Still Kickin': 50th Birthday Running Tour of Fort Collins

You only turn 50 once.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Consistent with my past behavior, I decided to have a moving tour for my birthday. No multiple trips around the cemetery this time, and no Walmart shopping. This year it was a tour of Fort Collins. No tour of Fort Collins would be complete without a trip through Old Town, a visit to a brewery, and a few other landmarks along the way.

We congregated to start at Starbucks at 8 am and we had a small group to see us off. My neighbor Stan showed up with his camera and my friend Grace showed up to see us off. Kristin was there for her first 20 mile run, she's training for her first marathon later this year, and Josh showed up for the tour. Ping just got home from Hong Kong and was still jet-lagged but she showed up to run the first mile with us. photo: Stan Wolf

Dale, aka Sasquatch, aka the weather man, was supposed to show but the night before he got dumped on and had car trouble, even the weatherman gets snowed in...but he redeemed himself by providing perfect running conditions all day.

Kristin had been worried about not being able to keep up but I kept reassuring her that it was an easy pace and she'd be fine. She had no problem all day, running up the hills in the last miles and even sprinted at the end past both of us. I keep telling her she has an ultra in her. When she gets done with that marathon I'll be dropping all kinds of ultra hints...

Josh, Kristin and I took off down east Drake and hit the Power Trail going north. The streets and sidewalks were icy in so many places, from the rain and snow the day before. It was clear but cold and throughout the day, even until the end of the run, we were still hitting icy patches in the shade. We had planned to go through Riverbend Ponds but from the looks of the mud next to the bike path, we decided to stick to the path instead of slopping through the mud. It cut about a half mile off of the course, but was a better choice, as the sun was warming the ground fast.

We went west on the Poudre Trail until we hit the first construction detour that took us up Mulberry and into Old Town. About this time we were getting hungry and Josh broke out his compost. He makes this vegan mixture of ingredients that everyone raves about. My issue with it is that it has cinnamon in it, which I don't like. If he made it without the cinnamon I would try it. So I tease him about it being compost. It does look somewhat like compost. I can't tell the difference!

We stopped in Old Town at Silver Grill, which was packed as usual. I chose that spot in case anyone wanted a cinnamon roll, since it is a Fort Collins classic stop. But we got there 20 minutes early and waited around. Hunter and Joanne showed up, Joanne was going to run the next leg with us until the brewery where Hunter would meet us again. We took off from there through Old Town and headed for the cemetery.

On our way up Mountain, Elise met us with her dog, and ran the cemetery and City Park sections with us. I got a text from Felix saying he was on his way up Mountain, he missed us at the Silver Grill. We started our loop around the cemetery and on our way through, we saw Scott running, he caught up to us and joined us on our trip to Odell Brewing.

After the cemetery, we ran through City Park, doing a loop around the lake, and passing the frogs. Then it was time to head for the brewery, and it was beer-thirty.

Josh broke out his compost again for Joanne to try.

At Odell, we hung out and drank a beer. I tried a dry hopped ale called Leprechaun Flute. It was good. I still miss that stuff I had on the beer tour, that was amazing.

Scott took off to finish his run, Joanne and Hunter took off, and Kristin, Josh, Felix and I headed back into Old Town for the final leg through the CSU Oval and to the restaurant. On our way back across Riverside and Mountain, we were stopped waiting for the light to change, and we saw a very elderly man drive his car directly into oncoming traffic in the left turning lane. Fortunately the traffic was stopped but here was this man, stuck in his little car in the middle of a major intersection with semis coming down the road behind him, and all the traffic was stopped. He looked bewildered, and no one was doing anything.

I went out in the middle of the intersection and talked to him through his window, and asked him if he knew how to get himself out of the situation, to see if he understood what was going on. He seemed to be confused about the turning lane, but he told me he was afraid to back out with the trucks coming. I felt like he was coherent enough, and fortunately everyone waited for him to back his car out, and turn around to go down Lincoln.

I don't know what was going on, hopefully he was just confused about the traffic lanes, but I'm not sure...scary.

Felix left us at Library Park and the three of us diehards continued through campus and back to the restaurant, where we arrived an hour and a half early. We completed the loop back to Starbucks and I ran home, logging 20.5 miles for the day. That gave us time to go home and shower to get back to the restaurant for the party at 3.

photo: Shannon Price

It was a fun group at the party, Dennis, running club friends, friends I used to work with at the hospital, our neighbors, and Mr. & Mrs. Wheaties Boy.

Wheaties Boy and I discussed the time change and how we won't need headlamps anymore in the evening, and that means it's time to get serious about speed. Music to my ears.

My neighbor across the street shares a birthday with me, so we are going to continue the party on Monday.

It was such an honor to have everyone there, I can't think of any better way to spend a birthday than with these friends. That is best gift of all.

I had tons of energy and felt great despite having 96.5 miles already logged for the week. I remembered to change the clocks before I went to bed. I woke up early anyway.

Dennis gave me an iPod Nano as a gift. Something I've been wanting to do for a while before my old MP3 player disintegrates completely from thousands of miles of sweat and sunshine.

All I have to do today is a quick 3.5 miles and I'll have 100 for the week. Double my age in miles. Just three weeks until I get to test these 50 year old legs at an ultra for the first time!

And I have to start working on the 51st birthday theme run...

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.

First Day of Spring 5K

Happy new year, happy January 1st, and happy first day of spring!

When I first looked out the window this morning at 6:30, the wind was howling and snow was flying in all directions. My first thought was that I was excited about the weather for the 5K, because I love bad weather! I was thinking I'm probably the only runner who is excited about running a 5K in this crap.

I signed Dennis up and told him he was running, whether he likes it or not. He always talks about running more consistently so I was just helping him with his New Years resolution. He drank his coffee and I convinced him to get his running stuff on and we drove over to Runners' Roost.

We saw a lot of people, there was a pretty good turnout. After a little socializing and a trip to the bathroom, we did a warm up run with Josh, and checked out the first mile of the course. It was slick and icy in a lot of places, and the first two tenths of a mile were as slick as a skating rink, not because of ice, but because if the surface of the road with melted snow on it.

I jumped in the crowd and got next to the curb, my strategy was to keep from slipping or injuring myself and stay near the parked cars as we took off from the start. Fortunately it worked, and the footing didn't improve much until after mile 1. I got to the first mile in 8:09, which actually surprised me because I thought I was going much slower and running flatfooted in the slick areas.

I caught up to Dennis shortly after the first turn and we ran together for about 2 miles, until he got bored or something...

I reached mile 2 in 15:57 which means it was a 7:48 mile, a little better with the footing. I could see a couple of people ahead of me I could focus on passing. I tried picking it up in the last mile but it didn't take much to feel like I was going too fast. So I settled back into that pace, maybe 7:45ish. Ended up finishing in 24:26, which is still a slow time for me but better than the last 5K I ran in the beginning of November in 25:42.

For fun, I looked at the age group placings. I was 5th in my age group today, but in 10 weeks I'll be in the next age group, and would have placed first by a long shot.

Saw my buddy Nick Clark this morning, he watched the race with his son Alistair. They just got back from the UK so he was jet lagged. He's turning 40 this year. I'm turning 50. Two runners I know are turning 60.

Should be a good year for celebrating milestone birthdays, which reminds me, I need to get my butt in gear to figure out the birthday run agenda. Hint: there might have to be some pogo stick involvement in this one.

Afterwards we hung out and socialized for a while but it was getting cold in our damp clothes, so we came home to our Buffaloes, and now I'm waiting around and doing some stuff here until later when I go out for round two, another run. And this Sunday I'll be running the Edora Park 8K with the running club.

I bought a parks pass online this morning, for Larimer County parks, which will motivate me to drag my butt up to the trailheads and start doing Rock Repeats and get back to a little trail running this year, which I'm hoping I can tolerate with my ankle.

Lots of fun things to look forward to. Happy new year!