A Dam Maniac!

That's the name of my workout today. I went up to run hills at Horsetooth. The scene at Horsetooth right now is somewhere between these two pictures.

The weather was a lot nicer, but it was still cold this morning. Not quite so bad though.

I wanted to get a decent hill workout and I would like to have run Rock Repeats, but with the snow and ice and now mud, it would be a mess and the footing would not be good for my ankles. I opted for the road.

I only needed about 12 miles to get my 60 mile goal for the week, but somehow that didn't seem like enough of a challenge. My arms were tired from carrying the pogo stick while running in the beer tour!

I ended up with a little over 17 miles today and somewhere around 2000 feet of ascent, and the same of descent. But I did the same workout a month ago and today I was a lot faster! Somewhere around 40 seconds per mile faster. I didn't have to push hard on the hills, just a steady pace that challenged me without really pushing hard. That tells me I recovered well from Pemberton.

I ran down the A hill, over Maniac and back, then back north on the A and down to the Lory State Park turnoff, up almost to the park entrance, then back down and up over Dam Hill, and then one more time down and then up A hill and back to Rotary Park. About two hours and 50 minutes. Ten minute mile average on those hills is a good pace.

I ended up with 65 miles for the week, without any long runs. I guess I consider 20 miles + a long run.

This next week, actually the next 2 1/2 weeks, are super busy for me. I'm going to shoot for getting a 70 mile week or two before the end of the month, and I should be able to do that despite my insane schedule. It's all good insanity, well, mostly. Except the taxes part. But hopefully that won't turn out too bad either. Finishing up my Cancer Exercise Trainer course this week, and lots and lots of meetings, all business-related. Exciting stuff.

I am giving a presentation to the Aspen Club on March 5th. This will be the first time back at the hospital since I quit. I'm looking forward to it though. It's a community group to promote health and well-being in people over 50. Hey, I could almost be a member. My talk will be 5 days too early, I guess.

The birthday run will be a low key one this year, for lack of brain power to put into making a creative theme. Just too much going on for me all at once right now.

I do plan to make it an interesting running tour of some of my favorite spots in Fort Collins, though, including some breweries. There will be Buffaloes. Spongebob might show up. I'm expecting Sasquatch, too. There might even be some pogo sticking. The distance will be more like 20 miles, though, not 50.

Don't worry, I'll make up for it later.