Running in Colorado Springs

Yesterday was my last day in a HUGE slice of paradise, and I was lucky to need to do a 2 hour run. The photos were taken with my phone, which I forgot I had brought with me, so they aren't great, but good enough for being out on the trail.

The place I ran is called the Santa Fe trail. You can pick it up in boat loads of places, but I started from the office.

Let me back up a bit. Last week, since I wasn't going to bring a bike with me on the COS trip, I biked a whole lot, and I "only" ran about 28 miles total, including FOUR brick runs. My schedule for this week called for swimming Monday-Thursday and running Monday-Friday (and I've got one more run tomorrow, a brick, of course!).

Since I ran last Saturday and Sunday, this meant I would be running 7 days running! And not easy running, at that.

My Thursday evening "run" was a quad buster. I was supposed to meet a group at the base of Pike's Peak, run 30' tempo and then go up this thing called The Incline. Well, traffic in Manitou Springs and on I25 were a bit worse than predicted, so I arrived late to meet the people I was supposed to meet. However, there was another group of runners at the base waiting to go up, and since I was there to run, I chatted with them to figure out what they were doing and decided to join up from the rear. The objective was to run up for 30' and then down. Needless to say, as soon as you begin you are going up, up. I did run for a bit, but then it turned into a really fast hike. It didn't bother me, because I'd done something similar before--climbing the stairs of the John Hancock building. So it really didn't feel that bad to me, plus, I passed 3 people! They had asked if this was my first time on this trail, and I told them not only that, but my first time in this area ever, and that I was from Chicago. They told me I was doing great, and truthfully, I felt fine. When we were all about 30' up, they told me to mark how far I had gone, and I told them I had no idea when I'd be back and that I'd just have to start over! Anyway, I asked where was The Incline, and they pointed it out to me. OH.....MY....GOD!!! It was even steeper than where we just climbed, and it looked like someone had strewn railroad ties, rocks and asssorted rubble. I made an executive decision not to do it, because while I would have no trouble (except the usual) going up, my knees would not like the down part, particularly my left knee which has no ACL and is therefore not too stable. So I picked my way down on the trail I went up on (the Barr Trail), and let some of the runners fly by me. And I mean FLY. They were running and jumping over boulders, limbs and such. Of course, they must do this regularly in order to take it so fast! On the way down, I could feel my quads getting a bit upset at the effort, and when I got to base, I still had to walk downhill to my car, which sucked, let me tell you!

My quads didn't feel too badly yesterday morning. My biggest concern for yesterday's run was whether I had acclimated a bit more to the altitude. It seemed during the week that every other day I would feel crappy running. Since I had felt great Thursday night, I had a slight concern.

However, all concerns for my long run were erased when I woke up yesterday morning and looked out my hotel window at Pike's Peak while listening to the local weather forecast. It was almost 50 at 5:30AM with a scheduled high in the lower 70's and clear skies. Perfect! I stretched a bit, loaded up my bottles and went to my car.

As soon as I started the car, who should fly out from underneath it but a HUGE magpie? I tell you, those birds are magical! He/she mosied into a small tree next to my car where I could see the full, up close, size of the bird. They are nearly as big as a large chicken! Beautiful! I knew that once again, this was an omen that I was about to have a great experience.

I drove to the office, grinning all the while since I'd be parking there before 7:00AM not to work, but to RUN. I had the heat on in the car during the short drive, because there was a chill in the air. As I got outside, I could feel the chill, but knew that I would warm up quickly.

I started running easily, and I felt great. I wondered if there would still be flowing water in the tunnel, which is about .6 miles in. Yep! There's this short tunnel you run through to get to the main trail, and when it rains heavily, you probably can't even run through it, which is why I didn't use the trail on Monday. There was maybe 1/2" of flowing water in the tunnel, and I happily dance-splashed my way through it to the other side. Right after the tunnel there's a good sized hill to climb. No matter! One thing I learned on this trip is that I'm a pretty good climber--running or biking.

I must've begun the run yesterday with a huge grin on my face that never left the entire time!

The trail runs more or less parallel to the mountains, and parts of it are on the Air Force Academy grounds, so no matter when you are out during the day, you will see a glider being towed for practice or going solo, parachutists and assorted airplanes that I am not sure what they are. Yesterday I also saw a BNSF train, which made me laugh, since that line owns the commuter trains in my hometown of Downers Grove.

I also saw a Western Oriole, several magpies, goldfinches, red-tailed hawks and assorted bugs.

With all the running I'd done during the week and a revved metabolism from being at altitude, my body had been processing food pretty quickly, so I (gross filter on) had to poop twice and pee three times during my 2 hours out there yesterday (gross filter off).

I was on my way back in maybe :40 from finishing when I realized I had my phone with the camera with me, and serendipitously, a woman was running the opposite direction, so me being the un-shy person that I am, I asked her to take a picture. She shot the one of me. She didn't zoom it (click on it--it's halfway decent when viewed full size), but I am sure you can tell I have a huge smile on my face! My quads were already burning by that point, but no matter. I had started the run wearing a singlet which I removed right before the picture was taken. I definitely got my brown on during the run! How nice to be able to get a suntan before 10:00AM!

I managed to run about dead-on 10:00mpm for the run, which considering how hilly it was and the altitude and the fact that it was my 7th day straight of serious running, I couldn't complain!

As I neared the office to finish, I got all choked up. Not because of the effort, although my quads were telling me it had been great--but because of the beauty around me and that I was so fortunate to have been in it. Again, the stinky camera phone pictures don't do it justice, but you get the idea.

When I got back to my hotel, I immediately drank 3 8-oz. glasses of water plus my Endurox R4, so about 40 oz. total of fluids. My body just soaked it up, and then I quickly showered and headed to the airport, where I had to beg someone to let me cut into line to get some food!

So, from last Saturday through yesterday, I ran 7 days in a row like this:

• Sat: :40 brick off of 4:30 ride, ran slightly slower than tempo pace , moderate hills
• Sun: :40 brick off of 3:00 ride, ran slightly slower than tempo pace, moderate hills
• Mon: 1 hour easy (sucky, first day at altitude), averaged about 9:50/mile on treadmill
• Tues: 1 hour moderate on Santa Fe trail heading out south at lunchtime (felt great), averaged about 9:40/mile, hilly
• Weds: 1 hour moderate on Santa Fe trail heading out north after work (felt crappy), averaged about 9:20/mile, moderately hilly
• Thurs: 1 hour, up and down Pike's Peak to officially initiate quad busting! Um....WAY hilly.
• Fri: 2 hours LARGE, on Santa Fe trail heading out south, hilly

That's a lot of running, and the only one that was totally flat was the one treadmill run! It came to about 47 miles in 7 days. As I sit here writing this, my quads are aching--almost like I had run a marathon. But it feels great, and I'm glad to be back in the land of FLATNESS AND OXYGEN!!! I have to go ride 4 hours today, and it's gorgeous here back at the ranch--the trees leafed out while I was away. But I'll be riding out with a tailwind and back with a headwind. We shall see how my quads hold up today--I will back off on the intensity as necessary, plus I find I don't ride well the day after a long run, although 2 hours isn't really that long.

I already have a message from a realtor that my boss referred me to in COS, and I'll call him early next week just to get the lay of the land. I can definitely see myself living there, but for right now, I have some races to get ready for, and a lot of OXYGEN to soak into my lungs. It will be interesting to see if I get a fitness boost from the prior week, but thankfully, no running today--tomorrow I'm back at it with a brick run.

Have a FANTASTIC weekend--I know I will!

Final Update from Colorado Springs before I Head Home

We are 4.5 days into the week and I have already completed 8.62 hours of training. I have a 1-hour "ish" run tonight and a 2-hour run tomorrow. Almost 13,000 yards of swimming DONE.

Last night after work I went out on the trail onto the flat portion. Apparently, I'm not really acclimated to the altitude because I felt like crap and had to stop and walk about every 5 minutes. Oh well, it was beautiful, and I saw another magpie. This one flew ahead of me and landed in a tree so I could get a good look at how large it is. I turned off my tunes so I could hear the bird making a racket (which it does), and then it flew over me to some other tree.

It was pretty awesome running to the side of the mountains, although I25 was on the other side, but no matter. I kept thinking how much it would suck to trip and fall into a yucca plant! I didn't see any snakes or mammals, although I was hoping for an elk (doubt they hang out that close to population).

After the run, I went to grab some sushi, ordered what I thought I could finish, and then proceeded not to eat all of it! Perhaps it was the heavy-ish lunch I had had at The Church in Castle Rock. No worries, though, I boxed up the leftovers which I ate after this morning's swim.

I actually needed my alarm clock to wake me at 5:30AM today, which is unusual, but I truly needed the sleep. I got up, made coffee, rearranged my workout bag contents, did a little bit of core work, and went to the pool. I figured :45 of swim would be enough, but as it turns out I had time to do a full hour AND spend almost :15 in the awesome whirlpool to stretch.

I chatted with one of the lifeguards who, as it turns out, is a runner and triathlete and who is running the Chicago marathon this fall. I got her name, and I may have located her phone number, but I'm sure I can find it out nonetheless, now that I have "contacts" in this area. She said she was staying at a hostel, but I figure I should invite her to stay in my house. Someone I work with wondered if that would be "safe," and I told her that hey, someone who is a runner, triathlete (she's done one Ironman, too), lifeguard, and seemed like a genuinely nice person is probably a very safe bet.

After the swim, I headed to the office, saw another magpie on the way there (I believe this is an omen indicating I should live here), and then I ate my sushi leftovers, which were great, did some meetings, need to do some more this afternoon, and then I'm running up the Incline tonight, which should put the hurt to my legs and lungs, but what the hell, I am not here to loaf, am I???

I can definitely see myself living here. It's gorgeous, it has seasons (snow doesn't really bother me), it has great running and biking, nice people and a decent cost of living from what I can gather. So far I haven't found anything NOT to like here, except maybe there are a few too many large religious organizations that congregate here, but I can deal with that, and then there's the Air Force presence, which is cool. I tell ya, I fit right in here, except that maybe I tend to drive a bit faster than the locals, you know, being from Chicago and all.

My next post won't be until the weekend sometime. It should be interesting getting back to sea level!

Awesome Run

TODAY'S run was awesome...yesterday's not so much.

Last night I hit the treadmill at the Briargate YMCA in Colorado Springs. Whereas at my local Indian Boundary YMCA in Downers Grove, IL, I am probably the fittest person there, at the one here I am one of many! It was nice to look around and see so many uber-fit people. And it was humbling to need to stop and catch my breath every few minutes while trying to run a 10:00mpm pace, which I rarely do. But I knew I needed to tough it out, that it would get better as the week wore on, and today made me happy for sticking out a 1-hour run last night.

Today I got to run outside in the beautiful sunshine, accompanied by a coworker on his MTB. We went out on a trail that you access right from the office, and it goes through the Air Force Academy property at the base of the mountains. I was suprised after :15 to look at my watch and realize that I hadn't needed to stop and catch my breath. I think the breathtaking beauty around me cancelled out any physical weakness I might have!

We went out for :30 and back, and even though the out piece was more downhill, I didn't run that much more slowly on the way back in. And I got to run through rushing water--it rained like all heck yesterday, and I expected some wetness, but this was serious water. Not very deep, and it actually felt good! Also, at one point, we saw a magpie! I took this to be a good omen, and it made me wistful for LGL, who I won't be riding again until Saturday (I rode Bitchie all last week, and for the record, enjoyed it very much--she's still a solid ride, and aerodynamic as hell).

I managed the run after waking up at 4AM today (still managed a little over 7.5 hours of sleep--my body is still on CST though), stretching for :30 and then doing a :30 core workout before heading to the pool to swim. I thought I had calculated today's workout at 3,400 yards, but when I saw how long it took me to do it, I thought that can't be right. Back at the ranch, I figured it out, and I swam 3,600 yards today! And I'm doing it again tomorrow. Lungs are feeling pretty good in the water, and they felt pretty good running today, but now I seriously need some sleep. Maybe a good, heavy dinner will do the trick (copious amounts of Chinese last night were not enough to prevent me from waking up starving). We are going here: http://www.craftwood.com/ I am craving protein, so I will definitely get what I need tonight.

I continue to meet really awesome people out here--plenty of endurance freaks, to say the least--and they don't even think I'm crazy!

Weekly Workout Totals 4/30/2007-5/6/2007

I made it through last week, and here I sit in Colorado Springs looking out at the Front Range. Beautiful! Although I'm pretty toasted from yesterday's festival of bike, run, travel, lack of sleep, gain of altitude and a 3,150 yard swim workout this morning. I have yet to run, and then it will be a hearty meal and early bedtime!

I couldn't believe yesterday that I could do a FOURTH brick run, and at a pretty good pace, considering, although I could only manage 1/2 marathon pace. I did not bike back into Fermilab, as I couldn't deal with 15 miles of headwind on the back end of the ride, so instead I headed east into the wind first, which meant less than perfect quality riding, but it was good enough considering all that I did last week.

So not much running last week, but we will take care of THAT problem this week, as I've got about 6:40 worth of it to do, almost 14,000 yards of swimming, but only 7:00 biking. And as it turns out, I have no excuse NOT to lift weights, so I may try and fit that in this week, too.

Weekly Totals 04/30/2007-05/06/2007
Swim: 10000 yards (5.68 miles) in 3.5 hours; 18% of weekly workout time; approx. 1225 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 191.04 miles in 10.92 hours; 56% of weekly workout time; approx. 5117 calories burned
Run: Approx. 27.87 miles in 4.18 hours; 21% of weekly workout time; approx. 1889 calories burned
Strength: 0.85 hours; 4% of weekly workout time; approx. 213 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 224.59 miles in 19.45 hours; approx. 8444 calories burned
Sleep: 8.32 hours avg./night
Stretching: 2.78 hours. Massage: 1.5 hours

The Beatings Will Continue Until Fitness Improves!

The title is, of course, a take on a saying or cartoon that I'm sure you've seen: The beatings will continue until morale improves. And so it goes with fitness. You don't become fit by sitting around doing nothing, and you don't become really fit by going out and doing things the easy way. When you first start out on a path to fitness, JFT (just fucking train) works pretty well. But there comes a times when you have to sweat the details and change/increase the stimulus in order to see gains. If you ever read the Slowtwitch forums (which are soap opera, in and of themselves), you will see regular threads about "more is more" which basically means that in the context of becoming fit, the answer to the question "how?" is always more of something.

Over the past 7 years, I've been mostly coached, but sometimes I go without, but no matter, I am always learning about what works and what doesn't. The only thing that I know for sure is that I have to work hard to improve. And to work hard, I need to take care of my body as best I can so that it's willing and able to do the hard work. I'm not a monk like some pro triathletes, but I do pretty well compared to many people I know. But I don't hold that against them, as this really is just a hobby, and I happen to take it pretty seriously. Why? Because that's how I am with anything. I'm a little OCD, a little bipolar (PC term for manic-depressive), cursed with an extremely high IQ, a social klutz, and I get my kicks out of doing things well.

My coach knows this stuff about me, which makes me quite easy to coach, since I am all over the Protestant ethic of hard work for its own sake (although I was actually raised Catholic, but that's another story). Now, even if you do everything right--sleep, nutrition, stress reduction, body composition management, adherence to scheduled training program--it still takes (unless you are genetically gifted which I certainly am not) years to get to the point where you can execute the really hard stuff and not only survive it, but flourish.

I think I'm there, but I can't tell you how many days I'm doing the work and thinking, "What the hell? I'm 50. Should I be able to do all this?" And my answer is yes, because there are women my age who are faster than me. Not that I'm ever going to best them all; it just means there is room for improvement on my end! At some point, I will reach the inevitable maximum potential and my performances will begin to decline. That may already be happening with swimming--either that or I just don't care that much, since I don't have sufficient time (and by that, I mean like 5 hours per week) to dedicate to it. But biking and running--I am getting stronger, fitter, and faster.

This week has been a buzz so far. Yesterday I rode hard for 4:30 (80% of FTP, for those of you who are on the power train; :40 of that was at FTP or higher watts). That's like 1/2 Ironman pace for some people (I can do 1/2 Ironman at about 85% FTP). And then I ran a bit faster than 1/2 marathon pace for 4.5 miles. Today I'm doing the same thing, but only 3:00 on the bike (same brick run, though). Now, people talk about training hard and say they did this or that, but do they know the truth? To me, truth on the bike is watts. I don't wear my HRM any more, because it's not the truth. With watts, either I can hit them or I can't, and when I can't, I don't obsess about why. Truth is, I couldn't do it. But the quality of my workout is going to equal the watts I cranked out--nothing more, nothing less. When you ride by HRM or (ridiculous) pace, it's not the truth. There were periods yesterday where I was going 30MPH, and others where I could only go 16MPH. What's the truth about how hard I was working? It was the same.

Now running. Again, I no longer wear an HRM. It's all about pace. And either I can hold pace, or I can't. Pace will vary depending on how far I'm going or how long I've biked beforehand.

Sometimes I wish I was a lot younger, because I can feel now that I'm at a point where I could really kick some serious butt racing. But there are other rewards for my efforts--I get to ride with guys, I have people asking me to run with them (good runners), and I get a lot of respect, for if nothing else, I look fast. And I usually look like I'm enjoying the work, even while I may be yelling "OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD" going uphill into a 15MPH headwind during a brick run like yesterday or needing to push 110% of FTP watts on the bike. And especially when I'm going the opposite direction of a whole peloton of roadies, going fast, like yesterday, tucked low into the aerobars cranking out some serious wattage.

This fitness doesn't come easily, but I'm happy I have it for whatever "rewards" it might bring. Mostly I just enjoy training when I have to really work at it. Don't get me wrong--every now and then a nice, leisurely bike or run is called for, but those workouts are few and far between. I do stop and smell the proverbial roses. During yesterday's ride (my first of the year in Fermilab, I made 2 nature stops (aside from 2 stops to pee). The first was to inquire as to a group of folks with binoculars looking up at Wilson Hall (the main administrative building). I asked what they were looking at, and they said a peregrine falcon, and did I want to look through the scope? I looked up, clearly saw the bird, and declined the scope. I related that when I used to work downtown Chicago, I once observed a parent peregrine teaching a youngster how to dive. I wished them a happy day, and soldiered on. Later on, I noticed what I thought was a small turtle in the road, attempting to cross. I kept going, but my nature loving self got the best of me and I stopped, went back, and sure enough, it was a baby painted turtle! He might have been run over trying to get to the pond on the other side of the road (there are many ponds in Fermilab--click on the previous link to see all about the nature stuff in there!), so I picked him up, put him in my bike jersey, and transported him as close to the other pond as I could get him. It smelled so nice in there yesterday--lilacs are blooming, there is wild phlox everywhere, and it's just gorgeous. Lucky me, I get to go back there again today!

My bags are nearly packed for Colorado, my yard looks absolutely beautiful (I promise there will be photos once I'm back home on a weekly basis--you wouldn't believe it), and believe it or not, I feel pretty great this morning considering I'm already to 16 training hours through yesterday and I've got 3:40 more to go today.

Have a great Sunday and remember to really see what's in front of you!