile loop) with the new small hill spur both laps. MAF was feeling good until a direct headwind and then I decided to maintain an 8:30 or so pace rather than slowing up more. 2 a day! Hoping for 18-20 flat miles tomorrow in the cold but really need the wind to blow east-west so I don't have nasty headwinds running on the plains to Peyton or I might freeze to death. Then with similar mileage Sunday with the incline club and maybe a climb of Cameron cone I can finally hit 70 MPW since I only have 71 days until my first race.  Oh and I NEED NEW SHOES. Bandaids over the toes after sewing them twice to keep my big toe from popping out. Thankfully I get my Merrells back next weekend but those aren't stack miles on shoes so I gotta come up with something quick.

Running Stats For run 1:

• Miles: 5.94
• Time: 1:32:14
• Pace: 15:31
• Gain: 2,296'
• Surface: Rocky, Icy, Road ties and steep 
• Feelings: Really great. The hammies started a little tight after 2 faster runs this week and my left arch was a little tender. Hoping to roll it on a tennis ball during the day today before the second workout and maintain MAF pace through today and stack on mileage with back to back long runs this weekend in the cold front that is coming in behind this unseasonably warm weather.
• Weather: Incline was strarting at over 40 degrees at 5:40 AM and was close to 45 when finishing. It was a little windy up high but not so bad as Falcon with the tree cover.

Running Stats For run 2:

• Miles: 8.0
• Time: 1:06:06
• Pace: 8:15
• Gain: 174'
• Surface: All paved
• Additional: just up 7 floors a few times at work today like normal
• Feelings: Pretty good. Maintained MAF until the wind got bad and then went a little over
• Weather: Mid 50s and sunny but 15-20mph wind.

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: 2 Hard Boiled eggs with 2 slices canadian bacon.
• Morning Snack:
• Lunch: Gourmet salad with feta, beef kielbasa and acv with olive oil
• Afternoon Snack: sugar snap peas, banana, cutie, apple
• Dinner: Potluck- 2 Pieces Pepperoni Pizza, 2 Breaded Drumsticks, salad, 4 chocolate chip cookies, 2 glasses sweet tea, home made mashed potatoes, chips with salsa and guac
• Beers: 0

Saturday 4 Jan: After going to bed a couple hours later than planned, today's run was not as early as hoped for. Got in a solid 15 miles by going most of the way to Peyton and back. Wanted all the way but thought wife had to leave by a certain time. It was a strong headwind with blowing snow for the way out and tail wind with blowing snow coming back. Only drank water for the distance. Had to drink a swig per song to keep it from freezing in the tube. Hopefully despite the snow, I can grab some gain and distance tomorrow. Wanting 25 miles and at least 5k of gain but we will see if that happens in the 5 degree weather and lots of snow up high.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 15.1
• Time: 2:13:54
• Pace: 8:52
• Gain: 154'
• Surface: 3ish inches of fresh snow over gravel
• Additional: NA
• Feelings: other than cold hands, I felt pretty good given the effort.
• Weather: 18 Degrees and hard blowing snow.

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: Artichoke, Mushroom, and habanero cheese omelet with home made salsa and sour cream, 2 slices turkey bacon, cantaloupe, 2 cups black coffee
• Morning Snack: Hard Boiled Egg right after run
• Lunch: Gourmet salad with Ham and some cashews and cinnamon almonds
• Afternoon Snack: 3 Christmas cookies and hot cocoa
• Dinner: BBQ Chicken Thighs (2) and Butternut Squash, and Ice Cream
• Beers: 0 (glass of red wine)

Sunday 5 Jan: With temps in the single digits and strong winds, I didn't feel like getting blasted worse than yesterday. The roads were too bad to drive across to the good hills and my normal route would have had several brutal miles in head wind causing well below zero wind chill conditions. Ended up being on my feet almost all day doing house stuff and then hitting the dreadmill for 15 miles. Did 7.5 at 6% grade and 7.5 flat. On the flat miles, I was pleased to know that I could maintain my 155 MAF heartrate at about a 7:19 pace where when I started this MAF thing a couple months ago, my first MAF mile was 7:35 and I got slower from there to about 8:12. That's probably over a minute per mile improvement at aerobic pace in a couple months! I need to do another treadmill MAF test and someday when there is no wind and it is warm, a track MAF. So I wanted 70 for the week again and if the weather was good for it today, I would have. I ended up getting just over 60 and am happy with that. I need to be consistently at 60 or over until taper time and hopefully building closer to 80. The pace today included walking warmup and cooldown as always for my night time run between roughly 7 and 9 PM.

Running Stats:

• Miles: 15
• Time: 2:12:34
• Pace: 8:50
• Gain: 2,376'
• Surface: Rubber
• Additional: Just on my feet most of the day as well as lifting lots of stuff around the house.
• Feelings: Pretty good but hot and sweaty since it was indoors.
• Weather: below zero outside. 60 inside.

Diet Stats:

• Breakfast: Eggs with veggies and cured ham with plain yogurt mixed with honey and blueberries.
• Morning Snack: slice of habanero pepper jack cheese 
• Lunch: Was a later lunch but a subway foot long oven roasted chicken on honey grain oat and all the veggies. That new creamy Sriacha sauce is bomb diggity.
• Afternoon Snack: 4 Christmas cookies
• Dinner: Leftover bbq chicken thigh, chips and salsa, leftover butternut squash, and then a can of chicken and glass of strawberry milk post evening run.
• Beers: 0

Brass Knuckle Shuffle 2013/Monster Marathon

On November 30, I discovered the Human Potential Running Series at its fullest. With my first race with the group that I learned about from the CRUD group from Colorado Springs, I was fully indoctrinated. The race was supposed to be the Boulder Brass Knucle Shuffle but with the flooding earlier this year, it was changed to the Monster Marathon in Morrison, CO. The whole idea of this running series is that it is a FATASS series. It is 100% free in return, there are no awards, no t-shirts, no belt buckles, no frills, no whining, and no aid stations. Sherpa John LaCroix created the series a number of years ago to bring together front range ultra runners and build community. I would assume that you know what ultra running is but in case you don't, it is any race over marathon distance. This specific series was designed to keep ultra runners running and training properly through the winter months for their Summer racing season. After skiing at Loveland for the first day of the season the day prior, I showed up to this run ready to rumble! I had no idea what to expect but the course was advertized as 27 something miles and 7,000' of elevation gain and loss. Being that my camelbak is fully molded in the tube, I carried just my hand bottle and for some dumb reason, I left my fuel belt that I hate in the car thinking I would be fine. In addition, there was one planned aid station at around mile 12 or so and I put my "drop" bag in the car that would be over there with some extra water and snacks. With a few Honey Stinger gels and a baggie of SCaps (1 per hour), and 21 oz of Hammer Perpetuem mixed with water on me, I took off on the nice slow pace south towards Mt. Morrison from the start. The first little while was great as everyone was kind of bunched up and conversating. Then, shortly thereafter I found myself in the front few people in the group. I wanted to go ahead but wasn't comfortable with the course. Once we hit Mount Morrison proper for the grueling climb, I took the lead and marched to the top sweating my butt off and trying to keep my heartrate below 160 bpm. Shortly thereafter, I found myself at the top soaked in sweat on the concrete pad. I snapped a quick selfie and headed back down.

I tried to take it easy on the descent as it was only a very steep social trail and very rocky. After hitting the top of red rocks amphitheater park. After dumping the rocks out of my shoes, I made my way to the bottom and met back up with other runners from the group when I met Jeremy Ebel, who won the Bear Chase Race 50 mile this year when I did the 50k. I ran with him and others for a while as we made our way to Dakota Ridge for the ascent. After a while, I was concerned about my climbing heartrate, so I backed off and let him go ahead. A ways up Dakota Ridge, we headed west down the side towards Green mountain. Thankfully, someone left a 5 gal jug of water at the parking lot just before C470 so I topped off my bottle and continued on to the planned aid station at mile 14 or so. It was supposed to be at 12 or 13 but I think it was closer to 14 in the Florida parking lot. After a quick refuel and filling my pockets with goodies, I took off for the first of three climbs of Green Mountain. I never thought much of this bald hill east of C470 but it is nothing to be scoffed at. At this point, I was trying to manage my heartrate to stay below 160 and really nearer to 155 so I let a few runners pass. After a while, I found my self descending toward the East and then once at the bottom I turned back Westish towards a steep trail going back to the top. I was beat at this point so I decided to walk the hill and eat a Chia bar. It was good until about the last bite that I spit out and couldn't handle it anymore. Reaching the summit rim trail at the top again, I sat down for a minute since I was so so tired. I ate some dried blueberries and a clif shot and killed the remainder of my water. I was out and there was a long way to the go until the end. It was depressing to say the least. I made my turn and the second descent. I was happy to see that we were nearing the crossing back over C470, when I realized that the directions were calling for one final ascent of this beast. At this point, I was at about 22 miles and already at 5 hours. I called the wife to let her know I was finishing a lot later than 5 hours. I thought I had at least 3 more miles to go and it was going to be rough without any more water. After the even more grueling hike up the hill, I started to eat more food from my pocket stash and finally reached the top and began to run down. Eventually, I made it back to the parking lot across C470 and I was surprised to see that there was some water left in the jug. I filled my 21 oz bottle and also saw that someone left some Hammer HEED, so I got a scoop and took off. After getting the water, my energy immediately returned and began to come out of my zombie hike and start running back dakota ridge and back down to the car which ended up being 27 miles from where I started. At 6 hours and 24 mintues, I was beat. Who would ever think that 14:xx minutes per mile average would be a decent time.

With 42 starters, 34 actually finished and I think that although taking it easy, I was the 9th one to finish. I crawled into my truck not feeling too hot and after chugging a mini mountain dew, a gatorade, and some Hammer Recoverite, I drove down to the gas station near Bandimere Speedway. I grabbed a 1 liter dr pepper and chugged a lot right away. I think that was too much liquid and carbonation and it kind of hurt so I just laid the seat back for a while. Eventually, I drove home. What a great run Sherpa John put together and I had such a great time. I wish I would have ran a little harder because the next day I did a 9 mile run at a normal or even faster pace feeling just fine. I guess I should be happy about that.

I have some photos so I will try and add them when I can.

Until next time,

See you at the top!

Almost Free Solo 5.6 Keyhole Ridge: Longs Peak 14,255'

Peak:

Longs Peak - 14,255 feet

Summary
Total Elevation Gain: ~12,700 between 3 attempts. 5,100 on success day.
Total Mileage: ~40 Miles between 3 attempts. ~14mi on success day.
Peaks Climbed: Longs Peak
Ascent Party: Mountainmicah83, Sean
Note: Picture credit to Sean for donating his pictures. I won’t list every picture of who took what but below are a mix of our pics. We have plenty more so email if you need for reference or more conditions.
Preface:
(Warning: This preface is a long read so if you wan’t current conditions skip this text and a few pictures until you see summer conditions.)
It’s so funny that I have done quite a few peaks and Long’s peak hasn’t met my tick list yet. I think part of that was on purpose a couple of years ago when I was looking at what peaks were possible in winter. Another part of me wanted to save Longs for my last and summit my first time via a technical route on the diamond. Well, Thanksgiving weekend rolled around this year and I had a planned attempt on the North Face Cables route with Dancesatmoonrise. With an originally good weather forecast, it slowly deteriorated throughout the week until the usual 100MPH summit winds were forecasted and we had to cancel our plans. We know our limits and know we aren't invincible! Winter rolls in and Matt and I get the Little Bear Blanca traverse in the end of January and we are looking at something that will fuel our desire for exposure and difficulty. How do you top something like that? I look at harder things and my soul quivers. I look at easier things and think, ohhh too easy. Stuck, Matt and I finally decide to make a go at the cables in an unfavorable forecast with Dancesatmoonrise. Our motto is almost always to go check out the conditions and at least get a recon trip out of the deal. With 80MPH winds forecasted, we left Colorado Springs around 2 AM and were on the trail by 0530. The trip to treeline was quick but then we got blasted. Every step was grueling as we fought the wind and we kept wanting to turn around but just couldn’t. Our cutoff for starting the 5.4 section on the N. Face was 1100 AM and we arrived just in time to give a go at it. With iffy conditions on the slow below the technical stuff, we decided to rope in to keep us from washing down the hill in a slide. I lead up to just below the “technical” section

You can’t tell that well in this picture but the winds were horrendous and going up in thigh to waist deep sugar was not easy progress. Eventually, I set an anchor and brought the others up. We begin to look for the infamous eye bolts that used to once hold the cables going up and down the mountain to assist folks in getting to the top until someone realized it probably wasn’t the best idea. Matt went for the frigid lead to grab the first eye bolt we could see which was about 30’ above us. Little did we know that that first eye was actually the top of the first pitch and the first eye was actually very buried. Gust after gust wore us down and caused us to bail on a safe call and try again another day.
Late March rolls around and Matt and I want our revenge. This time, we plan to start even earlier. Driving in we get hit by heavy snow starting at about Allen’s park. By the time we arrive at the trailhead, we are barely able to drive the last half a mile in 6” of fresh snow. We opt to not even leave the car and nap til the sun came up (the ranger’s did not like this). By the time the sun came up, there was 10” of fresh pow on the ground and we headed back toward boulder knowing we made the right decision based on conditions. As a consolation prize, we climbed the first flat iron in our approach shoes, alpine harnesses, 2 cams smaller than 1” and a half a rack of nuts. After 2 pitches, we just unroped and finished the rest solo because it was so easy.
April rolls around and now we want our revenge on this route. It is time to go take care of business. We know the snow has been hammering the mountains in record amounts but we decide to go take a peek and hope for stable conditions to the summit. This time we were smart enough to carry snowboards up with us to a point past treeline for a hasty descent.
Arriving at treeline, the visibility is almost 0 but the winds are rather calm.

This time, there is sugar powder filling the boulder field and it is a nightmare to cross. We shouldn’t have dropped our snowshoes down lower. After a lot of frustration and post holing to cross, we think we can actually see that snow has loaded the entire 5.4 rock slope of the cables route. It was just waiting to blow in a slide and neither of us wanted to touch it. Yikes… We have been here so many times this year. We decided to go look at the Keyhole route and see if it would go just so we could get something. Finally making the keyhole, the rock is covered with verglass and is slick as snot and the winds are ridiculous on the backside. There is no way we are going for a summit in those conditions. Does this mountain ever get decent weather?

We decided to hunker down in the Keyhole Super 8 Lodge only to discover that there is no door and rock hard snow is filling the thing out the gills. We chip it away with our axes and rest from the relentless conditions for a while before making our descent. Once we arrived at the snowboards, we were back at the car within 15 minutes or so. Some people actually were eating a picnic on the packed trail and complained at us for riding snowboards near the hiking trail. Oh the nerve of us to ride snowboards down a mountain the way we came up!

At this point, we were done with this mountain. Until next winter at least….


Fast Forward July 28, 2011:
My good friend Sean had a soul itchin’ for some mountain time. If he had his way, I think he would usually choose a day at the crags but I manage to usually drag him out to the mountains some time. He was hot for a peak but the weather wasn’t looking that great in any range. We settled on Long’s Keyhole Ridge because the front range had a slightly better forecast than the other ranges at a 40% afternoon chance of thunderstorms. We decided to just to plan to be back to the car by noon and we should be fine. We rack out our gear on July 29 and keep reminding ourselves that the route is only 5.6 as we glean out our gear to the bare minimum.
Rack:
A 9.5 Mammut Infinity duodess Rope
Alpine Bod harnesses
6 double length runners
1 triple length runner
2 ultra light draws
Bd nuts size 6-10
Pink and red tricams
Metolius Ultralight Power Cams size 1-7. (up to about 2.5”)

I roll up in Pabst, our vehicle of choice for the journey, at about 1030PM on Friday night. Pabst is decked out with an auxiliary 125 amp hour marine battery and a mini fridge. It is like a home away from home.

I have read that Long’s peak on a summer weekend has a full parking lot at 12:30AM but I always thought that was just a ploy to get folks to start earlier to be safer. Well, when we arrived at about 2:15AM, we surprisingly got one of the last spots open up top. We step off from the car at about 2:30 AM up the long and un-steep trail up through trees. Even though there is really no residual moon light showing and it is rather dark, we shut off the headlamps after about 10 minutes. Within 5 minutes, we could see well enough to make our way up the trail. We figured we wanted to be starting the 3rd class ramp right at sunup so we had some extra time and this would be a way to go a bit slower. It startled folks as we caught and passed them without any torch light. Most folks either had to make some sort of comment or stare at us with their headlamps just ruining our night vision. Why is it that people think it is ok to stare at you with a giant bright flashlight on their forehead? It was amazing to see the chain of headlamps headed up the hill up ahead.
It took longer than I thought to make the boulderfield, not because we were going by natural light but because I Didn’t realize how much out of the way the trail goes out of the way. In the Winter, it was straight up through the trees from the little wood foot bridge and straight to granite pass from there and straight up from there. Being inappropriate to travel like that in summer, it was a long and windy road to say the least. We actually walked right up on a heard of about 50 elk just past Mills Moraine. They were bolting within about 10’ of us. We probably would have seen them sooner if we had light. Oh well. About halfway through the boulderfield, we were greeted by the light.

We took a rest just below the keyhole as we pulled out our technical gear and readied for the 3rd class ramp. Between 5:30 and 6, we set off for the business of the route. It’s amazing how much class 2 we will suffer thorough for a little bit of class 5. Look at these goobers:

We were so happy to be away from the mass quantity of people. You don’t go to Longs in summer for solidarity, that’s for sure. We had Keyhole ridge all to ourselves though.

In no time, we found the 4 shiny bolts with hangers just below what seemed to start to be a bit more technical. Looking at the terrain ahead, we both agreed that it hardly required a rope. Sean threw on his rock shoes and I continued on in my Approach shoes. With some careful moves, we made quick work of the next section. You can see one of the bolts in the lower right hand corner and the red line above me is our approximate path. Easy climbing but there are no unimportant steps here. Every move must count as there is zero room for error.

I took the lead while Sean put his shoes on and he caught up fast on the fun and rather solid rock compared to other harder routes on other mountains.

Over and up. Over and up we went.

The fun solid granite just kept throwing itself down in front of us.

The exposure grows with the excitement. False Keyhole and the 3rd class ledges are seen behind me along with the boulderfield and Storm Peak. When are we going to need all that gear we are hauling around?


And a sneak peak of the route ahead

How about on this splitter crack? This came as quite a surprise but we didn’t have any gear big enough for this anyhow. We could have set up an anchor at least but there was a decent decking ledge below and the granite was so sticky. Just stuff your limbs in and up you go. One foot in the crack… ouch. Two feet… a bit scary. I actually came down to re-think my future before sticking the third foot in the crack. Then…. Three feet in the crack…….. You are now committed. No going back, no mistakes. Just about the time your butt is puckerin’ pretty good, you can grab the top and mantle up. The feeling was truly exhilarating.

Sean in close pursuit with biiiiig exposure in the background.

Now atop the tower, Petit Grepon is seen in the lower left as Sean contemplates the route ahead.

Everything is so pretty.

After the splitter crack, it is obvious that the only way to continue is over the tower and down. The back includes a tippy block and some high exposure. We opt for the safe option and pull the rope out for a 10’ rappel on the rap ring and decent looking webbing already in place. Normally, I don’t use used webbing but upon inspection, this piece looked alright. It wasn’t hard moves, just high exposure. A quick no hands traverse lent us passage across the backside of the tower. Meanwhile, the folks down on the keyhole route below were totally oblivious to us above so we had to be extra careful not to send any projectiles careening down. The black arrow depicts where the rap happened and then we traversed the ledges.

Standing on wet moss and staring up at the next section, the route was obvious where we had to go. Due to the unknown factor of what was above, we opted to rope up since we had wet shoes and I was only in approach shoes. This was not worth the risk given the factors. I threw in a nut for an anchor and belayed Sean as he placed 3 pieces before setting anchors about 50’ up since the route looked fine after that point. I followed quickly noting that there was one piton hammered behind a flake on the face about 1/3 of the way up the pitch that Sean didn’t even see. His cam placement was probably better anyhow.


I made quick work of the short pitch while enjoying the bluebird day. Wasn’t it supposed to be 80%+ cloud cover today? What a treat. I felt good. We made the decision to be safe as soon as safety was in question and we roped up right where we needed.

Putting away the rope, we traversed left and up to the next tower. I topped out to realize it wasn’t the right way. This isn’t where I parked my car! I came back down as Sean searched the area below for passage. With a high traverse I found passage into the infamous notch.

Monkey see. Monkey do.

What a beautiful Notch! The rock was reminding us both of turkey rocks in the south platte.

We chatted with another guy who I think had come from the choss gulley below the notch. We waited for him to top out on the right line since he kicked down a good sized rock. We took the left side.

Some talus hopping and hard slab put us on the summit block.

Here is one of the 4 USGS Markers. It is kind of shiny, presumably from the thousands of hands touching it.

And… A summit shot. #49 For Me and I think #8 for Sean. It is nice to have a partner with technical rock skills as it makes numbers matter quite a lot less. I now have 9 to go. Single digits baby. This is a hard earned summit if I ever saw one. This isn’t to say that I have some unfinished winter business here. I also want that chance on the Diamond understanding that there might be more than 40’ of roped climbing there! I would like to do many other routes on this magnificent mountain in the future as well but it feels good to have it ticked off the list.
Sean surprised me with shooters of Jim Beam Black and some Brandy. We downed the Beam and saved the brandy for the car. What a pal!

Sean took a pic of his new friend.

I point out Chasm view as we make our way down for our descent on the North Face Cables route. This seems like a better option than the crowded keyhole route with the army of people kicking down rocks on us. We opted for the straight line. Why not, we have a rope and need to get some use out of it.

Traversing down and left and following the cairns, I don’t think the route ever exceeded class 3 until we found the highest eye bolt. It was about 25 meters above the next set that actually was the 5.4 section. We skipped it and waited around the next two. We awaited for another team to finish the 2nd technical pitch and made our rap down to the winter highpoint for Matt, Dancesatmoonrise and I. I couldn’t believe how close this was to the summit and we had to turn around. You can see there is still some wetness on the route.

It sure does look a lot different than in winter. The next pitch we rapped more to the left (while facing down) since there was other groups waiting for the first pitch. 2 raps with a doubled 60m was perfect and I presume that 2 30m ropes tied together would suffice as well. The next image is our approximate route for the day. Red is un-roped ascent. The tiny blue is roped ascent. Black is descent. Yellow is rappels. What a stellar route. Everything went too smooth. Unbelievable.

Afer spending some time looking at climbers on the diamond from chasm view and dangling my feet over the edge, we took off because Sean felt the altitude still messing with him a bit. We were on our way back to Pabst. Here is a shot of a future goal from near Mills Moraine.

Getting back to the trees was quite a relief from the heat and sun as we dipped our heads in the rushing water and slogged it out back to the car.

1230 on the dot gained us the parking lot. We hung out in Pabst as we shook off the day and prepared for the hot drive back to the springs with no air conditioning. Lucky for us, there were yummy popsicles in the fridge.
Thanks for reading through as I learned my lessons in patience to tick this one off the list.

Thanks to Sean for suggesting this climb and accompanying me on the journey.

See you at the Top!

Day Ascent via Chicago Creek: Mt Evans, West Evans, Mt. Spaulding

Peaks:

Mt. Evans - 14,264 feet Spalding, Mt - 13,842 feet "West Evans" - 14,256 feet

Summary
Total Elevation Gain: ~5,600’
Total Mileage: ~15 Miles
Peaks Climbed: Mt. Spaulding 13,842’, West Evans 14,256’, and Mt. Evans 14,264’
Ascent Party: Mountainmicah83, Baz Agastus (the dog)


Preface:
After getting Bierstadt done a couple of months ago and my partner not feeling the Sawtooth Traverse, I still had Evans on my checklist. Friday night at about 9PM, I decided I would make a go for it on Saturday. (Note: I had done plenty of past research on the route and area so it’s not like I just blindly picked a peak and went for it.) While someday I may get bored and go back to get individual 3000’ ascents on many peaks, I am not a current stickler on the rule, but I felt that an ascent from Summit Lake couldn’t possibly convince my conscience that it was a earned 14er Summit. I chose to go for Chicago creek on a speedy ascent in a day. With the last minute decision, I knew I couldn’t round up a partner that late in the game that would be up for a speed ascent of Evans. I defaulted to my trusty partner Baz and after packing we were in bed by 11 PM.

Saturday July 16, 2011

With a crappy couple of hours of tossing and turning, I awoke without my alarm at 1:50 am, poured the coffee and was out the door and on the road in my 1970 VW Bus by 2:10. Driving at that time is great because there is no traffic. An hour later, I was in Castle Rock and I think I pushed the bus a little too hard over Monument hill because it suddenly started to act funky. After the last Castle Rock exit my engine started to sputter and I quickly pulled over. I was so worried I killed my newly rebuilt 1835cc engine after only putting about 2000 miles and a road trip last week to the International Climbers Festival in Lander, WY. I went out and popped the back hatch to find smoke pouring out of the engine bay. I checked the oil… half a quart low. I poured the half a quart and waited 15 minutes until 3:10AM. At 3:10, I checked the engine temp and it seemed cool enough so I went to start it and it started fine and I took off only to pull over in 100’ because it was still sputtering. I was doomed. I thought I overheated it and had a valve drop in the piston. I figured the trip was over at this point because I wouldn’t have enough time for a 15 mile and 5,600’ elevation gain even if I made it there. I decided to sleep in the back until 4AM and let it fully cool down. At 4 I tried to start it and the same sputtering occurred. I figured I was in for a long day trying to figure out how to get the bus home. On a side note, the bus’ name is Pabst. I began to pray that it was just some silly problem and that there was nothing wrong with Pabst and decided to check out the engine bay one more time for any clues. After a little searching with my headlamp in the 4AM darkness, I found a screw laying down in the tin that had fresh oil that wasn’t there the day before. It had to go somewhere and I was determined to figure out where it went hoping it would fix my problems. Ah ha. A few minutes later, I spotted a hole the same size as my screw/bolt in the side of the carb. It fit like a glove. I tightened it down and went to start Past. He fired right up with his normal purr. It was only 4:10 am at this point and I was a little over an hour behind. I figured since it was such a simple problem, I would go for Evans being more cautious for storms with my later times and worst case, I could spot some granite trad lines for the future.

After cruising at around 55MPH and exiting at Morrison to skip the first steep part of I-70, I eventually made my way via the truckers lane to the Echo Lake Parking lot by about 6 AM. My planned start time was at 5 so I knew I had to be extra fast. Finally, by 6:15 Baz and I were taking our departing photo in front of Pabst and stepping/running off.



By the time we started, the sun was already hitting the top of the peaks and a headlamp wasn’t even needed. Echo lake sure was pretty at this time and I was surprised at this late hour only one other car was parked in the lot. It had rain all over and appeared to have sat there at least all night.



After about 10 minutes or so of jogging, I got my first view of most of the route ahead with Spaulding in the center right and Evans playing peek-a-boo at center left.


In no time, I reached the bottom of the initial 400’ descent and was crossing Chicago creek almost to the 1 mile road portion.



It is prime season for the flowers out there and I kept stopping progress to photograph them. Here are some columbines right off the trail. I am not a professional photographer and just snap tons of pictures with my point and shoot hoping to get a few decent ones for a good story so here is the best of what I got.



And a shot of the woods as Baz and I scurried through. Everything was soaked from the day’s prior rain so every bush was getting us wet as well as the fact that that all of the rocks and roots made for slick travels.
It was at about this point that I found a random cucumber laying right in the middle of the trail. I figured some backpackers from the day prior must have dropped it so I set it on a stump and continued on.



I reached the presumed burn area and got another view of the route ahead and the upper cirque. Still haven’t seen another soul since I left the car.



Alternating between jogging and speed walking, I made quick work to treeline. The lower Chicago lake is below the willows, the upper lake is above that 50’ rock headwall and summit lake is still approximately 1,500 verts away over that headwall that looks rather steep from a distance. At this point the trail got super muddy for the next half a mile as I hopped from rock to rock and side to side trying to keep dry and semi-clean shoes.


Here is a cool boulder overhanging right over the trail in one spot. This is an example of one of the hundreds of boulders hiding back in this basin just waiting for folks to come climb all over. I was still amazed I hadn’t seen another person yet.



What, snow in Mid-July at 11,500’? No way. I didn’t bring crampons. What ever shal I do? Good thing the trail went around to the right. That was a close one. Whew.



Finally, I reach the upper lake and see a few tents scattered throughout the area with folks up and about. None of which look like they are planning to climb Evans. While Baz is always on my heals and off a leash, I politely leashed him through the area where there were people. As soon as we were by, I unleashed him. He is always so close behind me, I kick him in the face when my foot slips. We start up the headwall to the Mt. Warren and Mt. Spaulding Saddle and it starts to not look that bad. My energy level was getting low as all I had eaten for the day was some pop-tarts on the drive up and I was definitely not running up this hill. Just pushing hard and chugging up like a cog train. I think I can, I think I can!



I stop to take a quick sip of water and photograph the basin below. Gorgeous.



And looking North towards Long’s Peak, I see some darker clouds developing and I begin to wonder what they are going to do as I watch them. They were definitely rain clouds but they were almost sitting still and didn’t seem to be electrically charged or shooting up or anything weird so I cautiously continued on keeping a close watch on the system. I was ready to bail at any time as I know better than to mess with storms.



Almost to the saddle, I grab a beta photo of the aprons. They were just sitting there calling my name. What beautiful pieces of slab granite and a great way to earn the summit. Next time I guess. I had it in my mind that I was going to have a few hundred feet of descent from the saddle to summit lake but at the top, the lake was right there. I stopped and sucked down a clif shot and threw the dog a couple of treats. At this point it was about 9AM. Not bad I suppose. 2:45 from echo lake to summit lake where there was already a full parking lot of cars from road bikers and hikers.


A few short minutes later and I was headed up Mt. Spaulding. I was on a mission and was cruising right along. My original plan was to be home around 3 or 4 PM when the wife was due back but with an hour delay in my start, I was pushing extra hard to try and make it so we could do some much needed weed pulling in the yard together.



I continued up the gentle slopes of the 13,842 Mt. Spaulding as I passed a Mother and Daughter taking a break.



Still watching the storm to the north east, it appeared that Longs and Mt. Meeker were now getting rain. Still no lightning and almost no movement from the clouds in my direction though. I figured I would just keep chugging.



A look east back into the Chicago creek basin with Summit lake and the Chicago Lakes and the storm brewing out yonder. It feels nice to have enough experience to watch the clouds and know when to be worried. Still in shorts and a tee-shirt at this point with no need for the goretex, gloves, and hat I carry year round.



Almost at the summit of Spaulding, I got a good shot of the upper cirque towards the summit that was a great view of the Aprons as well. Most of the upper trail goes about 100’ in elevation West and below the other side of the ridge.



With the 10 sec timer set on the camera and a quick scamper, I was able to get my own summit photo of Baz and I. Easy peasy so far.



A quick jog off of the Spaulding Summit and into the upper area towards the Evans Ridge, you could pretty clearly spot the exit from the Sawtooth traverse down below.

It was around here that I passed a couple coming down with a large dog talking with a couple going up. I overheard the couple returning saying the trail head was steep and their dog had trouble in a few spots. They gave the ascending couple advice that it would probably be another hour and a half to the summit.
I was a bit taken back because I didn’t remember hearing of any difficult sections on this trail and began to worry about the storm and the time it was going to take me to reach the summit. These normal worries can usually be discussed with a partner but with the dog I was left with the thoughts to rattle in my mind. I kept pressing onward.



Reaching the point where you could see the sawtooth, it got windy and chilly and I was running low on energy again. I choked down a mini clif bar and threw on the goretex and gloves and hat that I ended up removing 5 minutes later due to profuse sweating. At this point, my camera went kaput and even new batteries weren’t making it work. It was reading some sort of lens error so the rest of the photos are with the iphone 3gs at 2MP so I apologize for the quality of the rest. At least I had some sort of backup I guess.

Here is a look at Bierstadt and most of the sawtooth. You can’t see it due to the quality but there were no less than 30 folks standing atop the Bierstadt summit.


Being so close, I made I quick detour off of the trail and tagged the summit of the unranked, unofficial 14er, west Evans up atop the Aprons. I had a good view of Evans proper with folks on the summit. Taking the true ridge from here and a fun little scramble, we made the crowded summit and found the polished USGS marker from so many greasy hands touching it by 1020 AM just over 4 hours after leaving the car. I never did find that hard or steep section that couple with the large dog were talking about and it was less than 30 min from where I saw them to the top. Funny how perception works I suppose.



We had a couple take our summit picture. #48 for me and #23 for Baz. 10 More to go baby and then I can focus more on alpine 5th class.



Then we sat to eat a salmon pouch and a couple of doggie treats as we looked at the route back down. The storm seemed to be dissolving at this point and the clouds above were almost motionless.



Now it was time to find the Trail for the north east face route for our descent. I didn’t see the need to go back around via Spaulding. I took the tourist trail back down to the parking lot as I passed the flood of people dogging up from the parking lot as they gasped for air. Hey… At least they were enjoying the nice weather too. I hadn’t studied exactly where the route started down but right from the parking lot, I spotted a pretty clear trail headed down. It was too easy.



I had heard of nightmare type stories about how steep and loose this route is but it was much nicer than the standard route of Columbia. It was even nicer than the standard route of challenger as well. Making quick work, I was halfway down in no time and looking back up the route. This is definitely the summit direct route and not the scenic route that going over Spaulding provides.



It probably took me 10 minutes to reach the road below back towards summit lake. I jogged to the now overflowing parking lot meeting a couple of folks still pondering if they could make a summit attempt for the day. I gave them the advice that the weather was still good but to be extra vigilant and willing to turn around.


I downed another clif shot and made my hasty descent back down the headwall to the Chicago Creek basin. It was just too nice and the lake was asking for me to take a swim so Baz and I found a nice rock with deep water in front. I stripped down to my birthday suit and we dove right in. Brrr. After quickly swimming out and laying on the warm rocks, I felt so refreshed. I put back on my clothes minus the shirt and watched Baz roll in the grass to wick some of the water. With that fur coat, the wetness hopefully acted as somewhat of a cooling agent for him.



We jogged the next couple of miles down the trail passing several folks headed both directions. The basin was now full of people. I must have seen over 200 people on the way back to the car enjoying the beautiful Colorado day. At about the point where we reached the road portion of the return hike, I quit jogging and started speed walking. Baz has never had any problems keeping up in the past on long speedy type ascents but I had a feeling the heat was getting to him. He looked normal and had plenty of water for the day but I didn’t want to push him too far figuring 15 miles and 5,600’ was enough as is. I was somewhat dreading the 400’ re-ascent back to the car but it went by very quickly and gently. We arrived back at Pabst at 12:45 just 6:30 after departing. That seemed like a pretty decent time granted I got to take lots of pictures, hang out on the summit for about 20 minutes and take a swim on the way back. I enjoyed a cold beer and Baz and I shared a package of chicken.

What a wonderful day. We didsee sevaral SAR vehicles and an ambulance headed up the road on rou descent but I never heard of the outcome.


Thanks for Reading.

See you at the Top!