Monthly Archives: March 2010

Past two weeks – a peak run to cap it off

Posted on March 27, 2010 by Aaron K

I wasn’t able to make my way to the mountains for 2 weeks because I was super busy with my business.  I did get out and run a bunch around home though, which was fun.

But today I finally made it back to the mountains, it was so nice to be back after a couple weeks off…here’s some footage I took of the journey today:

And here are my stats for the last two weeks:

Mar 15 – 5.5 miles around neighborhood easy in FF Sprints

Mar 18 – 4.5 miles barefoot in the sun

Mar 19 – 15.21 miles in FF’s around the neighborhood in a WET snow storm – 2 hours 19 minutes

Mar 20 – 5 miles barefoot around the neighborhood

Total: 30 miles of road running

Mar 22 – 7.35 miles in FF treks, felt great.

Mar 23 – 7.16 miles barefoot – a nice hour cruise around the neighborhood, I love barefoot running, it feels fantastic.

Mar 25 – 5.61 miles in FF treks around neighborhood

Mar 27 – 8.6 miles in FF treks – First ascent up Bear Peak in Boulder.  So glad to be back in the mountains…it was an epic run

Total: 28.72 Miles – 20 on the road 8 in the mtn.

Here are the numbers from todays run:

8.6 Miles – 2:33:13 – 17.48/mile avg – HR: 138 avg – 4300 Ft ascent and 4300 Ft of descent

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Flagstaff Mountain in the sun!

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Aaron K

What a beautiful morning to be running through the mountains!!  Sunny and 40+ Degrees.



Here are my stats from the run:

9.27 Miles – 1:57:54 – 12:43/mile – HR: 144 avg – Ascent/Descent: 3600 Ft.

We didn’t make it up Green Mountain because it was a bit icy so we ran around on flagstaff mountain instead.

What a fun morning.  I really wanted to keep going for another couple hours…but that will have to wait for another day.

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Midnight on Green Mountain

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Aaron K

I spent all of about 15 seconds at the summit…my toes were going numb in just my FiveFingers and 6 inches of powder, so I looked out into the cloud I was surrounded in, couldn’t see much, and turned back down the trail.

All day I was itching to go run Green Mountain again, but the day was too busy.  But I used my desire to get out and run as a motivator to get my tasks done for the day, so as soon as the kids were in bed, I was able to knock out some property research in about 1/3 the time it normally takes me and I threw on my running clothes and headed to Boulder at 10:45 pm.

I ran most of the way to the peak this time, if I walked it was only  to scramble or pull myself up the steepest sections.  But despite this, it took me longer than Monday because it was much more slick due to 4-6 inches of snow on the trail.  And it was dark.  It took me exactly 1 hour to reach the summit compared to 55 minutes on Monday.

When I was about 40 minutes into the run, my toes were pretty cold and numb, and I was seriously questioning whether I should go on.   But I really wanted to make it to the summit.  Also, I knew from experience that my feet get cold for some reason when I’m going up steep trails, but going down they almost immediately warm up.  I was hedging my bets and hoping that was the case, but having my doubts and wondering if I was going to get to the top with numb feet and still have an hour of freezing to do on the way down.

Sure enough, almost as soon as I started going down hill the blood started flowing in my feet.  Within minutes my feet were completely comfortable and stayed that way the rest of the run down.  I don’t fully grasp why it makes such a big difference in warmth of the feet going down hill, but I’ll take it!  Toward the bottom, my feet were sweating and it actually felt refreshing to hit the powdery sections again…weird.

6.47 Miles – 1:49:04 – 16:51/mile – HR: 143 – Ascent/descent: 3300 ft (apparently the gps isn’t completely accurate/consistent since it said 3600 for the same run on monday, maybe there are less or more satellites in range at that time of night.)

What a fun run.  Just like on Monday when I turned the final corner and saw my car I was kind of bummed that I was back already.

I took a few pictures at the trail head, and it was pretty interesting to me to see what happened when I adjusted the shutter speed and let in more light…check it out…all these were taken within seconds, at about 1:30 AM…funky how it looks like sunrise in some of them eh??  I didn’t edit the colors on these at all…just decreased the shutter speed to let more light in.

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My first run (slash hike) up Green Mountain in Boulder

Posted on March 8, 2010 by Aaron K

WOW!  What have I been thinking not running up mountains all this time??  That has to be the best way to start the day off.  I started running at the trail head at 6:30, the sun was just coming up but I never saw the sun because I was in the canyon.  It was quiet and peaceful, and I had the entire mountain to myself the whole run.  Never saw another soul.  I felt like singing along a lot on the way up the mountain, but I couldn’t because my heart and chest were pounding too hard…but on the way down I was just belting it out as I bounded down the pine needle covered soft dirt and snow pack.

When I took off up the trail I was Immediately humbled as my calves were on fire after the first steep mile.

Then I hiked for a couple minutes to recover, then it leveled off just a tad and I ran again.

I was able to run the majority of the 3.4 miles to the summit from the trailhead, but there were sections where the steepness was too great for my current fitness level.

I guess since that’s the first time I have actually ever attempted to run to the top of a mountain I’ll cut myself a little slack though.

But I was very humbled by the constant steep grade that Anton Krupicka runs up in 32-34 minutes every day…it took me almost 55 minutes.

Here are the stats:

6.5 Miles – 1:31:40 – 14:09/mile – HR 146 avg – Ascent: 2400 ft

I will be heading back to that trail on a frequent basis in the coming weeks, I am positive of that.  What an incredible place to run!

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