Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

Not much to say about today. I didn't take any ibuprofen this morning, and throughout the day I could tell that my knee is still sore from Saturday. Not bad, but definitely not good. So I decided to cross train tonight--one hour on the stair stepper--but I started with a mile on the treadmill in my flats. Even if my knee hurts, I think it's important to keep the pressure on my calves so they can adapt to the forefoot thing.

Another relatively uneventful day at the gym. I started with a mile on the treadmill before switching over to the stairs for some threshold work. I ended up cutting the stair workout short by about seven minutes because I felt pretty trashed, but otherwise things were fine.

After a few days of rest my knee seems to feel fine, so tomorrow I'll do what I can to set myself back. Grandeur Peak west face at 5:30 tomorrow evening with my brother and possibly the Samurai. Anyone who's interested is welcome to join us.

Grandeur Peak, how I love thee.

I don't know what it is about that mountain, but I just can't get enough of it. Actually I do know what it is--it's steep. So, so steep.

Anyway, I ran with the Samurai tonight, and my brother came along for the ride, too. He's never done anything like that before, and I'm pretty sure he won't be able to walk tomorrow. But he loved it, and he'll be back. Unfortunately, the Samurai had to get home in time for his kid's soccer game, so we turned around at what he calls the "first summit" (also known as "not the summit"), about a quarter mile short of the actual summit, but that's where the snow line was so it was fine with me. I think we were on pace to hit the summit in the low to mid 50s if we hadn't stopped. Not fast, but not slow. And I was yapping away the whole way up, so I know the effort was reasonably relaxed.

The whole round trip was 1:06:25 for 3.7 miles and 2800 feet of vertical at a blazing 17:48 per mile.

Afterward, Catherine was on her way to the gym, so I went with her and ran an easy 20 minutes on the treadmill in my flats to shake out my legs, strengthen my calves, and pad my mileage.

As expected, my legs are trashed after yesterday's run. But not cripple-trashed, so I enjoy the feeling. 

I just ran a few easy miles with Tigger at the track today. I ran the first three in my flats, and the last two in my Ronins. The extra cushion felt super nice, and I picked up the pace by about 30 seconds per mile with out even thinking about it. 

By the way, the Grandeur Peak Fun Run has been postponed till next Saturday. You should still plan to be there.

37:23

I wanted to get in a short, easy trail run this morning, so I planned a little lollipop loop starting from Grove Creek and doubling through Battle Creek. But the little stream you have to hop across before running south from Grove Creek has become more like a river. I looked around, but I couldn't find any way past it other than through it, and I was in no mood to get wet. So I headed north on a little trail that joined up with a dirt road that brought me back to the parking lot at the end of a two mile loop.If I don't mess my knee up today, I may get to do a long run tomorrow, so I just ran two laps and then called it a day. Not great, but not bad, either. Super slow, though. My legs are still sore from Grandeur.

I'm shocked at how sore I've been since running Grandeur on Wednesday. I honestly didn't expect it to be so bad. Yet here I am three days later and it still hurts to walk. Weird.

A few weeks ago, my cousin in law, a mountain biker turning trail runner, told me that Lambert Park over in Alpine a good place to go when you want to ride dirt but you don't want to climb mountains. That sounded like just the thing for my trashed quads, and since I had been meaning to check out the park for a while anyway, I decided that today was the day.

Basically, the park is a huge network of constantly intersecting trails (take a look at the map to get a better idea). So, I just picked a trailhead and got busy. I spent quite a bit of time trying to decide which way to go, but after an hour or so I felt like I had a pretty decent idea of the place although there are still a ton of trails I need to check out. It's a good thing the park is only 7 miles from the house. And apparently the trails are runnable year round. (For the record, the trails I ran on include Rodeo, Lambert's Luge, Poppy, Middle, Spring, Middle Spring, Ziggy, Zag, and ZPC. I may have forgotten some, but I think that's it.)

I forgot my Garmin, and I wasn't wearing a watch, so I have no idea what my run looked like. But I was away from my car for two hours. Even with all my stops and wrong turns, I think I can still safely credit myself with 12 miles.