Tuesday, 12/01/09 Sanitas

18:43 up, moderate effort. Caught a runner near the top going pretty casual. He started the descent ~10 seconds ahead of me and I figured I would just pass him before long, but he kept up a pretty fast pace and I had to work a bit to catch up. Once I got close, I did not have to push too hard to keep up and was just kind of coasting at times, but it would have been more than I wanted to bite off to pass, especially in the fading light. I was being cautious to not do anything stupid, but I noticed he had a few potentially serious stumbles and I winced thinking he would eat it, so I suspect he was pushing himself to the limit. To my surprise, we made it down in 10:30, which might be a descent PR for me in dry conditions. I offered up a "nice job, great pace" or something to that effect and did not get much in return, he looked pretty worked over from the effort. Either way, he pushed me to a faster than normal descent. Hats off to whoever that was.

Monday, 11/30/09 Sanitas x 2

First lap (18:33) felt like I was going on the easy side of moderate, never pushing. For a change, I was chasing Sierra the entire way up, not entirely sure what was up with that, but I suspect it had something to do with getting her tail slammed in the back door of the Element, eliciting ear piercing shreiks of pain and an anal gland mess all over herself and the ground. It was a complete and honest accident. After careful examination (and profuse apologies) I have determined that luckily her tail was not broken and I am positive that just her long fur at the end of her tail got caught. I felt absolutely aweful though and almost just went home without running.

To top off the excitement, I got reprimanded by a grouchy old bearded dude for "going off trail", though I was only taking the more direct line of trail where the trail splits around a pine tree, totally well travelled and legit, I do it every time I run Sanitas up and down, 50+ times per year and half the other people I see do the same (the tree at the top of the second to last steep pitch).

I paused, not believing what I was hearing, especially since that by his definition, he was even more "off trail" than I was on the same side of the tree. What a dick I thought as I continued the few minutes to the top, only in Boulder. He should have seen the deer skip across the trail just a minute prior, it went WAY off trail, imagine that.

I came up with all kind of snappy remarks to give him when I would surely pass him on the descent, but when I casually confronted him, acting like I did not hear what he had said, his tone changed and he was very friendly. I respectfully disagreed with his opinion and pointed out the fact that he too was "off trail" by his definition. I thanked him for his concern and was on my way. I'm rarely a jerk, unless myself, wife, dog or others I am with are threatened, so I just counterattacked with kindness, yet was not going to agree with him. WTF?

As I neared the bottom, I bumped into Scott E, so I turned around, just planning to walk with him for a ways, but ended up doing a whole second lap with him, as it was great to catch up. On this lap, I realized (confirmed) that my little flashlight sucks and I need a new one.