Getting into some higher elevation trails doesn't take much longer than just going to the foothills outside of Golden, so today I drove over to Georgetown, then a few miles up Guanella Pass. After driving up for around 15 minutes, I parked and began my run. A half hour of running uphill later, I reached the pass and descended on the road the down toward Grant. There are loads of trails near the pass' summit, but I forgot to charge my Garmin and didn't want to risk getting lost. Despite being above the tree line for a good portion of the run, I didn't notice the elevation much. Maybe it's because the gradient on the road is so much less than the gradients I've been encountering on trails.
While this was only an alright run (a trail would have been nicer) it would make for one of the best bike rides around. The climb out of Georgetown would be great, the pavement is perfect, and there is not much traffic. I may have to try to get out there again on the bike before it gets much colder.
Anyhow, 1:30 of running with about 1:00 of that being climbing. I feel great and time permitting will run another 1:45-2:00 tomorrow.
14ers all around.
No traffic, and then suddenly a parking lot's worth of cars near the summit.
A nice 30 minutes of uphill running on each side of the pass, much of it like this.
Saturday
Yesterday I drove over to Golden to check out White Ranch. After a 2.5 mile climb up Belcher Hill (Hill?!?), I turned onto Mustang Trail. There were a few flats, but then lots more climbing. I'm getting a bit better at trail running, but it's hard not to shoot my HR way up if I push at all going uphill.
I ended up going 1:45 with about 1:30 of that running and the rest hiking. In that time I manage just over 10 miles with about 2,500 feet of climbing. I have no idea how anyone can do the Hardrock 100, which as 33,000 feet of climbing over 100 miles. That's almost 50% more climbing than I did on this run, but 10 times over and at a much higher altitude. Crazy...
There were quite a few of these stairs/mtb ramps on the Mustang Trail. These were nice because the gradient is a lot gentler than other portions of the trail.
Just getting started...
When I was in Leadville a few weeks ago, people were saying the Leadville 100 (running race, not MTB) was considered a 'fast' 100. FAST? How about FAST 100? I didn't think such a thing could exist, nevermind a fast one at 10,000-12,000ft.
ReplyDeleteInsanity in the ultra-running world.