Going With The Flow

AM - Hiked Highland Mary Lakes Loop in the San Juans, 9.3 miles and 2500ft. One of the best hikes I've done!

PM - Ran in Silverton with the crew for 2 miles.

AM - Trail run up at Molas Pass (starting at 10,910ft!) with Jake, James, Allie, and Amiee. Ran 9 miles! The trail went up 500ft in the first 5k then leveled off a bit. I felt pretty good on the way out but my adductor didn't like the downhill too much - too much jarring. Amazing run!

PM - So Jake, Allie, and James ran 400s yesterday on the track to see what they could do at 9300ft without Amiee and myself, so we were feeling left out. After a couple of strides and strapping down my sandals, I somehow pulled off a 71.4 second 400m. Lungs hurt from breathing so hard at that altitude! I was quite pleased.

Hiked Mt. Sneffels (14,158ft!) with Jake and Amiee, 7.5 miles and 3500ft of elevation. Jake and I did this hike three years ago when we were doing a ton of hiking/mountaineering so we both remembered it being easy and straightfoward. Apparently we lost quite a bit of our toughness because it seemed to have a lot more exposure than I remember! Still a really fun hike - I enjoyed the challenge and really liked the scrambling sections. 

Whew, what a vacation! Back from our trip to the San Juans...I had such a wonderful time and was so happy to enjoy it with great friends. I was able to do all the hikes and runs (35 miles worth in 4 days) with only a little discomfort. I'm taking today off, with maybe some arm weights and a cruise on the bike this afternoon. 

PM - Strength training - upper body weights and single leg lower body. I decided to go out for a jog just to see how I felt. Legs were very tired, but in a good way!

AM - Horsepark loop with Jake, 5.2 miles. Right leg seems significantly more fatigued than the left but otherwise felt okay. 

3.2 miles with Jake around the neighborhood. Friday!!

AM - 5 miles with Allie, James, Jake, Kassi, Dave, and the Weber crew (for a short time) on their cooldown of the Layton Classic race. Fun! Planning to walk/jog Alta Peruvian race this afternoon with as much compression gear on as possible.

PM - Alta Peruvian 8K! I decided to run this race in an attempt to get a free night at the Alta Peruvian for winter skiing (age division winners get free night). I was not willing to "race" because of the soreness horror stories and ruining my recovery, so I ended up not winning my age division. Still happy thought because I got a nice dinner for two at the lodge in the winter which will be great after a full day of backcountry skiing!

I knew that this was a ridiculously downhill course (1700ft in 5 miles!) but was still surprised as to how downhill it really was. Super uncomfortable for running and honestly not much fun. I ran at an 8 min pace effort for the race and that resulted in 6:08 pace with the downhill. Michelle Simonitis and I met up around mile 3 and ran the rest of it together chatting casually. At about mile 4, a huge storm came in that was quite scary - lightning and thunder way too close! That definitely made the race quite an experience. I am quite pleased with how great I felt on this run - no groin or adductor pain at all. Really tight compression helped a lot!

By far the best part of the race is the after-party. There is a great BBQ with tons of food, a nice band, hot tub, and great company. This made the race totally worth it! Jake and I stayed the night up there with several others and really enjoyed ourselves. 

I am sad that this is the last year of the race, but Rob and Jake are really working to transform this into a 1 MILE downhill dash. Hopefully they can make that happen!!