• Home
  • About

A Runner's Story

A Runner's Story

Tag Archives: Cheyenne Mountain

Manitou Incline

31 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by Ed Mahoney in Running

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Barr Trail, Cheyenne Mountain, Cloudera, Hadoop, IBM DB2, MapReduce

baseThe normally 90 minute drive to Colorado Springs Friday evening was unbelievable.  Four hours of stop and go slow.  I had to pull over south of Castle Rock to let Karen drive so I could draft my fantasy football team via my iPhone.  Lost the connection several times at the end but those were just bench players.  I struggled finding the Cheyenne Mountain Resort at night.  Might be its proximity to the U.S. Space Command but there is very little in the way of street lights in the Cheyenne Mountain vicinity.  This Labor Day weekend is ostensibly so Karen can complete an all-day, advanced Zumba training class.  And to celebrate her birthday.  Between you and me, this is really so I could check off a bucket list trail run – the Manitou Incline.

false summitAfter dropping Karen off at her class Saturday morning, I met up with my buddy Ken Farmer in Manitou Springs.  Ken oftentimes runs this mile long incline for lunch as he lives down the street from the trail head.  He figures he’s run it over 400 times in the twenty years he has lived here.  He’s run Barr Trail a few thousand times – which is how we came back down.  Since they legalized the ascent, they made a rule against descending the Incline.  People still do but it looks pretty dangerous to me.  You fall on a spike of rebar and you’re dead.

This pic is of Ken at the false summit, maybe two thirds of the way up.  You get a sense of how the bottom is more flat and then it turns steep.  What you can’t see is that many of the steps are knee high.  The grade is nearly 40%.  Actually, you can see it in this video.  I felt like I was keeping a strong pace – I made the summit in 42 minutes.  Ken was a graceful host and let me take the last few steps ahead of him.

summitSurprisingly, the summit was less crowded than the trail itself.  I suspect it wouldn’t be for long, a never-ending stream of hikers were worming their way up the Incline.  We got lucky on the weather with the cloud cover.  We had two choices for the decline.  Three if you consider we could return down the way we came.  The other two routes link up with the Barr Trail.  That’s the trail that hikes up to Pikes Peak.  One route continues straight to the back of the summit.  Ken wasn’t sure of the distance but thought it might be about 4 miles down.  The other hooks around to the left – stage right – and is likely under 2 miles.  I didn’t wear my Garmin – wish I did.

descentKen is standing here near the start to the short descent which we took.  The trail, until it connects with Barr, is essentially gullies and is a bit slick.  My brand new Solomon trail shoes gripped the ground with confidence.  We talked shop on the way down.  Ken recently left IBM for MapQuest; he’s a data architect in a world of big data.  We discussed the technical merits of Hadoop with MapReduce versus IBM DB2.  Both can provide massive parallelism but DB2 is also relational.  An open source, Hadoop alternative to DB2 would be Cloudera Impala.  If you find such conversation as engaging as we did, checkout Ken’s blog, Living with Data.

We were still talking tech when we reached the Barr Trailhead.  It’s paved now and has pay parking.  We connected with the Incline Trailhead via a 100 meter trail.  From there we walked back to Ken’s house.  I returned to the hotel for a shower and lunch.  Ellie and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • More
  • Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Search this blog

  • Boulder Marathon
  • Britt&Eric
  • Colorado Trail
  • Covid-19
  • covid-noir
  • cyber war
  • Ellie Rose
  • Geek Horror
  • Marathons
  • Margot
  • Medical Files
  • Novel
  • Other Stories
  • Politics
  • ReBlog
  • Running
  • Snowboard
  • Snowshoe
  • Storytelling
  • training plan
  • Victoria BC

Buy Full Spectrum Cyberwar at Amazon

Buy Cyber War I at Amazon

Buy on Amazon India for ₹99

Buy on Amazon U.K. for £2.27

English Edition on Amazon Germany

Buy on Amazon Brazil for R$11.29

Archives

Blog Stats

  • 136,700 hits

Girlfriend Cult

Recent Comments

Terry Collier on Sunken Garden
georgeschools on I saw a Bear
Terry Collier on The Niwot Loop
Ed Mahoney on ATX Half 2023
georgeschools on ATX Half 2023

Recent Posts

  • May Flowers Under a Runner’s Sky May 13, 2023
  • Sunken Garden May 6, 2023
  • I saw a Bear April 23, 2023
  • The Niwot Loop April 22, 2023
  • PSA April 15, 2023
  • Easter Birthdays, Bunnies and Eggs April 8, 2023
  • Happy Memories March 25, 2023
  • ATX Half 2023 February 22, 2023
  • Adelsverein January 28, 2023
  • A Runner’s Day January 7, 2023
  • Last Run of the Year December 31, 2022
  • Christmas, for me… December 26, 2022
  • Craft Shopping for Christmas December 10, 2022
  • A Slow, Late Fall Run November 25, 2022
  • November Runs November 20, 2022
  • Tech Debt November 19, 2022
  • The Runner’s Field of Battle November 13, 2022
  • Stealin’ from God October 24, 2022
  • A New Start October 23, 2022
  • Baby Margot Birthday October 9, 2022
  • The City of Flowers September 24, 2022
  • Dog Park by the Sea September 19, 2022
  • The Lane of Pain September 17, 2022
  • Run Rabbit Run August 28, 2022
  • Wild Horses August 21, 2022
  • The Day Running Died August 17, 2022
  • Boulder Marathon Training – Week One August 7, 2022
  • Mount Sanitas July 30, 2022
  • The Trail and Me July 23, 2022
  • Mount Zirkel Wilderness July 13, 2022
  • Full Team Hike July 4, 2022
  • Village to Village July 3, 2022
  • Beaver Creek July 2, 2022
  • Summer is Here June 12, 2022
  • Birthdays May 22, 2022
  • Fall River Road March 25, 2022
  • A Tale of Two Gerasimov’s March 11, 2022
  • The Hero February 26, 2022
  • Full Spectrum Cyberwar February 24, 2022
  • Run Nan, Run February 20, 2022
  • Running Sunrise to Sunset February 13, 2022
  • Cyberpunk Runner February 5, 2022
  • A Winter’s Run January 15, 2022
  • Turkmenistan January 2, 2022
  • Counting Families at Christmas December 26, 2021
  • Austin Boardwalk December 23, 2021
  • Like Christmas for the First Time December 19, 2021
  • Restoration November 27, 2021
  • India Kinks November 15, 2021
  • Run a Little, Write a Little November 6, 2021

Colorado=Security

Blogroll

  • Alohawk's Blog
  • Barbie's Blog
  • Boggy Creek Lumpster
  • George Schools Blog
  • I, Cringely
  • Prostate Chronicles
  • Shut Up + Run
  • Sustainable Sunrise
  • The Rogue Botanist

Web Sites

  • Amazon Author Page
  • Austin Marathon
  • Bolder Boulder
  • Brit's YouTube Songs
  • Colorado Marathon
  • Colorado Runner Magazine
  • Colorado Trail
  • Girlfriend Cult
  • Lobo Media Ltd
  • My YouTube Site
  • Race Pace Calculator
  • Shoes & Brews
  • Trail Runner Magazine
  • Zaremba Graphic & Web Solutions

Goodreads

Top Posts & Pages

  • Foot Fetish
  • La Cueva
  • Berthoud Pass
  • Performance Enhancers
  • PSA

Top Clicks

  • None

RSS Feed

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • A Runner's Story
    • Join 249 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • A Runner's Story
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: