Go slow to go fast.

In revolt and rebellion against the crappy Monday start to my last two weeks (1st in court all morning and last week sweeping an auto body shop for 4 hours) I decided nothing was stopping me from starting this week off right.

Woke up at 4:45 and headed to the Chimney gulch trail that goes up lookout mountain.  It's 3.5 miles of amazing single track, only technical in a few places, that gains 1800 feet.  It was my first time on the trail, I've ridden my road bike up the road up lookout a bunch, and last time I did was jealously looking at the people on the single track while I was nursing an injury.  Today it was my turn.

I ran up in 46:35 and immediately turned around.  Came down in 29:17, both ways were awesome...such a fantastic trail!

I passed one other runner coming down who was 5 or so minutes behind me.

Then I got out my new bike, threw on my other shorts and shoes, and headed back up.  I was surprised to learn it was harder on the bike.  The guy behind me had come down and shortly started his second lap.  He passed me about half way up, not going much faster, but enough to motor on ahead.  

I biked up it in 48:26, a couple minutes slower.  Then the downhill....ahhh!  Did I mention it was an amazing single track through the forest?  Perfectly steep, not too technical, but not too easy...that is one of my favorite types of trail.  I don't prefer the super technical as much.

I was thoroughly enjoying the fast ride down...wishing I had time for another loop, but needing to get home because Nan was waiting longer than anticipated already (I thought biking it would be faster...it would have been overall faster).  But with a mile to go to the bottom I pinch flatted my back tire...didn't have enough air.  I ran down to where the trail crossed a road, stopped a couple road bikers going up to see if they had a patch...to no avail.  I couldn't find mine and didn't have any 29 inch tubes yet.  Oh well.

Ran the mile down, which worked out fine, not quite as fun as riding it which I was only slightly bummed about...it was really hard to complain to myself because I had already been treated to such a fantastic morning of trail running and riding in the perfect 65 degree cool mountain air.

I ended up with 2:35 on the clock for the 14 miles running and biking and somewhere betweeen 36-3800 feet of ascending.

When I got home I capped it all off with a an hour and 15 minutes of p90X chest and back workout and some Ab ripper X.

Ahhhhh.....now that's the way I like my week to start off.  Now the week can proceed properly from there.

Have a fantastic Monday everyone! 

** later - While out running an errand, I noticed scraping while I drove and had to drop off my car at the shop to get it fixed, something had broken off my axle.  Fortunately I had my running shorts and fivefingers in the car from this morning, and I threw them on and ran the 3.5 miles to my house since it was going to be a few hours to fix it.  Unexpected but welcome excuse to go running more today, really enjoyed the sweat drenching run in the heat.  Conveniently, within moments after I ran out of water I passed a house that had a huge cooler out front with a sign that said 'enjoy a free water or soda' - Nice!!

Got up at 6 and ran 5 miles barefoot around the neighborhood in about 49 minutes.  Really slow and easy, felt really good.

I didn't feel like going fast at all today.  I wasn't paying attention to how slow I was going actually until it was clearly shown me by a fatter older dude who passed right by me running with his dog.  It was a great moment of internal laughter at myself, and contentment with my current slow pace.  It reminded me how much I love running however I feel like running in the moment...rather than always feeling pushed by some internal expectation inside my head that constantly told me if I wasn't running fast it was pointless.  It reminded me how glad I am to be rid of that mindset, because running has become really fun for me ever since I let go of my internal expectations to always go fast and started allowing myself to simply enjoy it and run however it feels best to me at the time.

Afterward I did p90X shoulders/arms/abs for 1:15

Alarm went off with a loud gong this morning at 4 AM - it was easy to get up because I was eager to go run through the cool morning sunrise on a new trail.

I ran at White Ranch in Golden, which I biked last Saturday.  I couldn't help thinking to myself the whole time I was riding it that it would be a phenomenal running trail...and it was indeed.  I only biked 5or 6 miles of it because I was short on time...I wanted to run a lot farther than that and explore the trails.

Running time 1:51:52 - including pee stop and a few map review stops

10.5 miles - 10:39/mile - 2811 Feet ascent

I had to be home by 7 am (the real reason I got up at 4) because Nan had to leave for her workout at 7.  So I pushed a little harder the last 3-4 miles to make sure I was back in time.  I felt great.  And  WOW! What an amazing trail and time of day.  I really liked how runnable the entire thing was.  I averaged 13:30/mile for the first 50 minutes of straight climbing, just taking it pretty easy...it was still a great amount of climbing, but not so brutally steep as the boulder area trails.

** Later 

When I got home I did an hour and 15 minutes of P90x lunges, pullups, and abs while watching cloudy with a chance of meatballs with my kids. My favorite line of the show was "I'm not baby brent anymore...I'm chicken brent!"...because everyone knows that once you turn into a chicken you automatically get mad kung fu skills.

Then when Nan got home I headed back to White Ranch with my bike. I got it all tuned in and tubeless tires set up and it rode really nice, and I didn't have any issues with flats. I rode the exact same 10.5 mile route I had run this morning.

I have decided I kind of like pitting my biker self against my runner self. So far I'm 1 to 1. Monday, runner self won the hill climb. Today, biker self just barely snuck in a win...but it didn't come easy. The 4 mile climb on the bike felt twice or three times as hard as it did running. I guess my runner self had the huge advantage of being fresh and rested, and running in the cool morning, which is why it felt so easy. I didn't push hard at all running the hill this am and it just felt like a pretty easy climb. But after running for nearly 2 hours in the hills, then doing a lunge workout, then riding that sucker in the 85-90 degree heat, it was a challenge indeed.

Next week I think I'll switch it up and try biking first to give my runner self the challenge to overcome...its kind of fun to have discovered my own built in race partner(mostly its just fun to have the best of both worlds).

There was one section of trail going down today on the bike that was incredibly cool and fun. It was really cool running it, but biking down it was HEAVEN. It was really tight single track, smooth, down a valley with 3-4 foot tall green grass on each side and winding moderately with huge trees all around, and every 100-200 feet there was about a 2 foot log drop in the trail. It was straight enough that I coulkd just fly down full speed and launch off drop after drop. What a rush. And the bike handled the landings so smooth, it was really cool. Then I got an immediate reality slap in the face as I had to climb a super steep 300 yards out of the valley a lot of which I walked because it was so technical. And I was kind of tired at about that point in time for some odd reason.