Activity Summary - September 2011

Monthly totals have almost become a masochistic exercise, since I've run so little lately. September's totals are:

Running

• Count: 7
• Distance: 49.33
• Time: 18:21:33
• Elevation Gain: 13,832

Riding

• Count: 7
• Distance: 96.99
• Time: 12:23:51
• Elevation Gain: 3,975

This graph sheds some light on just how injury-addled this year has been. My recent peak months were November and March, which are not typically big months.


Looking at the ramp upwards during 2010, I can also venture a guess as to why I'm currently afflicted with tendonitis: I ran too much compared to what my body was used to doing. I thought I could stay ahead of the curve with stretching and massage, but it didn't happen that way.

I'm still resting and taking it easy, and doing runs with lots of recovery in between.

I'm not going to talk about what the future may hold. It's just guessing anyway.

Green Area Dusk Ride

After work I dropped my stuff off at home, threw on the bike gear, and went for a quick after-sunset ride. The air was 65-70 degrees, nice and cool. I rode in the vicinity of Green Mountain in Lakewood, part trail, part streets, hence the post title.

This photo was taken walking up a short steep uphill, in the middle of an open field below Green. You can just see lights from the last row of homes between me and the hill. Or I should say the main hill, because it's all uphill.


It was pretty much black without the light, so this was a tentative ride. Lots of these trails are rutted and I have a hard enough time staying on track during the day. Nonetheless it was fun to be out there.

No coyotes or other critters tonight.

Distance was 6 miles, time 42 minutes, elevation gain/loss 478 feet.

My folks are passing through this weekend and timing got shuffled at the last minute, so I'm still not sure what I'm doing for recreation. Something involving fall leaves and mountains probably ;)

Mount Galbraith Pics 2

No run, hike, ride or anything else today, so leftover photos it is.

I liked last night's photo by itself, but also a few others. Typical Colorado shrubbery:


The city of Golden is right over the 2nd ridge below. Hard to believe it's so close, but the TH is only a mile or so up the highway.


Fall color around here shows up in shrubs and plants, in addition to stands of aspen and cottonwoods. Small patches of color:

Mount Galbraith Walk

The fact that it's a 30-minute walk doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. The setting sun, the rugged dirt and rock path ascending along a steep hillside, cotton-candy clouds, the increasingly autumnal foliage.


I didn't think I was ready for another run, as I could still feel the effects of Saturday, so I just stayed in work clothes and hiked a bit.

Local Evening Ride

Laundry day: 25 minutes of riding, followed by another 40 minutes. Sun sets at 6:50, so here comes the season of the night shots.

I got an inexpensive headlamp/tailight set for my bike, not of the retinal-damage, cuts-through-trees sort used by pro bikers and Twin Daddies, but a Bell you can find at Wal-Mart in Durango on a hurried shopping trip for other stuff. Regardless, it helps cut the darkness and allows me to be seen more easily by cars. Here I pulled over on a nearby hill for the usual city lights shot:


I was wrong about having no knee pain after Green on Saturday; I felt it last night and during my ride today. At least it's minimal. And it's still the knee I fell on while biking (onto sand/dirt, thank goodness) that is more problematic. Connective tissue just takes a long time to heal.

Ride distance was 8.5 miles, moving time 50 minutes, elevation gain/loss 620 feet.

If I really want to be serious about night riding, I'm going to pay the bucks for a bright rechargeable lamp (and probably one for my helmet too). But summer vacation sort of snuck up and bit my budget, so I'll wait a bit.

It's Aspen Time

If you haven't been up to the mountains in the past couple of weeks, the trees are really starting to turn. At about 8,500 feet there's a good amount of gold and I even saw an orange one.

Inspired by Jim P and WildChildT, I finally went to Maxwell Falls in the Arapaho National Forest. Although the creek is just a trickle (so the falls are almost dry), the trees are beautiful and the views from the cliffs are great. I missed the lower trailhead as I was driving up, so this hike was from the upper TH, and does not involve the longer ascent from the lower lot.

At the first junction I took the Cliff Loop trail, which leads up out of the forest into some short aspens and pines. Nice terrain.

On the cliff loop
The upper trails of this park seem to be mostly dirt and pale pink/orange granite sand. Rocks along the cliff are pretty interesting and warrant investigation if you have time.


The cliffs flow along for several hundred yards, and have great views over the valley to the patches of aspen on the hills. There are homes way up on the mountainsides.


I felt the adrenaline while walking near the edge of these cliffs. The afternoon light and bright sky was tough to shoot in, because the sky was bright and the valley was dark. For photography, it would be better to arrive before the western sky lights up:


On the way back through the cliffs there are short aspens and pines and the terrain is fairly open:


With the sun shining, this section was great.



I took a left at the Maxwell Falls sign and dropped down into the canyon. It's only a short walk down, and the rocks are pretty impressive, but hard to get a photo of because you're right in the canyon.

On the other side there's a trail, so I crossed to that side and hiked/ran along groves of aspen.


Unfortunately back near the parking lot, you find evidence that not everybody treats forests with care:

Our mommies will clean up after us
I don't exactly carry around trash bags and gloves wherever I go, or I'd have picked some of this mess up.


As I left Maxwell Falls, I kept going on 78 and drove towards Conifer just to see what it was like. The road tops out around 8,900 feet on an unnamed pass, then rolls down through some beautiful high valley country to US 285. Amazingly, the surrounding mountains are packed with homes, even this far up in the mountains. I work with a guy who lives in Conifer, but man, that must be a long, tough drive. Don't think I haven't thought about it, though.

I also stopped at Meyer Ranch since I knew of some aspens up there too. I got a few shots but the light was getting dim so they weren't the best of the lot. No matter, I had a nice hike/run with some fall color.


Total (mostly hiking) mileage for the day was about 5 miles, roughly 2 hours of moving time, and 700 feet of elevation gain/loss.

I didn't do too much running on these outings, since I was a bit sore from the prior day. I did do the "keeping it loose" type of run now and then... just because. It's fun.

I'm pretty darn sore in the quads on Monday, grabbing the rail to ease my descent down stairs. That's what I get for running Green after 6 weeks of near-inactivity.

Green Boulder Run

I dodged the bullet regarding work this weekend. We're all sitting at the office at 8:30 PM on Friday, eating dinner and talking about what had to be done (it was too much to do that evening), and I was dreading the possibility of losing another weekend or weekend day. Thankfully, the call was made that we were all pretty burnt and we'd take the weekend off, and would just deal with things on Monday. Phew!

I hadn't had a Boulder fix in a while, so I ended up at Chautauqua just before 11 AM on Saturday.

I parked on a side street and ran up through the Gregory lot, then headed up Gregory Canyon. Lots of sweating in the full sun.

Flats before the ranger cabin
After a month and a half without regular running, I was feeling it only about half way up Gregory. I hiked a lot of the ups today.


Made the top in 1:07 via Gregory-Ranger-Greenman.


I'm trying to show the sensation of sitting on the summit rock below. It was a fantastic day and I just sat up there for about 5 minutes.

Attack of the giant shoes! Run!
The run down was quick, or so I thought until a 60-ish dude and an 11-ish-year-old girl dropped me.

Later they slowed and I passed them, and the guy said "Follow that runner down!", which resulted in her being about 3 feet behind me on technical trail, which was annoying (yet impressive), so I stopped and let them run by. I walked a bit to let them get some distance. Next up: "Hey, go bother that dog!"


As I was saying, the run down was quick -- for me, just not 60-somethings and little kids. I was hitting all the rocks down Gregory pretty well, and probably took too many risks, but it was one of the days I was just "on".

I was also aiming to keep braking and knee/quad tension to a minimum, although that's pretty hard on that trail. Lots of steps.


Distance was 7.26 miles, moving time 1:42, elevation gain/loss 2,559 feet.

After a bunch of stretching in the shade, I headed into town for lunch, and to just mellow out. It was Fall Festival time, so it was crowded but still pleasant.

There is a huge cottonwood at the west end of Pearl, which Boulder residents are probably familiar with. It's a fantastic tree:


Today I noticed for the first time that on the corner, there is a huge tree stump carved into a bench, with some small historical plaques on top. Apparently 10 cottonwoods were planted in the 1870s by the builder of the home next to them, and it's one of those ten trees. Here's the house:

The Arnett-Fullen House
I had little or no knee-specific pain afterwards, which is good. My quads and leg tendons definitely felt the hit, and were pounded by the 1/2-mile ascent and descent. On Sunday I have muscle aches mostly in the quads, probably because they are just not used to the abuse any more.

But I'm heartened by the lack of central knee tendon/tissue issues, because that's what I've been trying to improve and avoid. Sweet.

Don't Hike In Iran

The hikers who were arrested for spying by the Iranian government and had two years of their lives wasted are finally home.

Yeah, hiking there was probably too risky, but that does not justify what the Iranian government did. It was kidnapping for ransom. Everyone arrested by a dictatorship is a "spy". Duh.

Yet anywhere you see this story, you see cynical commenters blaming the hikers (I don't believe they were just hiking, they shouldn't have been there) or blaming greed (they're in it for the movie rights). Ever hear of Robert Young Pelton? The climbers kidnapped as told in the book Over the Edge? War correspondents? The Peace Corps? Doctors Without Borders? etc. etc. Some people thrive on going to edgy places, or just want to help others, or access the wild places that happen to be near edgy places. If so much of the Middle East weren't war-torn or under dictatorship, I'd consider going there. It's beautiful.

The only thing wrong with this story is that we are allegedly the most powerful country on earth, yet we are prey to common kidnappers, and nothing else will come of it. We should have dealt with Iran in 1979. The cost will only rise with time...

Unfortunately we are a nation with low self-esteem. We don't even think we have a right to drive our cars, let alone stand up for our national interests.

Belmar Sunset

This is why I keep a camera handy. I'm driving home Thursday, and the sky starts to look promising. It's nice out, so I drive over to Belmar Park for a short walk. The sky lit up for only about 15 minutes:

Green Lakewood Mini

I parked up near the open space so I could get past the homes to the good stuff more quickly. Ran 2/3 of the way up the hill, it was getting dark, tried to shortcut straight up a ridge and it was farther than I thought so I turned around. Isn't that always the way with hills?


I had lightning flashing behind me as I was running, lighting up the hill briefly. I ran down almost in the dark. The headlights of passing cars helped a bit once I got near the bottom. No headlamp.


Distance 2.36 miles, time 33:52, elevation gain/loss 605 feet.

Because I've been resting a lot lately, the proportion of stretching and massage has gone up exponentially relative to the number of miles/days I'm running. I'm finally starting to feel looser and better on a regular basis. Looking back I'm thinking I may have just fallen behind with this. Going forward, I'll have to make sure that doesn't happen again. Always looking for root causes.

Thursday the day after, the body feels good.

So, I think I will gradually start to add in short runs every few days, as long as they continue to have little or no impact on how I feel. There will be no return to multi-day weeks for now. We'll see how it goes.

South Table Walk

Skies from a Tuesday walk near NREL, next to South Table Mountain.


It was pretty chilly, and I had to wear a jacket. Fall is almost here. I really like warm weather, so I can't say I'm ready.

This is just a short way above the houses, but already the sound of crickets was replacing sounds of the street as I wandered uphill for a brief chill-out.


A friend linked to this article about the "myth" that employers create jobs, suggesting that it's consumers. Sigh. Last time I checked, sales take both a producer and a buyer, it's not either-or. Unfortunately, the same half-right idea drives economic "stimulus" (i.e. clumsy, destructive, forced-transfer-of-wealth) policy, which is one reason why our recovery is dragging out forever. Anybody check the housing market lately? Still not selling? Hint, hint.

Since I'm on the topic of miscellaneous stuff, I've really been enjoying Tony Bourdain's No Reservations series on DVD. What an enjoyable show. He can be predictably cynical and at times, but has a wicked sense of humor, knows good food and visits a lot of interesting places. Some of my favorites: Mexico, Sardinia, Brazil, Uruguay and Hong Kong.

The Iranian kidnappers released their victims, for the requisite pay-off. MR2 will not be hiking near Iran any time soon. Too bad, lots of amazing places to see over there.

And of course DADT ended yesterday. Nice that yet another group of people will be treated like human beings with equal rights. Unless they want to marry of course. I like this quote from Admiral Mike Mullen: "It was fundamentally against everything we stand for as an institution to force people to lie about who they are just to wear a uniform," Mullen added. "We are better than that."

In Which I Rode For A Beer

I did not need to work Sunday, so I enjoyed my first day off in two weeks by going for a long ride. From my place, along Bear Creek to the Platte to Breckenridge's Ale House downtown, and back.

51 miles, a new distance PR on the bike.

My plans shifted as I went into the weekend, based on how I was feeling at the time. In the end I kind of wanted to give the knees further rest, so I decided that a flat bike ride (low torque, high turnover) would best and close to home. I intended to cut through singletrack/parks whenever possible for fun and to put the shocks to use.

While I would not call myself an environmentalist (doesn't exactly mix with my Ayn Rand leanings to say the least), I liked the idea of not driving, and starting from home. It seemed dumb to drive to a trailhead, since I have legs. Clean air is a plus. Good deal all around.

After all, I'm the person who always parks in the back of every parking lot away from all the other cars and walks the extra distance to the door.

Main Reservoir in Lakewood
From my place I rode down to the Bear Creek Trail, which goes all the way from Morrison to Englewood and the Platte River Trail. I had never ridden the entire length and was curious what it was like. The eastern portion, not surprisingly, gets more urban, but is still pretty nice. It gets quite narrow in some parts and I hopped up onto the road instead for some of it. It did raise certain questions, such as:

• If you paint a yellow line down the middle of a sidewalk, is it really a bike path?
• If you take the parking lot behind some restaurant dumpsters and paint a yellow line on it, is that a bike path?
• If you pave the top of an 8-foot-wide flood control berm with no shoulder and 45-degree drops on the sides, is it a bike path?

Clearly the answer to all questions is YES!

This cool sculpture is behind the Denver Animal Shelter:

Good dog!
Once on the Platte Trail, it's quite a few miles north to Denver proper. At some point, there is also a detour, which goes behind the power plant (?) and over to where the Broncos were playing (lots of orange and crowd noise). I can't tell you much more about that place except it's something "Mile High", because the name is too long to remember. Everyone, please stop making place names like "Noun ABC at Location XYZ by EFG for PDQ".

Let's put the exhaust up high where nobody will notice
Below is the roller coaster at Elitch Gardens. People screamed right on cue as I rode by.


I have no photos of the middle section of my ride, or documentary evidence of actually having been to the Ale House. You'll have to take my word for it. I was trying to make time, ride straight on the skinny trail, and unsuccessfully keep up with roadies in spandex. Damned wind resistance. Frickin' knobby tires.

At the Ale House I locked my bike and clomped up to the upper patio, which was perfect. I had a Rumble IPA from Great Divide and a Reuben. It was OK but not anything a New Yorker would recognize as such, with a bit too much broiling (dry-ish) as opposed to grill and butter (moist). The fries however were fresh and awesome. Just to be clear:

The Ale House at Amato's has 42 beers on tap.
And there are lots of good beers too, not filler beers like a lot of places. Solid offerings. Check out the menu at the link above.

On the way back, there was about 30 miles of this:

I can't see and I'm taking a picture while riding
I exaggerate. It was actually a nice day and a nice ride back, and I managed it on a full stomach. My hands were getting tired, and my bum was getting sore. Those are the only two drawbacks of the flat sections back to Lakewood. I enjoyed a bit of rolling singletrack along the rivers.

Along Bear Creek there's a little kicker in the woods, right over a roller that thankfully I knew about from my running. If you go too far right you launch right into a tree. The tree has no bark left on the front of it. Ouch.

When I got back to the Estes/Kipling area of the bike path, which is where I picked it up on the way out, I just kept riding west. I hit the end of the paved path and rode up onto the dirt along Morrison Road, and walked to the top of the first hill:


Visibility was about 20% during certain parts of this ride because the sun was low, and I had to keep riding singletrack with one hand and shading my eyes with the other. Need a visor.


At a point where the dirt trail runs close to the road, I crossed over to Indiana and started riding up towards Green Mountain. What a slog, I was pretty tired. It was only 3 miles and 500 feet up (1,000 from Bear Creek), but it seemed like Everest. However, when I got to the top I had Green all to myself, cruising along on singletrack back towards home.


Total ride distance was 51.14 miles, time 6:27 (moving 4:34), and elevation gain 1,646 feet. Moving speed was 11 mph, max was 29.

I was pretty tired after this one, and I feel OK the next day, no significant soreness. However I don't think I'd want to sit on the saddle until mid-week.

Green In Lakewood At Dusk

I wanted to get outside Friday, if even for just a short while, and take a walk in the Five Fingers to see if more of a barefoot stride would feel different regarding my left knee, which had minor pain a bit today, after yesterday's run up to Windy Saddle.

As I walked the pain pretty much went away on its own, and I affirmed that my right foot is on the ground for too long. I could tell because in the hard-soled VFFs, the sounds my feet make are different. I adjusted the right stride shorter until they felt and sounded the same. The right foot is quite dominant.


It was a beautiful evening and it felt great to walk through the grass and dirt and feel the soles of my feet on the ground (albeit protected by a thin layer of rubber), toes hugging the terrain.


North towards Golden and Boulder:


Towards Denver:


Towards Green Mountain in Lakewood:


Between the last two photos, a coyote scooted out of my way, two shiny eyes looking back at me, bobbing quickly away in the brush. Like I said, I keep catching it on the way to dinner when I'm out in the evening.

As I walked with my headlamp I'd swivel around to see if I could catch its eyes again, but it was gone. I saw another one down near where I parked my car, but going uphill.

The night shift was heading out to work.

Windy Saddle Run

I did a short run after work in Golden, on trails that I thought would be abandoned because of afternoon showers, yet in good condition because the soil is mostly sandy at Windy Saddle (above the meadow at the bottom anyway).

I was right about the trail, but it turns out what seemingly happened instead is that all the diehard mountain bikers who like to ride fast were on the trail. D'oh!


I started up about 1/2 hour before sunset, and it was very muggy for around here. Distant hills were silvery and there was moisture in the air that clung to the skin. Fantastic.


Overheard drifting back up the canyon after two fast downhill bikers passed: "I always take the line over the rock where that guy was standing" (I was clinging to the side of the trail on a little stone to the let them by). So you mean the left-hand, inside line around a blind corner downhill over rock? Great -- that makes me want to use this trail.

Then again, bikes probably help keep the mountain lions away. Yikes. I keep thinking about Joe's encounter.


Here's a blurry School of Mines "M" lit up on the side of Lookout Mountain, as seen from the parking lot on US 6. You can see tail lights of cars driving up the road:


A friend who lives nearby told his little girls it stands for "Mommy Mountain".

Distance was 4.7 miles, time 1:00, and elevation gain/loss 1,083 feet. Average moving pace 11:20, best pace 6:15.

I think the latter is a GPS anomaly; my terminal velocity falling off a cliff is probably 5:30. I don't think I really ran that but it's fun to put it in a post anway.

In addition to resting, I've been doing a lot of leg maintenance lately: every day at least once a day, going over the legs on the roller, with The Stick, a bit of self-administered Graston on the PF, stretches for the calves, IT band, hamstrings and glutes. After my run I had zero pain on the right knee, which has not happened for a while. The left had some just to the inside of the kneecap, I think on the top of the lower bone (not sure). Still rubbing I guess. But I've read enough about PT taking care of knee tracking issues that I'm going to keep at it. I've always taken care of my calves, but it's possible that over the last year, with more regular year-round running, I might have fallen behind on my other scheduled maintenance. We'll see.

Work tomorrow (Saturday) and hopefully off on Sunday. Honestly, I started out not caring, but having my schedule up in the air recently, and our department missing almost a month of weekends this summer does not make me happy. Good thing I took a vacation on one of those weekends.