A half mile into my run. Hopeful.

Six miles in, near the turn around. I’d left my water bottle back at where I took the first photo, which added another mile to my run. And a significant hill. But I was here for a workout and only hand-carrying 500ml was already pushing the boundaries. This was a 1000ml run and today was in the warm 50°s. Without hydration, it would be a fairly short run.

After thirteen miles. It was a good run.

I learned today that I’ve lost some of my conditioning. Or did I? I mean, today’s twelve miles on the East Boulder Trail was exhausting. I ran two hours of the two and a half hour run in heart rate zone 5, actually I was over 160 bpm by mile five – which extends above the zone 5 max, which is to say that I ran the final seven of those miles at or above my lactate threshold. So that makes me feel good. Otherwise, I have to say that I hurt through most of those seven miles.

Pushing my heart that hard should have hurt, so I’m not going to worry about maybe failing out of shape – feeling so poorly on this trail today. I had some good surges though. Sort of like the Austin Marathon where I surged on everything that even slightly looked like a down-slope. Today, I’d fall into a fast rhythm whenever the crushed rock turned into recently thawed mud underneath a bed of dead plants with the appearance of straw. A dream trail. The tactic kept me running in a fairly tight minute per mile range for the marathon, but both then and today, my pace felt a bit more erratic than the per mile metrics suggest.

Wondering about my ability to push my lactate threshold is what I mostly thought about on today’s run over the East Boulder Trail hills. The one other thing was the epiphany when I realized how fortunate I am to know what gives me joy in life and to be able to enjoy it. I know that running gives me joy. I’m grateful to know that and to be able to run.

When I got home, I looked at the WhatsApp photos of Margot in her first Ballet class. More joy.

I dusted off my hydration pack this weekend. With 102° yesterday and 90° today, without hydration, running was an existential life choice. With a belly bigger than Dallas, I feel the choice was made for me. I had to get out there and acclimate myself. This summer’s not trending any cooler.

I have only one tank top to my name, a TrackSmith racing singlet gifted to me over Christmas by my brother-in-law. I chose wisely to wear it Saturday for the really hot one. I’ll need more if I hope to survive this summer.

I ran five each day, walking roughly two miles of them. I shamelessly count my walking as part of the run distance. I’m conditioning myself for a sixty-mile backpacking adventure next month at altitude. Should be cooler at twelve thousand feet where these fields of blooming bindweed and prairie dogs will be replaced by alpine buttercups and mountain goats. Ah, summer.

My next big run is a ways out. Late February in Austin. I plan to run my third Austin Half Marathon, this time with my little sister – Nancy. I ran my first in 2012 and second in 2020. I’ve also run three Austin Marathons but it’s hard to be in marathon shape in the Colorado winter. I think that’s one reason I’ve always struggled in Austin; the other reasons would be the humidity and the fact it’s a challenging course with massive hills after ten miles – impacting both the half and full marathon runners.

Having a winter run on the horizon is a good motivator to get outside during months when sitting indoors by the fire is much more tempting. These are some long horizon pics from my run today on the East Boulder Trail. I really missed the Colorado fall last year when I was living in Texas. If I could only run in one season, it would be the fall in Colorado.

This last photo is at the start of my trail, although taken at the end of my run with a dry shirt. I always have a fresh shirt, towel and water waiting for me in the car. That’s experience. Nan said she doesn’t think she’ll be able to keep up with me because, in her words, I’m a natural runner. I’m not sure if there is such a thing. In my mind, once you start running distances in excess of ten miles, nothing matters more than weight, and Nan is nearly half my tonnage. I’ll need to train to ensure I can keep up with her.

When you can see the Flat Irons over Boulder, indeed the Indian Peaks way back there, you know the air quality is safe to run in. I’ve learned to gage the index by looking at the foothills. When in doubt, I query Alexa before stepping out the door. I should be painting the trim on my carriage house, but with just five more weeks before the Boulder Marathon, I’m taking advantage of the three-day weekend to train.

I began Saturday running the East Boulder Trail. It’s one of my favorites, a trail I’ve been running for over thirty years. It gives me a good sense of my fitness level. I wasn’t fully recovered from a late afternoon run on Friday, but I ran well enough.

I ran alongside a twenty-something year-old woman at the turn-around for about a mile. She was running the pace I need to learn, around an eleven-minute pace, and we chatted for a bit. Since Karen gave me her Apple watch, I’ve started recording my runs and I now know I can run a 9.5 minute pace for up to ten miles. But running that fast in a marathon would lead me to a DNF. I should have kept running with her but she began to slow down from a 10:50 to an 11:10 pace, and I struggled to run that slow. Muscles have memory and mine remember running fast. I passed her to run what my legs were comfortable running, but wish now I’d kept with her. If I’m honest, I probably need to learn to run a twelve minute pace.

Check out the marathon course map. The northern loop above the Boulder Res is what runners refer to as the Boulder Backroads. I’m gonna run them tomorrow. I’ll trace the course which starts on the south side of the Boulder Res and heads north, returning to the start before heading into Boulder to finish downtown. If I’m successful, I’ll run sixteen miles. That’ll be a long run for me. I’ll use it to train slow running and to test my sports drinks and gels. If I can run sixteen miles tomorrow, I’ll gain some confidence at completing twenty-six miles five weeks from now.

By the way, I dropped my diet plan after last week’s blog. I’m not known for my patience and four friggin’ weeks without losing a single pound was more than I was willing to invest. And guess what, I lost two pounds this week. I don’t see myself getting below 190 now, with only five weeks to go, but I’m changing my strategy. Instead of bringing my weight to the run, I’m going to bring the run to my weight. I feel like the calisthenics I’ve been performing for the last five weeks have firmed my body up enough to enable me to run with this weight, assuming I run slow enough. I think I’ll be able to run an eleven to twelve minute pace at this weight, and finish that marathon under the 13.5 minute cut-off threshold. The goal this weekend is to learn to run that pace.

After my mom passed, my sister told me grief would come in waves. As if sharing a secret with her brother that all my other sisters already knew. I’d spent the last year of my mother’s life living with her, sharing the load with my brother. I figured my sister had no idea how I would feel in the future.

Since then, I’ve had wonderful weekends, snowshoeing and hiking with Karen. It’s been so great to be back home. Then, I have wistful weekends where I’m so bothered that I can’t call her as I’ve done for the last two decades of Saturday mornings. Like having a past lover block your profile. The months since have been marked by an undulating melancholy.

As I approach another year around the sun, I thought about how my entire fifties have been a rollercoaster. It began with cancer at fifty-one. As if that didn’t take me low enough, my hair turned gray overnight. Correction, being blonde, let’s agree to call it silver. And there were highs. I’m still looking at the photos of walking my daughter down the aisle. My mother passed in January and I’ll be a grandfather in September.

This current low has me wanting to tackle it head on. I think like a guy. I fix problems. I want change from where I’m at. I love product management but I want a new job. Creating products still satisfies me. I don’t want to stop doing that, but tech just isn’t feeding my soul right now and I have a hungry heart. The idea of working for a non-profit is appealing. Of course, I’m kidding myself. I still have a kid in college. And I doubt I could find a better work culture than with the people I’m working with right now.

Changing jobs would likely be an over-reaction, but I’m managing it in other ways. I’m not drinking every day like I generally would. And I’m trying to limit myself to a single drink when I do. Like sirens to the rocks though, that second drink calls for me. Having these thoughts as I ran today made me recall a time my mother advised me on depression.

I was sixteen and starting to drink on Friday nights with my buddies. She sat down with me one Saturday morning and gave a me long heart-to-heart. She acknowledged that having a close friend die in my arms from a car wreck we were in together over the summer was a hard pill for someone my age to swallow. But I didn’t die then and if I expected to keep living, I needed to change my ways. She didn’t have to remind me of her hardships, but she did say that if she’d ever chosen to wallow in self-pity, it was unlikely I’d be living the privileged life I was currently living. That was so long ago, it’s hard to remember enough of what she said to even paraphrase, but I always think back to it when I hear Bowie’s lyrics, “My mother said to get things done, you’d better not mess with Major Tom.” Mom never tried to be my best friend, but she was always my mother.

I thought of that on my run today. It was the 8 miler on the hilly East Boulder Trail that I attempt each weekend, but always end up walking in the final three miles. With mom for strength, I ran all eight miles today. First time this year. Longer. I thought of another strong woman while climbing the final, massive water tower hill. I thought of my older daughter when I took her on her first fifteen miler in high school. She was in tears on the last three miles of hills. She dry-heaved near the top of the water tower hill. But she ran through that. She never stopped. So I made up it that hill without stopping today. That’s the kind of change I can build on. That’s why I run.

I think the park rangers were a few weeks late in posting this sign, but it’s still helpful advice nonetheless.  The trail was less muddy this weekend, but there were some ice patches that could take you out.

It was a weekend for good signs.  This one is posted at the Westside Tavern, advertising their spin on a White Russian – normally milk (White), Bailey’s and vodka (Russian).  Reminded me of the signs at El Arroyo’s in Austin.

The sign that most caught my attention this weekend was that it’s winter.  I’ll get outside to run when I can but what I need more than anything right now is consistency, so I plan to mostly run indoors on my elliptical.  It’s not a Peloton, but it was a gift for my wife – before buying workout gear for your wife was cool.

I’ve put enough miles on this thing that I believe I’ve figured out how it actually calculates miles.  It appears to be based on RPMs.  If I maintain 60 RPMs, I complete 5 miles in 60 minutes for 5 MPH, or 12 minute miles.  That can’t be anywhere near accurate, but I don’t care about the stats.  I can tell if I’m pushing myself, and I can do that, low impact, on this machine.  It’s going to be my go-to workout this winter.

I returned to the mud and ice on the East Boulder Trail this morning.  Early, before too much trail mud had thawed.  It had been two weeks since I last survived this trail.  Sitting by itself, on the makeshift shelf of the trailhead sign, was the running glove I’d lost to this trail two weeks earlier, on one of my falls.

When the trail gives back like that, right at the start, I know I’m going to have a great run.  I was pretty bummed when I discovered I’d lost it.  Wonder how long it sat there on that sign.  As long as two weeks.

I didn’t fall today but trail conditions remain treacherous.  Nice temps though this weekend.  Finally.

Ironic that winter is starting on such a nice day, after having wintered the coldest, snowiest fall I’ve seen in over twenty-five years.  I’m looking forward to some nice running weather for the holidays.

The feeling is ephemeral and can only be felt in a fall’s winter.  The trail under my feet was packed snow.  The sun glare refracting off the snow rendered my hat useless, but I smile when I glint into light, so most everyone waved at me today.

Karen and I survived Halloween another year.  It was cold with the temps quickly dropping below freezing after the sun went down.  Karen was haunted by all sorts of horrific creatures throughout the night, but Scooby Doo was close by to keep her safe.

The East Boulder Trail wasn’t all snowpack.  There were spots of pure mud.  I’d steer wide, but that wasn’t always possible.  On the return, I was running atop a thin ridge covered in a few inches of fresh powder when my inside foot planted on a slope of mud.  I caught most of myself with my hands in a push-up landing, but my face hit the powdery snow full on.  It was cold, but after six miles, I was warm.  As I returned to my feet, I looked up to see the Indian Peaks covered in a soft, white blanket.  That’s how I felt on my trail, cozy with the sun and snow.  It felt good.  Only in the fall’s winter.

My running trail dies every year, a slow decay as the sun’s rays angle lower on the horizon.  The air is cooler, the sun softer.  Colors are more varied, yet demure.  Rich in maturity.

On my return, as I run up the water tower hill, I see fresh snow on the Indian Peaks.  My legs respond with vigor.  My lungs are fuller.  There is no better time to run than in a Colorado October.

Processed with VSCO with e3 preset

After seeing everyone’s HOCO photos this weekend, it occurred to me I forgot to post one of Ellie from a couple of weekends past.

The first days of summer have been full of winter in Colorado, but I love watching a front come in while running the East Boulder hills.  There’s no better feeling than running into the oncoming weather.  Summer rain dropping the chill of mountain snowmelt.

I’m doing all my runs lately on the East Boulder Trail.  It’s nostalgic for me.  I ran this trail daily, nearly thirty years ago when I lived in the Gunbarrel Country Club area, across 75th from Heatherwood.

I was in my upper twenties and I acclimated to high altitude running on that trail.  I ran a 41 minute Bolder Boulder that year – 1990.  A decent time for that course.  I ran 43 minutes, twenty-five years later.  I still plan to break 40 minutes.  I like the idea of getting back into shape on this trail.

The grasses along the East Boulder Trail have grown quickly with all the moisture this spring.  The stems are waist high and my fingers brush through the spikelets as I run.  I think their lushness makes the trail cozy.  I like the experience.  It feels early in the season for the grasses to be so tall.  I hope they keep growing.

I remember running this trail in 1990, when I found my high altitude speed.  Half a year earlier, I’d lived at sea level.  I always launched my runs from the west side of 75th and my first mile took me to the top of the water tower hill.  The water tower is the high point and is a half mile climb, then a quarter mile flat stretch across the top, and a quarter mile drop into the hills.

I found my speed when another runner, young twenties, probably in college, passed me from behind on the far-side downhill.  He’d passed me on other days and I always let him go.  This time though, warmed up from the hill, I chased after him once he gained a good fifty meters lead.  I caught him easily and we ran together, chatting, for a couple of miles.  We were easily running a six minute pace, maybe faster, through the hills.  It felt good.

I rediscovered my speed on that run and I’ll never forget it.  I maintained my fitness for the rest of the year, until I got a job downtown and had to start commuting.  Then I had kids.  It would be another twenty-five years before I would run this trail fast again.

I’m not running fast now, but I can run the hills without walking.  That will get me back in shape.  Eventually.  The hills on the East Boulder Trail never disappoint.