Long's Peak

When we first moved to Colorado, I remember driving to Longmont with our Realtor and asking her what that huge mountain was that was so prominent just west of town.  Of course, it was Long's Peak, and I was immediately drawn to it (as I think many people around here are).  In fact, one of the requirements for our new house was that there had to be a view of Long's out one of our windows.  (And that requirement was in fact met).

I've considered climbing Long's for a few years now, but while I researched pics and vids of the route, I came across terms like "The narrows", or "The ledges", or even "The hearse".  Considered one of the most difficult 14er hikes in all of Colorado at a 5,000 foot elevation gain and a 14+ mile round trip, I had never gone out of my way in any given year to try this hike before snow eventually fell on the peak which meant (to me anyway) that 14er season was done until next year.

Well, after a false start a couple of weeks ago (had to cancel the hike because of a bum hip), I finally got to hike Long's today with my friend Sid.  This would be Sid's 4th summit of Long's, which I thought was great, b/c I really wanted someone who A) knew the route pretty well, and B) would gladly match my sure to be slow pace up the mountain.  Sid did both and was a great hiking partner.

Before I get into the details, I want to apologize for the quality of some of the pictures, as I didn't want to drag my good camera up that trail so I had to use my camera phone.  Actually I'm not apologizing, just warning you. ;)

We got on the trail about 3:15 in the morning.  One thing (the only thing?) I love about being out there at that time is that the stars are unbelievably bright.  We even saw a couple of shooting stars.  Breathtakingly peaceful country.  Here was sunrise.

Shortly after sunrise, Long's Peak came into view.

The notch on the far right side of the picture is the "keyhole", and that is essentially the gateway to the back side of the mountain.  In front of the keyhole is an area called the bolder field, which is exactly what it sounds like...a large area with giant bolders on the ground that you have to scramble across to get to the keyhole.  Not my favorite part of the hike.  This sign in the bolder field looked pretty foreboding, though:

I've been part way up the main trail before but had to turn back before the bolder field.  The keyhole is about 6 miles from the trail head, and today I got my first glimpse of the the scenery beyond it.  It didn't disappoint.

From the keyhole to the summit, there are several well known areas that I was really excited to get to finally see first hand.  The first is the ledges, which is an area where you have to skirt around on some fairly steep rock to make your way to the other side of Long's and below the summit.  You can see some people on the mountain here.  It generally was not too difficult, though there were a couple of spots that required you to climb over some exposed rock.

After the ledges, you reached the trough.  This is what it looks like from the bottom (that's Sid on the right):

And this is from the top:

How to describe the trough.  Take your least favorite thing, tilt it up about 120 degrees, add some loose rock, add some bigger loose rock for good measure, then at the very top of it, after you're tired, add a face of rock that isn't huge but big enough that finding handholds to climb over it gets a little challenging.  That would about do it.  This section was my least favorite of all, just slightly more despised than the bolder field in my book.

After you get to the top of the trough, you get to swing yourself up onto a shelf that is about 1 rock wide and enjoy the view of the cliff on the other side of the shelf.  This leads you into "the narrows", which is a short distance of some pretty exposed rock that you have to make your way across.  I didn't get any pictures of the narrows, however at one point there is a rock at the bottom of the valley that is called "the hearse", because, well, it looks like a hearse if you use your imagination.

While there was some exposure here, I never felt like I was in danger of falling.  Careful movements are all that are needed to get through this area, and we did that.  Dodging traffic coming toward you from the summit could get interesting at times, though, on the thin shelves.

Finally, the last stage before the summit is "the homestretch".  Everyone takes and posts almost this exact same picture of the homestretch because from the bottom, it looks like it is almost straight up:

And it is indeed pretty steep, however there are seams in the rock that make it very climbable.  I would consider myself about a zero on a scale of 1-10 on technical climbing ability, and I was able to get up it with minimal problems.  Of course, I never looked down either. ;)  And getting down the home stretch after summiting was also pretty nerveracking but doable.  I actually really liked this part...it was pretty short, and the dynamic of people who were just coming down and those who were just about to summit was very encouraging and friendly.

The summit of Longs is pretty large.  When we got there, there were maybe 15 others on the summit (almost as many had just descended right before we got up there, though).

This last picture is the view from above the diamond face of Chasm Lake.  I've seen the summit of Long's from that lake before, but I'd never seen the lake from the summit until today.  It was a great view.

I actually had another motive for climbing Long's Peak.  My dad died in January 2005, and I've always thought it would be cool to spread his ashes on the summit of Long's Peak, where I'd have something to remember him by every time I saw this mountain.  Today I was able to do just that.

All in all, it was a very memorable and difficult hike, but it was worth the effort for many reasons.  We summited in 7 1/2 hours and were back at the trailhead in 13.  Pretty slow pace, but we both made it back safely and that is always the main objective, right?  Thanks again to Sid for being a great guide and great company today.  Long's, consider yourself officially bagged.  And rest in peace, pops.

Democrat / Cameron / Lincoln / Bross Climb

Having recently finished training for a half marathon, I was ready to go climb a 14er or four.  I have never done the Democrat / Cameron / Lincoln / Bross (known as the "Decalibron") loop before, and since this was a good opportunity to climb four 14ers in one shot, I headed down to Fairplay to give it a try.

I've never been a camper, so camping at the trailhead the night before wasn't really an option for me.  Instead, I stayed the previous night in a hotel in Fairplay.  I had hoped to get to bed early and get some good sleep for an early start the next day, however two things prevented that.  First, there was a women's biker rally going on in Fairplay that night, and second, the walls in the hotel were mighty thin.  So, four hours of sleep it would have to be.

I arrived at the trailhead which was near Alma and was on the trail by 5:45 Sunday morning.  Maybe a dozen or so campsites, and a handful of people began hiking the same time I did.  Temp was in the lower 40s, very clear and very calm winds...a perfect day to hike.

The loops starts in the lower left corner of this map, heads up and to the left to hit Mt. Democrat, backtracks slightly across a saddle over Mt. Cameraon and then a little further up Mt. Lincoln.  It backtracks slightly again and cuts under Mt. Cameron across another saddle up towards Mt. Bross, then comes down the other side of Bross and back to the Kite Lake trailhead.

These two pictures are looking back across the valley to the trailhead.  Kite Lake is in the first picture, and the foreground slope to the right in the second picture is the start up the side of Mt. Democrat.  Democrat was fairly steep and the trail was very rocky.  The rocks were big enough that they didn't slide when you stepped on them but not huge boulders generally.  The picture below gives a little idea.

The summit of Democrat appears to be at the top of the steep slope, as shown in this picture, but when you get to that point....

You see the REAL Mt. Democrat still up ahead in the distance.  There was this one snow field I had to get across, which was maybe 50 feet with a heavily worn trail through it, so it wasn't a problem.

This was the top of Democrat.  I think it took me about two hours to get to the top of it, and it was a bit more difficult than I had expected it to be.  I don't think too many people had been up there before me that day, as I only passed maybe a half dozen people coming back.  There were maybe a dozen people on the summit when I left a few minutes later.

The next peak, Mt. Cameron, is a 14er but isn't always considered a true 14er because of its proximity to other peaks.  There are "rules" for purists that state peaks must have a certain distance and/or elevation change between them to "count".  As I am not a purist by any stretch, it still counts for me. :)

I had to climb back down the steep slope of Mt. Democrat, and I was very glad to be coming down as I saw the strained faces of many other who were coming up.  Eventually I was in the saddle between Democrat and Cameron, which was marked by a small abandoned mine building (these buildings were EVERYWHERE on this hike).

I didn't get a picture of me on Cameron, as it was just a large, open, flat area on the way to Mt. Lincoln.

It was interesting to see how the summits of Cameron and Bross almost looked lunar.  They were topped with gravel and not the large rocks prominent on the other peaks.  This picture above shows Mt. Lincoln in the distance, which was my next destination.

Mt. Lincoln is probably my favorite peak of all the seven 14ers I've done so far.  It has a fairly small summit area, and it just juts up way into the sky.  It reminded me somewhat of little "sand castles" I used to make as a kid when you let really sandy water run out of your clenched hands and it made little sand spires.  It had larger rocks, and the view was spectacular.  Mt. Quandary is in the picture above, and Grays and Torreys Peaks can be seen far off in the distance.  I believe several other 14ers can be seen in the distance from this summit as well.  While I was up there, a couple of mountain goats came up to see what was going on.

There were less than 10 people on the summit with me.  It was fun to look back at the ant line of people going up Democrat back in the distance where I had been a short time ago.  I don't remember the exact times, but I think I was on top of Lincoln about 3 1/2 hours after I started, so probably about an hour and a half after I had summitted Democrat.

After Lincoln, I backtracked again, headed below and around Cameron, then came up to the saddle up to Mt. Bross, which is in the picture above.  Mt. Bross is unique in that it is private property, and the property owners actually closed access to the peak in 2010.  There have been discussions underway since then to try to get access reopened, but as of last Sunday, Bross was still officially closed.  Officially.  I hung out for a couple minutes at the "Bross is closed" sign until a group of 5 hikers approached.  They read the sign, then one of the hikers apparently was a lawyer who said she could get us off if we got busted up there.  That was good enough for me, so I made friends with them quickly and followed them up the trail to the illegal summit.  I guess there goes my chance of ever running for office, what with a skeleton like this in my closet.

Like Cameron, the top of Bross was very large and very flat.  It offered some great views of the bowl of 14ers I had just hiked that morning, but I didn't go look across off of the other side for fear that the peak po-po were waiting just over the edge.  I got my picture with the "DeCaLiBro" sign that was written on a rock up there, and we all began our descent down the other side of Bross.

I had been warned that this route down was pretty steep and full of scree, and that was definitely true.  It was a very slow crawl down the trail, and my climbing poles came in very handy for stability.  The pictures above show the side of the mountain and how steep it was, and the second picture is the path back down to the trailhead, which can be seen in the distance at the bottom of the valley.  By this time, some storm clouds were starting to move in, so the timing worked out really well to be coming down when we were.  We actually passed a couple hikers who were nearly to the top of Bross who had come up the way we were going down.  They said it took about an hour and a half to get up from the trailhead, and they were planning to do all four 14ers, even with the storms coming in and not having completed one yet.  They either didn't make it or died on the summit of one of them, I'm sure of it.  Very foolish.

After getting past all the steep slopes and scree of Bross, there was some much nicer trail closer to the trailhead.  This waterfall was just part of the beautiful close-up scenery.

In all, the hike took about 6 1/2 hours, was about 7 1/2 miles long and was very strenuous.  Some of the trail up Democrat and down Bross was a little hard to follow at times, but generally could be found if you continued in the direction you knew you should be going.  Not sure I'm eager to do this hike again now that I've done it once, but very glad I was able to get all four 14ers in the loop under my belt.  Gears are already spinning for my next one. :)

For anyone interested, here are the Runkeeper graphs for my hike.  It stopped tracking in the middle for some reason, so there are two halves posted here.

http://runkeeper.com/user/Mr_Chris/activity/208963330

http://runkeeper.com/user/Mr_Chris/activity/208963345

Are We Going...to San...Fran...Cisco??

This summer we finally had the opportunity to visit my aunt and uncle's family in San Luis Obispo CA.  I constantly stalk them and their four "kids" on Facebook but sadly don't have a chance to visit with them very often.  In fact, the last time I saw them was when my dad died about 7 years ago.  This time, my cousin Emily was getting married, and although it was every bit as busy as you'd imagine, it was a much happier occasion.  Even got to see my mom and brother from GA for awhile, which is always a great time that should happen much more frequently. 

 

That's the Lawrence crew above.  You'll never guess which cousin was the one who got married, would you?  She really looked amazing in her wedding dress, too, and everything about the ceremony was exceptional.  The wedding was actually held on a working orchard that grew lemons and avocados.  I'd never seen an avocado tree with actual avocados growing on it until that day.  It was hard not to pick any.

Another cool thing about my uncle's place is that he raises tortoises and has for many years.  We got to see his tortoise pen, and Becca fed some lettuce to them.  The scene looked similar to when we get Bella's food out and how she comes racing towards us and gets all excited and drools everywhere, only the tortoises (tortii?) were moving at about 1/100th speed and never looked you in the eye, they just stared at the lettuce, then did this big yawn looking thing and took a bite out of the lettuce.  After getting a mouthful, the tortoise would chew it up.  For some reason, seeing a tortoise chewing its food made me laugh.  

After the wedding, my family hung out with my mom and brother.  We did a quick hike and went to Avila Beach for an afternoon.  The first night there we went to dinner and then dipped our feet in the unflatteringly cold waters of the Pacific at sunset.  A little chilly for a swim, but a beautiful sunset anyway.

We stayed the weekend in SLO visiting, then Kathy and the kids and I drove up the coast to San Francisco.  It was a several hour long drive next to some of the most beautiful, foggy cloud cover I've ever seen.  Every so often the road would turn so you could see the often jagged cliffs we were driving in, which truly was amazing.  I really like the geography of the west coast...so rocky and "sharp".  But this is fog season, so unfortunately most of the time we couldn't see more than 50 feet in any direction.  We did stop at Montana de Oro state park on our way out of town.  We didn't spend nearly enough time there, but it would have been a great place to explore some of the coast around SLO.

One famous area of this road is where elephant seals like to hang out.  The day we saw them, there were only a couple hundred probably, but I  understand sometimes there can be a thousand at this place.  I believe this was my first wild elephant siting, which combined well with my first native avocado siting the previous day.  

We also spent a few hours at the Monterey Bay aquarium, which was every bit as impressive as we'd been told it was.  That evening, after enjoying our first In and Out Burger (1st #3), we got into SF.  We dropped the car at the airport and took a taxi into the heart of downtown.  

I'll spare you the agony of a detailed report of all the places and things we did in SF, but we did get to see quite a bit in 4 days.  No, we didn't take the Alcatraz tour (everyone always asks me that first, so figured I'd get it out of the way now).  We DID see Alcatraz from many different angles, and it was very cool looking.

This shot came from the deck of the tour boat we rode that gave us a quick tour of SF Bay.  We went around the back side of Alcatraz and also went under the Golden Gate bridge.  

The bridge was spectacular.  There is a large visitors center that tells a lot of the history and stats, along with all of the touristy souvenirs you'd expect.  Every day the bridge was enveloped with fog.  It was very interesting to me that there was a swath that seemed to go right across the bridge that always was a fast moving layer of fog.  The weather at the bridge when we visited was very dreary and windy and chilly, but just a few blocks inland, it was perfectly sunny and pleasant.  Apparently the "micro climates" around SF are well known.

Yes, we did ride the cable cars.  There was always a long line for them, and the cars were always completely packed.   The operators were generally very business like, even gruff sometimes, which surprised me a little.  When one of our rides stopped at Lombard Street, the driver said "OK there's the most crooked street in the US or whatever you want to call it.  OK?" and then he took off.  Not that this was a tour bus we were on, but it struck me funny how this guy must have driven past this street a thousand times and was obviously not so impressed anymore, nor did he understand why anyone else would be impressed either.  This picture shows how steep the streets were around there.

 




That said, we later road a regular bus across town, and the driver of this bus was more than happy to talk with anyone.  He seemed to know some of the regulars that got on during the trip, and after they left he'd give us their history like he was best friends with the person.  Every bus driver should have been like him.  He wasn't just doing his job, he was genuinely being a friendly guy and was more than happy to help all the tourists who had pretty basic questions about where they needed to go.  Awesome guy.

We made a visit to Coit Tower, which is visible from just about anywhere in the city.  It used to be a fire lookout, and there is a lot of history associated with it, but it really was a basic, tall tower with amazing views of the city and the bay.

The second shot is across Fisherman's Wharf, which is the main touristy entertainment/dining district.  Alcatraz is beyond that.  A couple things stand out on our visit to the tower.  First, we had to walk several blocks to get to it, and those were some of the most ridiculously steep roads I've ever seen in my life.

The grade of this hill is just over 30 degrees.  THIRTY.  This picture doesn't do it justice. And people were actually jogging on streets like this.  The other thing that caught my eye was the capacity sign on the completely packed elevator we took to the top of the tower.  2000 lbs.  And there were 15-20 people on all the rides.  Math was never my strong suit (well, actually, yeah it kinda was), but I'm thinking the capacity was exceeded a time or two during the day on that tower.  I'm sure the safety factor was about 10 though, so it was probably fine.  If you are claustrophobic, I would recommend trying to find your view of the city elsewhere though.

We also visited the California Academy of Sciences, which was a very well kept science "museum" of sorts with lots of focus on nature and the environment.  It even had an "earthquake simulator".  And then there was the Exploratorium, which was a hands on museum that explained everything from sound waves to inertia to optical illusions to human behavior, with interactive exhibits to help get the point across.  It was also very well maintained, especially given that with any interactive exhibit, kids are going to find ways to interact with it in completely unintended ways.  Needless to say, all the scientists in my family really loved that place.  It was behind this building, the Palace of Fine Arts.  Very cool looking dome and park area.

Chinatown was another unique experience.  We went out that way once looking for dim sum, but every place that was recommended looked like you really had to know what you were doing in order to do it right, so we went back and forth across the area for quite awhile before settling on a place that looked like it was totally made for clueless tourists, but at least we could say we did dim sum in Chinatown.  Many of the markets there were packed, with constant streams of people just picking through the produce and I assume paying someone for what they wanted.  The whole place seemed to be in constant motion with tourists scattered about just gawking or trying to figure out where they were on a map.  The picture below was from the main entrance.

The opposite of this scene was across town at the Japanese Tea Garden, which was a very tranquil place with gardens and ponds and trees that a person could just lose himself in for hours.  For a few bucks, you could even have a geisha perform a tea ceremony for your group.  We opted instead for the more affordable "serve yourself" hot tea and mochi ice cream balls.

Speaking of tourists, there were a lot of us there, and we were from all over the globe.  My favorite were the French tourists.  Almost every French family I saw had sons that looked like they were trying really hard to be in fashion (and maybe they were...I certainly wouldn't know fashion if it bit me on the behind).  The daughters looked remarkably snooty and almost all of them wore scarves.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be judgmental, but it always reminded me of a scene from the movie European Vacation.  I'm sure they were all very cool people, but the stereotypes in play made me laugh.  I did get to see a very young French girl who was being scolded for something by her father, and she just sniffled and whimpered "wi" in the most pathetic voice you can imagine.  So I bought her a pony and told her dad to lay off.  Adorable kid.

I finished the trip over drinks with an elementary school friend of mine from Morris, Charles Lee.  It had probably been about 30 years since we had seen each other, and we were easily able to pick up right where we left off.  If any of my Morris friends' ears were burning a couple weeks ago, I swear all the talk was of good times.  It was great to get caught up again.

So after promising not to go into exhaustive details....there are the exhaustive details.  We had a great time seeing a lot of my family, and the touristy parts of SF that we saw were a lot of fun and made me want to go back and check out more of the outdoorsy stuff there.  I wish my cousin and her new husband a lifetime of happiness, and I hope it doesn't take another major life event to get us all together again.

 

Opening Their Eyes

Today is a difficult day for a lot of people due to the movie theater shooting last night.  This is obviously a very tough subject for anyone to discuss, but as adults, most of us can at least put it in perspective.  We understand to some degree what it does to families and friends.  It tends to make us reflect on our own lives.  But we also know that the chances of something like this happening are (thankfully) exceptionally remote.  For children, I imagine it can be a different story.  This is scary stuff, and not all of them realize that it is a rare occurrence.  There are probably many children (even some adults) who are now freaked out just to be in a theater now.

This got me thinking about how different people raise their kids considering all the "bad stuff" that is out there.  And by bad stuff, I'm not just talking mass shootings.  I'm talking touchy subjects of any degree, like sex, swearing, racism, death, etc.  For awhile, some of us try to shield our children from those things, but obviously they will eventually come in contact with all of it and need to learn how to deal with it responsibly.  My kids are at an age where we're moving (or moved in some cases) more from the protection phase to the understanding phase.  It will be a learning experience for all of us, and I'm sure we'll have some unexpected consequences and conversations.  Our goals now are teaching our kids not to avoid touchy subjects, but how to handle them as children, adolescents, and not terribly far down the road, young adults.

So there is the somber, serious back story.  That leads me to a few things that were said in the car this morning with talk radio playing in the background.  Becca asked me what the deal was with all the talk about shootings, so I explained to her what happened.  She responded "oh", so I don't think she is freaked out about it.  Then there was another story about a couple of guys that were stopped crossing the US border with Kinder Eggs.  That lead to a discussion about how the government sometimes has some really stupid rules and regulations that defy logic.  The radio host made a joke about how someone was able to board a plane with a bomb in his underwear, but thank God the TSA was keeping those Kinder Eggs safely secure. 

Wait, did someone on the radio say....underwear?  Uh oh.  So I explained to Becca, when she asked about it, that someone got on a plane awhile back with a bomb in his underwear.  Both kids thought this was an incredibly stupid idea, which was the correct assessment, and they are only 9 and 12 years old, so I was pleased about that.  Becca was still curious, though.  "Are all bombs those big round things with the rope coming out of them like in the cartoons?  I don't think one of those would fit in someone's pants would it?".  Begin discussion about explosives and putty and how the right materials very well could be put in one's underwear to make a bomb, but it is still a stupid idea that would not end well for the owner of the underwear (assuming they were his own of course). 

I think I dodged a bullet there with the underwear, however the next story took the proverbial gun back out of its holster, in a manner of speaking.  This story was about a man who was stopped by the TSA in San Francisco for having a "large bulge" in his pants.  This bulge was, in fact, not a Smith & Wesson, but the more traditional love gun carried legally and concealed (usually) by roughly half the world population.  I don't think my kids fully understood 99% of the penis jokes and innuendos that they heard for the next five minutes, but on a more primal level, just hearing someone on the radio say PENIS over and over again is all kinds of funny.

And then as we are driving, we just happen to drive by Hooters.  We were looking for lunch, and Becca was very thoughtful.  "We could go to Hooters, so that way I could get wings and you can all have shrimp".  I told her that Hooters didn't have very good wings.  She said "Then why do they call it Hooters?  Aren't "hooters" owls, and owls have wings, so they must have good wings?".  I considered briefly about explaining how Hooters is not so much famous for the quality of its food but for the lack of clothing that the waitresses wear, and that "hooters" didn't refer to owls in this case but rather was a somewhat derogatory reference to large breasts, but I chickened out and just said "no, I don't think they the wings are made of owl.  Ohhh, is that a MacDonalds over there?!!"  I probably missed a good opportunity for more education, but the young sponges seemed to be about saturated at this point, so I'd wait till they dried out before showing them first hand just how truly bad Hooters wings really are.

So today my kids' minds were, I don't know if "expanded" is the right word, but I'll go with it for now.  What they choose to do with this newly acquired information has yet to be seen, but if any of my kids' friends suddenly start talking about underwear bombs and large penises, I apologize in advance.  And that reminds me...I'll be traveling through San Francisco in the near future.  Thankfully Johnah Falcon has already gone through security to break them in, so hopefully I won't have any problems. 

Redline 13.1 Half Marathon, 2012

This week was an anniversary of sorts.  About a year ago, I ran my first half marathon, the Redline 13.1 in Longmont.  At that time, I had about 10 good miles before I hit a major wall and essentially hobbled through the last 3 miles to a finish of 2 hrs and 14 mins.  It was brutal.

Fast forward about a year.  We didn't have as many people from Fox Creek Fitness participating as we did last year (last year, at least a half dozen of us were doing our first halves), but the four of us plus Kathy still ran well and supported each other.  I had a couple goals for my race this year.  First, I wanted to break a 10 minute mile pace.  Now, in all of my training runs, this is never a problem.  In fact, I tend to be in the mid 8 minute range for runs under 5 miles.  But for last year's half, my average pace was about 10:15, so under 10 seemed like a good goal.   Second, I wanted to run the whole thing this year.  Last year, after hitting the wall, I had to walk the final .2 mile uphill climb to the finish.  I was determined not to have to do that this year.  Seemed simple enough.

One thing I tried to do better this year is to eat.  I stopped eating half way through the race last year, and I'm convinced that is why I died so badly at the end.  I researched a bit and came up with a plan:
1 - Drink more water the day before the race.
2 - Eat a decent amount of carbs the day before the race.  This is as opposed to stuffing myself full as I tend to do, particularly when the meal is good.
3 - 2 hours before the race, drink about 20 oz of water, then eat more low GI carbs.  I had a banana and some oatmeal, and was pretty full.
4 - GU chomps at 5 miles into the race and every couple of miles after that.
5 - Sports drink on odd miles when I didn't eat GU chomps.

After researching, I came to the conclusion that everyone has a different strategy, and what works for one person may not for another.  My plan seemed logical and not too radical, though, so that was what I would do.

The conditions at the start could not have been better.  Probably upper 50s, overcast, even some light misting.  My stomach felt fine, as did the rest of my internal functions, and it was time to roll.  The beginning was pretty narrow, so I was happy to just hang out with the pack and get carried along.  The first half mile was well over a 10 minute pace, but I figured it would open up soon enough and I'd make that up.  It did, and I was very comfortably running around 9:30s for the first few miles.  Stomach, legs, knees, lungs...everything felt fine.  Saw my friend Julie at one of the crossovers ringing her cow bell and shouting words of encouragement, exactly where she was last year.  Her laugh is a hell of a motivator.

Around 5 miles I had my first GU chomps and chased it with a cup of water.  Still no problems at all, and splits were still far enough under 10 to keep me feeling comfortable.  As I turned onto the bike path that would wind its way through Longmont to the finish, there was Julie again.  She told me "no wall this time", and I would find myself repeating those words toward the end of the race when the wall was in sight.

At mile 8, I was still feeling pretty good and had been running near a small group for several miles.  One mentioned that she liked hearing the frequent stats from my RunKeeper (it WAS nice to have that, and I really think I would struggle to run without that information).  This is also where several friends had made a water station next to the Alpha Martial Arts studio.  Seeing and hearing them cheer me on definitely gave me a kick, and Ashley ran about a quarter mile with me as well to see how things were going.  I was still feeling pretty good, but my legs were getting more tired, as I expected.

I continued my eating plan.  I remembered how at mile 10, three weeks ago in a training run, I had to pull off to take care of some urgent business and never really recovered the rest of my run.  This time, though, there was no such problem, and I kept chugging along.  I also remembered that at mile 12 of that same recent training run, I had to stop running, as I just had nothing left.  And I remembered that last year at the 10ish mile mark, I hit the wall and completely fell apart on my pace.  Here I was back at those same points, and although my legs were feeling rubbery, I did not donk like I did last year.  One of the people I had been running with the entire race started talking to me a 10 miles.  It wasn't an annoying "how can you still be talking" chat, more like "only 3 to go, right?  we can do this, right?"  Her pace was perfect, and I think we both helped pull each other through the last 3 miles at a consistent pace.  About half a mile from the end, Ashley met up with me again, and shortly after that, Kathy was there as well after finishing under two hours.  Felt pretty awesome to have a posse pulling me in at the end of the race, that's for sure.

Finally, I hit the 13 mile mark, and the biggest test of my "no walk" goal was about to start.  There is a very nasty hill at the very end of this race, and it did me in last year.  This year, I set out to run this hill 100 times before the race, so that when I raced it, it would be no problem.  I managed to run it about 10 times, the last being a couple months ago.  Oops.  When I hit the hill, I slowed considerably and just tried to stretch out my stride, as Ashley (who was running right next to me) was recommending.  One stride at a time, and I would get up the hill.  Or so I thought.  Halfway up, I thought I'd had it again, but the thought of that pissed me off just enough to keep pushing.  Although I only ran this hill 10 times to train, those times helped, and I was able to get to the top without breaking stride.  I crossed the finished line in 2 hours 8 minutes 1 sec (a 9:50 pace).  Both of my goals had been accomplished.

As usual, the support from the Fox Creek crew was exceptional.  Erika ran her second half marathon and cut 10 minutes off of her best time.  Jenny ran her first and hung with Erika to push her along.  Leah, after suffering from an incredibly busy summer watching lots of spare kids and having very little time to actually run, still completed her second half marathon.  They were all there when I finished my face and cheered me over the hill to the finish line.

Ashley was the perfect support crew for us, and she resupplied everyone at the Alpha watering station.  Her running with me and encouragement at the 8 and 12.5 mile marks were extremely helpful in keeping my mental state good throughout the tough parts of the race.  And the crew at Alpha giving out water (John, Carey, Sid, Jacob, Lucas and Debbie) were cheering us on as well and helped take my mind off my rubbery legs, if only for a minute.

My time was exactly where I hoped it would be this year.  Sure, I'd love to get under two hours, but I know from my training runs and exertion levels that this goal was not going to happen this year.  But that was fine with me, and I'm not sure if the level of effort it would take to even get close to that time would be worth it to me.  I've said it before, I'm a sprinter and that is just how my muscles work.  While I love the camaraderie of the longer races like the half, I really hate running this distance, and for my age and gender, I'm truly not that great at it.  Would I like to do a marathon?  No, I really have no desire to ever do one.  Will I do this half again next year?  Oh, probably, but I'll fight myself when the time is getting closer.  I don't have anything more to prove, and the chances of conditions ever being as good as they were today will be slim.  But I suspect I'd go in again, especially if there is a group around for support. 

Thanks to everyone who supported me today, both by being there or through their encouraging words.  And special thanks to my wife, who is a truly amazing and understated athlete.  Watching her train and perform so consistently while she deals with everything life has thrown at her is truly inspiring and pushed me often while I was training, particularly on those days I didn't want to get out of bed and do my run.  I'm lucky to be in the company of such amazing people. 

How I Spent My Father's Day

(Insert obligatory "It has been awhile since I posted" post here).  Honestly, though, I haven't felt all that inspired to write more than a one or two sentence update on Facebook in quite awhile.  However, today is Father's day, and the inspiration has hit hard.  If you'd like to see why it is great to be the dad in my household, keep reading.

As I'm training for a half marathon in July, I needed to do a long run this morning, so a little after 6:00 am I was out on the course trying to do 13.1 miles.  I didn't quite make the full 13, but got in 12 before I walked in the last mile.  As I crossed the last bridge before arriving at Sandstone Ranch, there was my daughter waving her arms at me, encouraging me to keep going.  And trust me, I needed the encouragement.

Kathy was just up the hill with water waiting, which was also much needed.  Drove home, and hosed off the two pounds of sweat that my scale informed me I had lost since my last weigh-in just before I ran.  Got dressed, layed on the bed and crashed.  Meanwhile, Kathy comes in, grabs some laundry, starts it, then comes back upstairs to keep me company and rub my back.  (As a guy, I knew this was the universal sign that I would be obligated to put out, but I was too tired, so hopefully she'd understand).

It was almost 11, and the discussion turned to lunch.  I asked Becca if she would be interested in Pump House, which she said she was as long as she could share some wings with me.  (Did I mention that I love this girl?)  Had a good lunch, complete with wings and a buffalo burger to put back some of those 1600 calories I supposedly had burned off today, then went to the seafood store to get some walleye fillets for dinner, then to Menchies for a little frozen yogurt dessert.  Things certainly couldn't get much better, could they??

We got home and I layed down on the couch, which proceeded to swallow me and force me to take a nap.  Kathy was fantastic today at letting me be super lazy, even though she had actually run further than the 12 miles I ran this morning.  3:30 rolls around, it is off for a massage.  Life is still good.

When I got home, the walleye was marinating, the mushrooms were sauteing, the wild rice was boiling, and the cuke salad was chilling.  I grilled the fish and had probably one of the best dinners I've had all year.  Could it POSSIBLY get any better?

Why yes it could.  Our A/C decided to die on us this afternoon (that isn't the "better" part), so Becca has been putting damp towels and hats in the freezer and letting us wrap them around our heads to stay cool.   And lucky for me, Becca has been reviewing a "spa book" that she got awhile ago.  She found the page that said grapes can help smooth and repair damaged skin, so she offered to rub a half a grape on each of the bottoms of my feet, because, you know, they are a little cracked and damaged.  My grape foot rub was followed by a back lotioning, and then a back rub.

My family made my life remarkably nice today, even much much more so than I deserve.  I'm one of the lucky ones, that's for sure.

The Burpee Challenge

101 days ago, I was in my basement preparing to do a workout.  I was feeling pretty good that day, so I decided I would do 100 burpees just to see if I could do them.  I did them (at least an easier version of them), and thought it was certainly not easy, but a great, fairly quick workout.  (They were actually easier than the 1000 jumping jacks I did after them, but that's another story and another challenge).

Anyway, later that day I was on Facebook and saw a post from an elementary school friend (who also happens to be a fitness instructor) that was announcing a "burpee challenge", where you start with 1 burpee on day one, 2 burpees on day two, and so on up to 100 on day 100.  It sounded like something that could be, well not fun, but at least a good challenge, as I don't think I've ever completed a 100 day challenge of anything in my life.  But alas, I had a dilemma...I had just done 100 burpees.  I figured I had two choices.  I could just respond to the Facebook page and say "I just skipped all the way up to 100, so sorry all you suckers who have to work your way up, but I'm done", or I could just start the challenge from 100 and work it up to 200.  Now THAT would be stupid.

So of course, I was stupid.  I did 101 the next day.  Then 102.  Then 103.  For the first few days, I was not going flat...just extending my legs into a plank and back before I jumped.  After doing some research, I decided that a true "legal" burpee involved going flat, and while that really made things a lot more difficult, it seemed only right to try to be correct with my form.  I made sure I always jumped, though not always 6 inches I'm sure.

As I started the challenge, my goal was to generally get to 100 somewhat quickly, then top it off with the handful I had left.  I almost always broke them up into chunks of 20 or 30 or 40, just depending on how I felt, with a few mins rest between the chunks.  They weren't fun, but I was getting through them.

Eventually, the "handful" after 100 was turning into an entire new chunk, and it was becoming more difficult to complete the whole sets.  Not a dramatic increase in difficulty, but it was definitely getting progressively harder.  A few times I'd time myself for 100 and finish the rest later.  I think my fastest time through 100 was about 6:30, and that usually destroyed me to get to that point.  But I could definitely feel a difference from when I had started in my ability just to do them...they were slowly but steadily getting easier.

One of my kickboxing students, Lisa, also decided to do this challenge the "sane" way (if there really is such a thing).  What was really cool about this was that she despised burpees.  She often asked ahead of time if there were any burpees in today's workout, and you could just see her cringe anytime I told her "yes".  Her agreeing to a burpee challenge would be like a cat agreeing to swim across Lake Michigan.  But she is not one to back down from a challenge, and soon she was there every day doing them too.  (Fortunately, she kept count on her Facebook page, because there were many days I needed to use her info to figure out how many I had to do that day).

Today was our final day, when Lisa did her 100 and I did my 200.  We got things setup where we had a rope hanging 6 inches above our overhead reach (a "legal" burpee includes a 6 inch jump), started a stopwatch, and we were off.  I did 100 in 8:06.  In ten minutes, I had done 114.  Lisa finished hers in maybe 14 minutes (we didn't see the exact time), and then waited so we could do the last one at the same time.  And 100 days, 10 hours, and 18:27 mins/secs after we started, we were done with our challenge.  Total burpees -  15,150.

So what did I learn through this experience?  Many things.  First, there aren't many people who can find that balance between "dedicated to working out" and "obnoxious about working out".  Lisa is one of those people who takes her dedication to the perfect level, and it was nice having someone else doing this challenge that I knew would not accept it if I backed out.  Second, I no longer fear burpees.  They are still not fun, and I still get winded after doing a set of 25, but I know I can do a lot of them now.  Third, I'm a little scared to say that burpees may be the perfect exercise.  In one rep, you are hitting arms, chest, core, legs, cardio, and explosive power.  Doing these over the course of 100 days, doing at least 100 reps a day, made a HUGE difference for me in all of those areas (and I lost about 5 lbs to boot). 

And finally, I learned that sometimes, "not feeling like it" is complete crap.  There were many days I wanted nothing to do with any burpees, but I knew I would have to force myself to do them or I'd be up all night trying to squeeze them in at the last minute.  Little bits done here and there always added up, but I had to put in the effort to do the little bits.  Motivation was hard to come by during the middle of the challenge when I knew I had many more weeks to go, and the end always seemed far away.  But persistence paid off, and I can look back now and appreciate what was hard to see sometimes during the challenge.  Would I do it again?  Geez, I doubt it.  I'm so thankful that right now, 9:30 at night, I can look at the rug in my family room that has my sweat stains permanently sunk into it from the thousands of burpees I've done on it over the last 3 months, and I know I don't have to do any more.  But then, I've been known to change my mind before.  ;)