The 10K at 10,000 Feet

Sunday we traveled to Vail to run a 10K at 10,000 feet.  The day started with scraping a pretty good layer of frost from our windshield...in August!  By the time we got to Vail the sun was shining and it was promising to be a great day.  We boarded the Eagle Bahn gondola and began our ascent to the starting point.  It's always exhilarating to be at the start of a race.  People are pacing around, some go for warm-up runs, others stretch.  At 8:45 we made our way down to the official starting area.  We dropped our bags and found a spot in the crowd.  I like to begin near the back; I know there's no need to try and keep up with the elite athletes who hover at the front.  The announcer counted us down ten seconds  and we were off.  I found it hard to find my pace.  The nervous energy, the people in front and back, the sound of their breathing made me start off at too quick of a run.  I like to start pretty slow, allowing for a good long warm-up and then I pick it up a bit.  Not in this race.  After bottlenecking at the first entry into a forested area, the trail sloped down and down and down.  Again, hard for me.  I'd rather climb and climb and climb right away.  So I got fooled into thinking I could go fast.  When we did get to the climb I walked.  I didn't feel too bad since all of the people I could see in front of me were doing the same.  At mile 4 the descent began again and not any time too soon.  I thought I was going to puke for most of miles 2 and 3.  I finished 10 minutes slower than my 10K runs out on county road 25 but that's okay.  The views from the top of Vail were stunning.  The flowers still showed their colors and the sunny day was the real draw of this race.  What a fun time.  And by the way, 10,000 feet is no joke.  It's hard.

Getting Back Into a Schedule

The last few weeks have been a hodge podge of workouts and runs with not a lot of thought.  Two weeks ago I helped the volleyball girls with conditioning and working out with them was a lot of fun.  Yesterday was the first day of school with kids and I began with what my school year schedule for exercising and movement will be:

• 20 minutes of yoga while coffee is percolating (thanks to yogaglo I can do a search for twenty minute sessions that fit my needs)
• Walk to and from school (one mile each way)
• Run or workout after school (last night I ran four miles)
• My goal is that all of this movement will add up to 14,000 steps that are counted on my handy dandy New Balance BodyTRNr in bright orange.  Yesterday that happened.

As with any schedule the "sticking to it" is essential.  It's my plan to do so!  

Returning to the High Country

I've been out of town for the last few days to an elevation near sea level.  I ran a few days in the humidity and loved the total sweat factor.  I always feel like I'm getting rid of all sorts of things through my skin cells when exercising in humidity.  Luckily, the temps weren't that bad and it was a great visit to my brother's in Virginia.  The twenty burpees for twenty days challenge is over.  Admittedly, I didn't do a great job of completing each day's burpee goal.  Two of the six days that I didn't do burpees were followed by days that I doubled up on the burpees.  The other days...I just didn't do them.  Some of those days I did do strength exercises, just not burpees.  Today we went on our favorite trail run in the high country.  We started at the trailhead to the Devil's Causeway at Stillwater Reservoir outside of Yampa.  Instead of going right up the steep, at times perilous trail that is always super busy, we stayed left.  This trail takes us along the shores of the reservoir and to the headwaters.  We follow that water the entire way up to a few high mountain lakes.  That's our turn around.  If we continued on the trail, we could go back over the Causeway and down (this loop takes about 3 1/2 hours) or we could go up and over, ending up at Trapper's Lake.  After a short breather at the lakes and talking about the trail's highpoints (nice undulations, beautiful flowers, stunning scenery, hardly anyone on the trail) we started back.  That's when I heard the splash of something big moving in Bear River.  I turned towards the noise and saw a bull moose.  No less than about 30 feet away.  Wow!  He moved out of the water, stopped, turned and looked at us and that's all I saw.  Because I didn't stop running.  I kept going.  Welcome to the High Country!

Getting My Runnin' In

The last few days I've done a decent job of logging miles and minutes.  I ran Friday through Sunday, with each run getting progressively longer.  Sunday's run was the pinnacle of this running series:  the Challenge Hill.  Road 940 to the Little Flattops did not disappoint with its climb, the flowers, and the vista.  We've watched summer progress via the flowers on our runs here.  First the glacier lilies made their appearance and then came the red paintbrushes, the lupines, and the stickly geraniums.  Columbines!  Sunday we saw more yellows:  little golden eyes and craggly grandads.  The dark purple larkspur stole the show, though.  We started our run higher up this time, just past Chapman Reservoir at the duck pond.  After checking in with the shepherd to make sure we wouldn't come across sheep and more importantly, scary sheep dogs, we were off.  The climb is tough.  Forty minutes was our goal.  It's slow going but the flowers and the spot where the trees part, letting us see all the way to the Zirkels kept us going.  We made it past the rough four wheel drive portion and with two minutes left, began running on the single track.  The dramatic vertical wall of the mountain helped us decide that next time, we would start at the single track with hopes of a summit.  After a small breather we began our descent of  25 minutes.  Today I took a break from running and sweated like a pig with the following:

Circuit One (perform each series three times with 1 minute rest between series)
Series One

• 30 sec step ups, each leg
• 1 minute squats

Series Two

• 1 minute jumping jacks
• 30 sec pushups
• 30 sec bicycles

Series Three

• 1 minute burpees
• 1 minute walking lunges

Cardio Push

• Five minutes jump rope

Circuit Two (Tabatas)

• side shuffle to leap
• mountain climbers
• flutter kicks
• pillar planks
• side lunges

Circuit Three (perform each for 30 sec, no rest)

• bicycles
• flutter kicks
• prone supermans/back extensions
• scissors
• reverse crunches
• V-sit isometric hold

20 Minutes and No Equipment

Yesterday and today I've felt, well, not-so-with-it.  After not working out on Monday (I know!) On Tuesday I did a pretty intense workout going three rounds of 10 exercises (using all sorts of equipment), working for 30 sec hard and resting 15 in between.  Today's workout, while shorter in duration, felt better, more intense, and I know you will like it's less complicated approach.

20 Minutes and No Equipment
Circuit One/Warm-up (1 minute each exercise)

• Jumping jacks
• Pillar planks (begin in high plank and go down to elbow plank and back up, one arm at a time)
• Squats
• Mountain climbers
• Squat jumps (begin w/ a wide stance, squat, jump, land in narrow stance, squat, jump, land in wide stance, repeat)

Circuit Two (30 sec each exercise)

• High knees
• Tricep pushups
• High knees
• Burpees
• Squats
• Left side plank
• Squats
• Right side plank
• Alternating reverse lunge
• Burpees
• Alternating reverse lunge
• Tricep pushups
• Jumping lunges (or alternating back lunge)

Circuit Three/Core Intensive Cool-Down (1 minute each exercise)

• Table top tricep dips (in table top position, lower hips while dipping)
• V sit 
• Russian twists (legs in table top, twist to one side then other)
• Table top alternating leg extension and reach (in table top position extend right leg up and reach w/ left arm and alternate)
• Downward dog

A Hike and a Run

We headed up to Dumont Lake campground on Friday afternoon.  Luckily I was able to get one of the last two sites the campground had to offer.  We hadn't been to this campground before; we picked it to proximity to home and to the fact that we could do a training run right from the campground.  Late Saturday morning we took off towards the Rabbit Ears formation.  Although a short hike (about 5 miles max), it gets hot and really steep towards the base of the Ears.  We scrambled around the rocks and started back down.  The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring Dumont Lake and listening to the amazing birds in this high mountain meadow.  The wildflowers were stunning; reds, purples, whites, and yellows all coexisting in a perfect balance.  Sunday morning we set out on trail 1101 towards Fish Creek and the ski mountain.  The first mile was along Dumont Lake among those amazing flowers. After crossing the creek that feeds the lake the climb begins.  It's not too long, though, and soon enough we were traversing the near the top of the Divide.  Our goal was 40 minutes out and back on a trail that won't be too dissimilar from what we'll be doing in Vail.
Camping Weekend Exercise

• 5 mile hike
• 2 mile walk
• 6 mile trail run

If you have the chance, get into the high country soon.  The flowers are spectacular.

These Athletes Are Amazing

I was cruising around the internet this morning and I found these pictures of Masters Track and Field participants.  The athletes pictured are 70 years and older.  What an inspiration to keep our bodies healthy.  Check them out here.   Today, I went to my go to workout except instead of running stairs I jumped rope.  See the Good Go-To-Workout from July 13.