Day Off

very hot today - plus I'm lazy

Friday with the Family

55 minutes
easy pace
down and up the Bear Creek bike path pushing the running stroller with the boy and mommy

AM Mesa

49 minutes
easy pace
5:45am - cloudy and fairly cool - usual commuter route into work - felt great this morning - finally feel a little zippy again - but I went nice and easy this morning - will go faster or farther this weekend - a little cloud was snuggled up against the Flatirons this morning and I ran through it along the Mesa trail - that was cooler and more humid.

Humid Mesa

48 minutes
easy pace
5pm - mostly cloudy and fairly cool, but very humid - usual commuter route home from work via the Mesa trail - feel like I'm starting to shake off the doldrums - I've just felt slow and unmotivated the last few weeks, but I feel my legs coming back a bit - felt good today - sweatin' like a pig in this humidity.

Morning on the Mesa Trail

51 minutes
easy pace
5:40am - hazy sunrise - a little cooler today - usual route into work from home along the Mesa trail - saw a mule deer up on the knoll between Bear Canyon fire road and Yuri Pass - only saw one other person (a runner dude) on the trail this morning - felt great - rolled my left ankle quite nicely - after shaking off those first painful two minutes the ankle felt fine, but when I rolled it the top of my foot slammed into a rock - very bruised and a little sore - I guess it just makes me tougher.

Mesa Commute

49 minutes
easy pace
5:15pm - hot and sunny - usual commuter route home from work via the Mesa trail - seriously hot out in the sun today, but once in the trees on the Mesa it felt just fine - always tough to shake off a rest day (or two), but about half way home I started clickin' and feelin' it.

Off Again

just lazy today

Off

Legs are a bit tired from mountain biking - day off.

Buffalo Creek

[mountain bike]
approx. 2.5 hours
approx. average speed - 10mph
approx 25 miles
mid morning - hot and sunny, turned cloudy and rainy - first real ride of the season on my mountain bike - went out to Buffalo Creek with DJ - we rode our usual circuit - felt fantastic - climbing hills like they were almost flat - for sure did not have a lot of confidence descending, but climbing was special today - love to get that all-legs burn that running never gives me - need more miles on the bikes.

In in the Morning

51 minutes
easy pace
5:30am - super mellow run into work this morning - same commuter route as always.

Mesa to Home

47 minutes
easy pace
5pm - up 9th to Chautauqua, Mesa trail to Bear Creek Canyon fire road, Yuri Pass, Bear Mountain Park, Table Mesa Dr., and home (usual commuter route).

Commuter Route

50 minutes
easy pace
5:40am - same commuter route as always (including Yuri Pass).

Woods Quarry

55-ish minutes
easy pace
5pm - hot and sunny - same commuter route home from work but I added a little side trip up to Woods Quarry.

Morgul

[road bike]
1-1.5 hours
easy to moderate pace
hot and sunny - rode the Morgul-Bismark road loop from the house with KJ - felt weird to be on a road bike, but felt normal after an hour or so - those hills are tough but not nearly tough as I remember - good to get out there with KJ.

To the Slab

48 minutes
easy pace
evening - cool and cloudy, slight mist at higher elevations - did a hiking swap with Nee' and Sweets - ran from the Shanahan TH, up Big Bluestem, Mesa trail north to Fern Canyon, up Fern just to the Slab, stopped there, hiked down with the boy and mommy took off on a run from the Slab.

Friday Family Run

57 minutes
easy pace
6:30pm - down and up the Bear Creek bike path pushing Sweets in the running stroller while mommy ran alongside.

Morning Mesa

50 minutes
easy pace
5:30am - cool and mostly clear - same route into work as always - all week I've been feeling slow and unmotivated, but today I felt a little fire return - about halfway into the run my legs got lighter, my pace got faster, it felt easy again, and I was having fun - super easy pace today, but feeling like getting zippy again.

Damp Mesa Trail

52 minutes
easy pace
5:40am - mostly cloudy, cool, damp from yesterday's rain - usual route into work (no Yuri Pass) - felt bloated and slow and not into it - then I needed to stop for a digestive emergency at Chautauqua - felt a lot better after that - trails were a bit muddy, but nothing too bad - super mellow pace today.

Easy Rainy Mesa

52 minutes
easy pace
5:40am - cloudy, mist became steady light rain - same route as last night but in reverse and without Yuri Pass - headed out in very light mist, by the time I got up to the Mesa trail it was more like light rain, and as I ran down 9th St. into town it was a steady light rain - I was pretty soaked but it felt great - ran very easy and relaxed this morning - just enjoying the early morning rain - feelin' good.

Shakin' It Out

48 minutes
easy pace
5pm - sunny and very warm - ran home along my usual commuter route from work to the house - ran very easy but it didn't feel super easy - shakin' off a rest day is always tough, plus I'm still shakin' off the beers and crappy food that I consumed while camping over the weekend - finally started clicking the last ten minutes of the run - the big fallen pine tree has been cleared from the Bear Canyon fire road.

Off

broke camp early and came home - then got busy doing yard work - then got lazy

Devil's Playground

53 minutes
easy pace
mid-afternoon, mostly sunny, warm, light breeze - ran with Nee' today - headed out from our campsite at Vedauwoo and ended up circumnavigating the Devil's Playground - cool little area with lots of bulbous rocks and hoodoos and rock outcroppings with little singletrack trails going all over the place - those twenty minutes or so that we were hopping around among the rocks were so fun - sweet little tailwind coming back - felt great today - it's nice to run with Nee'.

Vedauwoo Meander

45 minutes
easy pace
late afternoon, mostly sunny, cool and windy - just did a little meander from our campsite at Vedauwoo (between Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyoming in the Medicine Bow National Forest) - wow, I could really feel the elevation here (about 8,000 ft.) - ran into a headwind going out, but the wind shifted so I also had a headwind coming back - never really got into the groove today.

Surveying of the Wind Damage

48 minutes
easy pace
5:40am - sunny, crystal clear blue sky, windy - same route as last night, but in reverse and without Yuri Pass - we had a ferocious windstorm last night (power lines arcing all over the place flashing throughout the neighborhood - kept me up most of the night) - it was still crazy windy out there, but nothing like the middle of the night - it was an interesting run as I was surveying all of the wind damage - a big branch in our neighbor's yard was filling our side yard - tree limbs down all over the place - three big pines (one about 18 in. diameter and 60 ft. tall) were draped across the Bear Canyon fire road, all in a little cluster (all just snapped off like toothpicks about 20 feet up) - it was at a place where the terrain was too steep to go around, so the only way through was through the trees, up and over, under, twisting around branches and trunks - I could tell that I was not the first to navigate through these trees as the bark was all scuffed up - 9th St. looked like a war zone (no big trees down, but branches and leaves and trash and patio furniture everywhere) - the Pearl Street Mall crew was busy filling their truck beds with tree limbs - Mother Nature sure can sock it to us when she wants to - the run was at a very easy pace, but the wind really sucked the energy out of me, so I was felt a bit more wiped afterward.

Cool & Breezy Mesa Run

47 minutes
easy pace
5pm - warm and sunny with a cool breeze - usual commuter route home from work via the Mesa trail - felt a bit tired today, not really zipping around as effortlessly as normal - it felt pretty hot where I was protected from the wind, but it felt cool and refreshing where the breezes were on me - big windstorm coming tonight; these light breezes are just the prelude.

Post-Sunrise Mesa

47 minutes
easy pace
5:30am - sunny and fairly cool - a run at 5:30 is no longer a sunrise run, as the sun is already up - saw 4 or 5 runners up on the Mesa trail this morning - we pre-6am-trail-runners have a nice little unspoken respect for each other - same route as last night, but in reverse and without Yuri Pass - saw a couple of mule deer on the little saddle west of NCAR - took me a little while to feel good this morning - tossed in a tiny surge on the Mesa trail behind NCAR and that made me feel better - felt awesome truckin' down 9th St.

Feelin' Good on the Mesa

45 minutes
easy to moderate pace (closer to moderate)
5:15pm - sunny and fairly cool - usual route home from work via 9th, Chautauqua, Mesa trail, Bear Canyon fire road, Yuri Pass - felt great - climbed the hill fairly easy and worked a little bit up on top - I am noticing how there is poison ivy everywhere now; gotta watch out for that stuff.

Bear Peak

111 minutes
easy pace
2:15pm - mostly cloudy and fairly cool - got dropped off at the Bear Canyon TH, ran up Bear Canyon, Bear Peak West Ridge, scampered up to the peak, ran back the same way, but went over Yuri Pass, ran down through the 'hood and Bear Mountain Park to finish at the house - wow, I have not done this run in a while and it seemed so easy - I ran fairly mellow, never really breathing too hard - my legs were a little tired, but my heart and lungs were very comfortable for the entire run - maybe I'm getting in shape - lots of hikers on the way up and on the peak, but very little coming down - a few raindrops fell on me on the way up the lower slopes which made the rocks a bit slippery - felt awesome today.

Big Blue

55 minutes
easy pace
11am - sunny and quite warm, with light breeze - parked at the South Boulder Creek (West) TH - ran up South Boulder Creek, continued up the Mesa trail, ran down the upper and lower Big Bluestem to the TH - felt great - took it very easy - lots of hikers up there today - the upper Blue is one of my favorite stretches of trail in all of Boulder Mountain Parks, so beautiful - finally feelin' like I've shook off those rest days - those off days just kill me - drank a few Jamaican beers afterward.

Family Run

56 minutes
easy pace
11am-ish - cloudy and cool - pushed sweets in the running stroller while mommy ran alongside - went down the Bear Creek path to Boulder Creek, turned around and ran back up - he slept on the return trip - real mellow run, but my legs felt a bit tired - I think it's just the concrete - it's hard to feel good running on that brutal surface - felt like we were crawlin' but our time was a little faster than usual.