RIDING THE WIND: Aug 5

8/5/2013
Mon-AM: 2:36, 5000' ~ Mt. Almagre (12,400')
Parked at the lot above Helen Hunt Falls again (7500') and ran up 7 Bridges to the N. Cheyenne Creek trail, which becomes a proper goat path after you leave Pipeline and stay next to the creek. Made it to the dam at 12k' in 1:23 and then continued on to the north summit, reaching it at 1:37. Kind of a cool hint in the air that felt ever-so-slightly like fall is on the way. Descended the exact same way I came up.

8/6/2013
Tue-AM: 7:35, 13,000' ~ Pikes Peak-Intemann-Sect. 16-666-Buckhorn-High Drive-Sect. 16-Intemman
Decided to take advantage of the smooth, runnable Springs trails to get in a proper running long run in preparation for UTMB (most of my longer efforts the last couple of years have included large chunks of hiking and/or scrambling that don't provide quite the same sustained training effect of running every step, in my opinion). Parked at Memorial Park in Manitou Springs and started off the day with a Pikes Peak Marathon in 4:09, 2:34 ascent and 1:35 descent. Running up Ruxton, I bumped into Peter Maksimow and we ran to Barr Camp together in 1:19 from the starting line (68min from Hydro), chatting all the way. I appreciated the early company on what was otherwise going to be a long, solo outing. The upper half of the mountain wasn't as casual as I would've liked---I always seem to struggle on this mountain---and I was only able to manage a desultory 43min split for the last 3mi. I would've thought my deep acclimation would've allowed me to go 40min or so. Ah well. I didn't even stop to go inside the tourist-mobbed summit house because I didn't have a shirt with me, and just turned at the marathon turnaround and started the descent, knowing I had a long day ahead of me still. Took it casual on the way down, keeping a steady groove, but never pushing. After hitting the finish at the bottom of Ruxton I continued back over to my truck at Memorial for a re-stock on gels (I'd eaten 3 on Pikes) to fuel the second half of the run. From the Roost, I ran up Crystal Park Road to catch the rolling Intemann Trail over to the Section 16 climb. From Manitou to the top of the Section 16 loop is approximately a 2k' climb, and it went really well despite the 90F heat and the 8k' of vert already in my legs. No problem running the whole way; I suppose the extra oxygen helps. From the top of Sect 16 it's a super cruisy 1k' descent to High Drive and then another 2k' climb in ~3mi up the 666 trail. I felt strong on this, but by time I got to the top I was super dehydrated---enough so that I drank from Bear Creek at the top; probably not a great idea. The water helped a ton, though, and the rest of the run I felt quite strong---down High Drive, and then another 1000' climb back up around Section 16 before finishing the run back to Manitou on the Intemann Trail. Great run.

8/7/2013
Wed-AM: 2:14, 5300' ~ 1st-3rd-5th Flatirons+Green+1st Flatiron
Biked to Chat. Awesome morning on the flatties...nice and cool and overcast, so scrambling was a real pleasure. After various creaks and crinks had loosened up my body and energy was actually really good considering yesterday's big outing and I just generally had a blast. Got me really excited about the fall scrambling/climbing season post-UROC.

8/8/2013
Thu-AM: 2:38, 5200' ~ Longs Peak
Up Loft/Skyline Traverse, down Cables. With Joe. Easy effort on tired legs, but a morning on Longs is always a blast. Showed Joe the downclimb into the Notch, which is fun, and then took the Stepladder to the summit. Cool, foggy, cloudy weather lower down on the Front Range, but a really nice day up high.

8/9/2013
Fri-AM: 2:29, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up NW Gully, down Cables. Great run, energy is back after Tuesday's long effort. After passing through the Keyhole I left the crowds and scrambled up the NW Gully, which is mostly 4th Class but has maybe 50' of easy, but wet, 5th Class. After the crux, it mellows to Class 3 and joins the spectacular finish to the Keyhole Ridge. 1h35 to the summit, and then I took it pretty easy on the way down, scouting different options below treeline.

8/10/2013
Sat-AM: 2:05, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up and down the Cables. Decided it was time to really take a shot at going fast on Longs, establish a legit PR for myself. Ended up tagging the summit in 1:21:29 and descending in 44:24 for a roundtrip of 2:05:53. A little surprisingly, there were bits of fresh snow on the north face and the usual wet spots were all ice. This wasn't really an issue on the way up, but it probably slowed my descent by a minute or so as I had to be careful in the shady spots, and of course on the Cables downclimb itself. All in all, pretty happy with the effort. Chris Reveley ran 2:04:27 way back in 1979 (a couple weeks after he ran 3:39 to win the Pikes Peak Marathon), and Andy Anderson went 2:02:54 in 2011 and 1:56:46 almost exactly a year ago to establish, what is, to me, a pretty notable FKT (consider that he then went and set the Grand Teton FKT a couple weeks later, besting Kilian's effort--obviously he was in fantastic form after a summer of rangering on Longs Peak). I'm not the best pure hill climber so I knew I'd never approach his 1:14 ascent, but I was hoping to sneak under 1:20. Alas, running fast uphill at altitude is hard work.

8/11/2013
Sun-AM: 2:39, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up Kieners, down Cables. Woke up an hour late, which meant that I ended up running into a bit of weather that could've otherwise been avoided. As I was working my way up the Glacier Rib (scrambling next to Lambs Slide) a pretty dark-looking cloud was building just off to the north despite it only being 9:30am or so, but there were enough gaps in the sky to keep me confident. Once I entered Broadway, though, I started getting pretty nervous. Even though I hadn't heard any thunder or seen any lightning, the east face of Longs is just a very exposed-feeling place, so I suppose that was affecting my confidence. As such, I scampered up to the summit (1:44) as quick as I could and barely paused before heading down the north face over rock that was slick from the night's rain. There were plenty of other people standing around nonchalantly on the summit, but I don't like lightning, or even the prospect of it. As it would turn out, I didn't hear any thunder until I was literally 2min from the car, and then it started raining quite hard.

Hours: 22h16min
Vert: 43,500'

Really good week of running before heading over to Europe tomorrow for the next month.. Quality long effort on Tuesday, and a good, hard sustained bit of up-tempo running yesterday, so I feel like I have all my bases covered. This morning was my 25th Longs Peak summit this year, and 40th lifetime. Part of me doubts that I'll see the 50 summits I was initially hoping for this year, but so far I've definitely gotten to know a lot of different routes on the mountain.