Back Home

Flew back to CO on Friday afternoon, sad to leave family but good to be back home.

I got the full weather treatment in Indiana: rain on arrival, then gloomy, then a couple of days of sun, then snow, then rain again. Not like the Colorado's almost-always-sunny-in-the-morning-then-who-knows? weather. I arrived to clear skies and a colorful sunset.

We made a very tiny dent in sorting family possessions for the parents' move, and I'm contemplating another trip out there. However, I came across a few gems like this photo of my grandmother (father's side) when she graduated from CSU in 1926:

I wish all my photos looked that good!

Ditto for the photos of my young parents. I particularly like one where they are walking into the guest house at her parents' in Denver soon after their wedding, carrying the suitcases they still own and have downstairs. They were 21 and 23 years old, and it always forces a comparison with the way I was at their age.

In addition to all the photos my parents will keep, I have two boxes full of my stuff shipping home to look at. Some of it is school assignments, artwork, and clippings from newspapers. There's one from about age 9 where I won LLH (low, low hurdles) for my age group, probably the last time I won any race, since I didn't run after that until I was 37. There are some rather blunt school reports about me, including "he talks to others and bothers them" followed by "he's somewhat of a loner" (well, which is it? Um... maybe because I was told to shut up?) Then again, I guess those are not too far off the mark.

Snowy Evening

The view from my parents' porch in Indiana:

The property is about 0.7 acre, with woods behind. When I grew up there were essentially open lots next door, and we had the run of the place. Not exactly wilderness, but you grew to enjoy the outdoors.

Bloomington Snow Run

It seems I am to get every variation possible in weather during this trip to Indiana. On Tuesday morning, fluffy snow was quietly falling. It was pretty warm by snow standards, which was pleasant, but this also meant slush.

I ran in to the IU campus and turned around, about 10 miles round trip. It was peaceful and not too dripping wet as long as I ran on the grass and on well-drained sidewalks. Glad I wore the wool socks.

I stopped in the Chemistry building for the restroom, water, and to snap a few pictures.

Distance 10.20 miles, moving time 1:40, and elevation gain/loss 330 feet.

Sorting And Foreshadowing

My brother and I will spending a portion of the week sorting and cleaning stuff in our parents' basement, to help with their final push out to Colorado, and it's been fun looking at some of it.

I'm wondering if I drew this after a childhood trip up the Poudre River, while on vacation from Indiana:

Although I didn't grow up in Colorado, my grandma's family had a cabin up there and we stayed there at least one time. It was later destroyed -- um, "purchased" -- to make way for Highway 14. Apparently it was about a mile down from Cameron Pass, near a big island in the river, and was built so my great-grandfather could stay there while he was an engineer working on a reservoir near the pass.

I obviously found some mountains compelling enough to draw them later.

I did not, however, become an astronaut, jet pilot, or see any giant dragons as per my other drawings. Funny how that works out.

Sunday Yellowwood Run

On Christmas Day, which was 50 degrees and sunny, my brother and I managed to squeeze in a quick run at nearby (i.e. 15 minutes) Yellowwood State Forest. He was planning to ride, but the rough roads might have hurt his delicate road bike ;) so he ran a loop around the lake with me instead. In his hiking shoes. And may have gone farther than I did in the same time.

Here he is running on the invisible trail:

There's really nothing other than a fishing trail on the east side, so we ran through brambles and over slippery moss until we got to the dam. Then, we searched along the wide creek for a good crossing point, scraping our legs some more.

We got separated briefly at the dam where there was a "Y", but he soon realized his error and cut through woods and swamp to get back to the lake and complete the loop a bit behind me.

The trail around the lake was on the Tecumseh Trail on the west side, and on gravel road and woods on the east. I really enjoyed running through my home terrain after years of running mountains. I felt both strong, and yet challenged by the rolling trail.

The country road back to the parking lot:

Distance was 6.02 miles, moving time 1:08, elevation gain/loss 455 feet. We were on a time constraint because we were going to help prep for dinner, but hopefully I can come back and run a bit more here.

Saturday Run Etc.

Saturday I went for another run near home, to "shake out" the legs from the previous day's run. It was great weather and I just wanted to get outside.

I ran on the neighborhood streets, touched base with a friend's father who was out walking, and did a lap or so on nearby streets.

After the 13 miles on Friday, I found the MT10 had worked my outer toe joint to the point of tenderness, and I really couldn't wear those shoes again without some rest. I ended up cutting the rubber strap over the forefoot, and ran in the Cascadias in the meantime.

I explored the terrain around the new neighborhood to the east. Vines choked the trees and coiled along the old property line fence:

I used to cut these vines open with a knife to get a sip of water when I wandered the woods as a kid. More of a novelty and not exactly a gusher, but something. Sometimes we'd cut the bottom of the vine and swing out over ravines and ponds. We used to climb them like monkeys, sometimes crashing to the ground when they ripped from the branches above.

Back home, the holiday provisions slowly gathered. I'm a $7 bottle of wine kind of guy, so I don't usually see the name "Chateauneuf-du-Pape" on a wine bottle. The beer around here isn't bad either.

Run distance was 5.2 miles, moving time 55:54, elevation gain/loss 262 feet. Funny, that's not drastically different from my streets at home in Colorado.

Hoosier Half

The air has been thick and gloomy in Indiana, without the clockwork AM sunshine of Colorado. The dampness produced by this weather is evident everywhere, in the mud, the moss, the leaves. Too bad it's not summer so I can get pictures of how amazingly green it gets during the warmer months.

A large oak in the back yard
Behind the tree is the woods that start at the property line. There are miles of forest we used to wander through as kids, oblivious to the fences of apparently benevolent owners who never hassled us.

I ran into town, cutting through woods to another road, and passing a hidden cemetery that is now dwarfed by the empty new subdivision next to it (with new streets that allow me to avoid running along a highway). The date on the pictured tombstone is 1869, and there were others I couldn't even read. Old neighbors.

I grew up just on the edge of town, so it's a few miles into the city along suburban lanes and bike paths I used to ride to the university. I had a rough plan of connecting neighborhoods and paths, and probably the campus, but that was about it. I just meandered down the path of least resistance and finally made it downtown. The the center of town is a courthouse right out of Back to the Future:

I ran back through the IU campus:

My neighborhood. In the summer, the lush green closes in like the jungle compared to CO:

Distance was 13.62 miles, moving time 2:09 (actual 2:22), and elevation gain/loss 601 feet.

There were no big hills in town to speak of, but as I said the area is not exactly flat. At least the slopes in the city are gradual, and it's only 800 feet above sea level, almost exactly 5,000 feet below where I live now. I felt pretty good and I'm sure the extra oxygen had something to do with it. Ran in the MT10.

Heading Home

I'm off to Indiana tomorrow to visit family in my home town. Right on schedule, a snow storm has arrived in time to mess up travel and for me to not ski in :\

I took this picture Wednesday evening up near the open space on 2-second exposure while it was snowing. I could see 3 coyotes making their way down the valley and whistled. They stopped, looked up, and ducked into the brush. The wind was blowing and you can see the blurred bushes in front. The terrain slopes up to the right towards Green Mountain (Lakewood).

Scott raced near Bloomington IN recently, finishing at a park down the road where we used to picnic. Hopefully I can make it out there to hit the trails while I'm there; I've never run trails there because I didn't start running until much later in life. As you can see from this map, the area is not exactly flat, and the race web site claims 3,500 feet of elevation change for the marathon:


View Larger Map
It's basically a lot of wooded hills, and is a bit of a road cyclists' paradise, especially after the movie Breaking Away, which was filmed in the area.

Minimalism So Far

My current footwear has become a pair of Five Fingers and the New Balance MT10. I don't know what anyone else derives from such minimalist footwear -- if they use it at all -- but for me:

• I enjoy it
• I run better

The latter point has to do primarily with the fact that my knee motion was all over the place and was resulting in knee tension and soreness that was not getting better between runs. By mid-summer, it was freaking me out enough that I wondered if I'd have to stop running. As I look down while running now (with new shoes and adjusted form), I can see that my knees track almost perfectly true forward and backwards.

• I am slower

There's no doubt I've had to slow down to keep the footsteps light and gentle. But since I don't worry about competition or train for racing, I don't really care all that much. And as my strength increases, I'll step it up some.

Maybe most interesting has been the fact that

• The shoes better match my feet

And this goes beyond simply having better running form, to the matter of actually matching in shape and function, i.e. they are wider in the forefoot and let my toes actually work. I wasn't really expecting this, but using the Five Fingers has made me very aware when my toes are being constricted, and with standard running shoes that is always.

Imagine if you taped your toes together into a cone shape and then tried to walk barefoot. That's what my old shoes do. The more I think about it and live without it, the stranger it seems. How are my feet supposed to work properly when they're stuffed into a tube? What parts have gotten weaker over the years as a result?

I'm not sure where this process will lead, but preliminary results are good and it sure is interesting.

At some point I'll post a discussion of criticisms of the minimalist trend ;)

Sunday Green Mtn Lakewood

I probably overdid it today by doing another 16 trail miles today (that took me forever). But I sort of wanted to stick with the early AM plan I had going, and the weather was too good to pass up.

Distance was 16.01 miles, moving time 3:44 (total 4:24), and elevation gain/loss 2,738 feet. Shoe: MT10.


Average moving pace was a glacial 14:03.

I really didn't screw around much, but there was a lot of mud and a bit of hiking, and towards the end I was out of water and hot, and was lying in the snow and putting fistfuls of snow in my cap to cool off (and that was in shorts and a T-shirt). I jogged most of it, but there was walking. And my pace in the MT10 is slow and careful.


I liked the almost perfect separation of rock colors here:


This is one of the few non-rocky sections of Box O' Rox, with Mount Morrison in the background:


It's a good trail to use to ascend the west side if you don't want to use the Jeep road. Pro: it's singletrack and the grade is less extreme. Cons: it's narrow and in the summer you'd be stopping for bikes a lot.

I ended up running Zorro up Dakota Ridge on the other side of Highway 470 (there's a pedestrian bridge), which was a slow, nasty mud-fest. It was terrible.

But on top of the hogback there was a mix of easy packed snow and well-drained or dry sandy soil. Fantastic! I turned around where the trail crosses the road (Alameda, now closed to traffic) at the hairpin turn on top. Below is a typical section. There are cliffs on the right, so don't trip!


I actually have a positive bike story this time, so people don't think I'm 100% curmudgeon even though I have a MTB of my own now. No big deal, but there were 3 really good bikers coming down the hogback on one of the steeper sections. The trail is ridiculous; it's super rocky, and there are 20-foot plus drops off the cliffs on the right. Anyway, these guys were totally in control on the way down, no skidding, nothing. Lead guy in particular was really good, said hi, "Two more", "Have a nice day" or whatever and just weaved his way down through the rock slabs on his Niner. Impressive. I wish I had thought to get video.

Conditions on the shaded east and north sides of Green are still wintry and crisp:


I was totally wiped after this run, drank a ton of water, forced down some food and rested on the bed for 45 minutes. I couldn't nap because I had stuff to do.

I went shopping and it's now later in the evening and I feel like I've had a significant outing of some kind, but there are no particular areas of discomfort. No significant pains. That's pretty awesome.

My MT10s, on the other hand, are a mess and I'm going to have to wash them and use the boot drier on them again, because the mesh holds dirt like crazy. And I've made them my work shoes (casual office) so they have to be good to go tomorrow.

Saturday Green Mtn Lakewood

I admit to still having some insecurity about wearing minimalist shoes, half expecting my foot to blow up out on trail and have to limp home. (Angry hippie voice:) "He's been brainwashed by the fascist thick-sole conspiracy theorists, man!" It's still early in the process, and I have not done anything approaching the type of runs I was doing early this year, in the 20-25 mile range.

Nonetheless, today's outing at Green Mountain in Lakewood helped move me towards that confidence a bit.

Distance was 14.02 miles, moving time 2:49 (actual 3:18) and elevation gain/loss 2,339 feet. Shoe: MT10.

I'd say I'm about 1-2 minutes per mile slower in minimal shoes, because I negotiate the terrain gently and without the impunity of running in highly a padded shoe. Uphills are not that different, but downhills are way slower.


This one took me all the way around the mountain in a lollipop. I ran ravines up to the top, then on Rooney Valley trail, then returned around the south and east on official and social trails, re-ascended via another ravine, then down another ravine to finish. Basically I got to the top and it felt good, so I just kept running. Easy, maintainable pace.

Bobcat? These were small and about 10-15 inches apart.
It was pretty muddy throughout, and I had to dance around the edge and over tiny snow islands to avoid the slick mud.


I shot this through my sunglasses to get the contrast of the polarized material:


I noticed today there is conglomerate sandstone with rocks embedded in it all over the place. This appears in between bands of striped dirt and soft sandstone.


The den

Saturday I think I found out where the coyotes hang out.

For the first time I followed a ravine on the east side that I knew had a lot of trees in it, and to some extent saw human traffic. There were fort-like structures obviously built by kids out of branches, and some rusted equipment. As I ascended, the ravine grew progressively narrower, until I was nearly bushwhacking through a tunnel of branches in deepening powder in my shorts and T-shirt (it was 35 but sunny -- I learned my lesson from being too hot the other day).

There were tall cottonwoods in this ravine; I didn't even realize there were trees this big high on the mountain. And there was a tiny stream down the middle, which animals had obviously been drinking from.

As I ascended, human footprints were replaced with paw and hoof prints, and soon I was running through a steep-sided ravine tracked with nothing but countless canine prints spotted with urine here and there. It was damned creepy. I was pretty much walking through a den when the dogs were out for the day. And sure enough, as I exited the gully, a coyote spotted me and turned and ran away over the ridge.

Maybe I won't go up that ravine in the winter.


Looking back towards the coyote den:


It was a pretty decent workout running up that snowy field to the trail near the top. The photo is from about halfway up the field.

Ape man

Odd experience. At one point I was running downhill, and the toe next to my big toe started feeling chafed. Then I realized it was sort of curling, almost like running on a closed fist, and the corner of it was getting sensitive from the friction. Is it that after so many years of being a useless appendage, my toes assume a fetal position in the middle of a technical section of a run? WTH. So I concentrated on keeping them stretched flat and forward. I had the distinct sensation of reaching with them as if with a hand, to grasp the ground. Yep, I'm a primate.

The legs were a bit more hammered this time, but I didn't have the calf pain even though I ran farther than before. I'm starting to relax my stride. The knees are feeling it and still had some slight edema on the right, but no soreness comparing to this summer. I'm now 99% sure it's just connective tissue irritation.

I have a theory on why my formerly solid leg health crashed and burned this year, but I'll wait until I've got a bit more mileage on these kicks.

AM Short Run

I overcame my body's clock to get out for a short one this AM. It was nice to have some light, but there's a lot more exhaust on the sidewalk sections on my way to the open space since people are leaving for work. Never really noticed that before when running off-hours.

This is one of several ravines leading to the mountain proper, which I call Glamorous Gulch for its scraps of concrete and telephone (?) wires:


Hey, it's dirt, it's off-street, and neither I nor the omnipresent wildlife care about the aesthetics. Just makes me chuckle. Coyotes sleep here and use it as a commuter highway.

Early sunlight on snow:


I explored some pathways I saw behind some sort of public maintenance facility that connect two entrances to city open space. Good to have another link between points.

Not sure the 3/4 tights work really well with deeper snow, since I had ice forming on my calves I had to scrape off.

Distance 3.66 miles, moving time 37:22, and elevation gain/loss 259 feet.

Green Lakewood Walk

Did a quick late hike part way up Green Mountain in Lakewood, then ran down through the snow in my pants and jacket -- because I wasn't expecting to run and had my walking/hiking clothes on. Wore the MT10s.

But I couldn't help myself.

Beautiful and a lot of fun playing in the snow.

Picasa/Blogger Image Change?

For a while on Sunday, my banner image appeared smaller than usual. I didn't think I'd changed the code, but it was appearing at 512 pixels wide instead of the full width.

I then experimented with the URL in my Blogger template by forcing the actual width to the banner image's correct size of 863 pixels wide (I added part in bold, including a slash):

.../QhoLFYCEwRs/s863/Banner_Indian_Peaks_2.jpg

Then it showed correctly again. Did Picasa/Blogger servers change their default behavior? In other words, if you omit the image size from the URL, do they no longer always pass the full-sized image? If you find this happening to you, try adding "s" + the width in pixels like I did above.

Green Lakewood Run

Thought about running the Chubstah on Saturday, for a good run and company, but several reasons conspired to make me stay home. Early. Cold. Far. Long (compared to what I've been running lately).

I'm sure it was fun; I'll make it some time. Still not really used to long cold-weather runs, and... not an early riser.

Lately I've been trying to run in a more minimalist/natural?/barefoot? shoe, and since I don't really have any such thing that I can wear in snow, I spent this week trying on shoes at home. With trepidation, I chose the New Balance MT10 (original Minimus) in 11 1/2 D.

They worked pretty well Saturday in snow on Green Mountain in Lakewood.


The photos are probably misleading, because even at 35 degrees, it was hot in the sun. I ran in short sleeves and then put the long sleeves back on in the shadows. There was a runner on top of Green in a T and shorts.

Saw two coyotes on my run up. I took the next photo right after scaring one out of the ravine about 20 feet below me (it's long-gone).

I like twisty trees
The photo below shows my reason for choosing the Minimus over other shoes, better than a side view: it has a wide, flexible toe box. And it's actually shaped like my foot.

Plenty of room
The socks are SmartWool casual socks. These socks rocked down to -13 last winter, but were a bit too toasty this time.

Traction of the MT10 on snow was not super, but it was adequate. I'd probably opt for spikes sooner than if I were wearing the Cascadias.

Below is the view from the top. The high point in the middle is Mount Tom, and farther to the right are the Flatirons:


Here is a shaky video of lower part of the descent. I'm not really going that fast, about 7:30-8:30 tops, but the cadence is quick because I'm not braking. I actually missed the best part which was the steeper upper section in partially-broken powder. Yee-ha! If you can't see the embedded video, click here.

Strange echo in the background, which makes it sound like I was carrying a sloshing bucket of water. ??

MT10 Pros:

• The sole is not as thin as the Five Fingers but you can still feel the trail and it flexes quite a bit, so you have to be somewhat careful on rocks and gentle on pavement. That's a "pro" because I want to run gently.
• The overall feel was really nice.
• I didn't have any issues with them slipping on the foot.
• The left heel that still has a scab started to sting, so I stuck one of my gloves under my heel with the wrist portion sticking over the back of the shoe, and that allowed me to complete the run pain-free. The other heel was fine.
• I didn't have any issues yet with the rubber band over the forefoot that some have commented about (saw this during online research).

Cons:

• I am wary of heels that have abrupt edges. The MT10 has a thin bead around the heel at the top, which could potentially become a hot spot (this edge was irritating my prior injury). We'll see how it goes.
• I'm also not sure why NB uses really thin tongues, since the laces can dig into the top of your foot. IMO, that's one area that should always be padded, or maybe nobody but me has nerves in the top of their foot.

In general, no major issues and I enjoyed running in them.

My soleus muscles, however, are not super happy. Still adjusting to thinner shoes.

Distance was 8.43 miles, moving time 1:39, and elevation gain/loss 1,247 feet. Longest so far in minimalist footwear.