Sunday, 09/11/11 Week in Review

Tuesday, 09/06/11

Off

Wednesday, 09/07/11 Bike

Evening mountain bike ride towing the girls.  7 miles/150 vert../45 min

Thursday, 09/08/11 Bike

Ran some errands with the girls towing them behind the mountain bike.  Extended the ride a bit as it was so much fun and was a perfect day.  15.55 miles/662 vert./1:49

Friday, 09/09/11  Bike

Had so much fun pulling the girlies in the Chariot the past few days, that I decided to tow them on the road bike and go a bit further.  Messed around shooting some video too.  24 miles/800 vert./1:43





Saturday, 09/10/11 South Boulder Peak/Bear Peak and Bike Ride

Sobo/Bear 7.23 miles/3,259 vert./2:55

Allison and I had a rare day off together and an even more rare day without the babies, as the grandparents offered to watch them for a good part of the day.  Along with Sierra, we headed up Homestead to Shadow on a perfect day.  We went a casual pace and spent a good amount of time at water stops for Sierra and had some nice long summit breaks.  As we neared the end of Shadow Canyon on the descent, the girl that was walking about a minute ahead of us, turned back to warn us of a rattlesnake in the trail.  I had everyone stay put while I went ahead to check it out, and sure enough, there was a small, but VERY pissed off and aggressive rattler in the middle of the trail in strike position.  From a safe distance, I tossed a few pea size rocks in it's direction to scare it off, but that did nothing.  After a few minutes of observing and taking photos/video, it was evident that we either go back up over Bear Peak and down Fern Canyon/Mesa (something I almost voted for), or get a long tree branch and coax it off the trail.  I was able to move the snake off to the side and hold it at bay while the ladies and dogs passed.  This would have been quite the scare had I been running, as the snake was in a very shaded area/blind curve where I would have been going quite fast.

Very pissed off snake!

Another trail hazard (which is why I try to avoid running on these peaks on very windy days)

The wind blew this down a few years ago on a Winter day, one where I bailed very nearby on the same day.

Perfect day

After our hike, we loaded the girls into the Chariot and went out for another 90 minutes or so of biking around Louisville/Lafayette.  After 4.5 hours of outdoor activity, I was bogging down a bit towing the trailer.  It is a lot of work towing ~70+ lbs on a bike, harder than running I think, as you pedal your ass off and feel like you are getting nowhere sometimes.   14.3 miles/364 vert./1:23

Sunday, 09/11/11 Bear/SoBo

5.84 miles/3,296 vert./1:24:47 (40:59 to true Bear Summit/9:50 to SoBo/8:54 back to Bear/25:13 back to Cragmoor)/163 avg. HR Garmin Data

In addition to having a headache and generally feeling out of it, my legs felt heavy and tired all day at work, a direct result of a week and a half of carrying two babies at a time, pushing babies in the jogger, pulling babies behind a bike etc., it was finally catching up with me.  I debated just skipping my run, but it was too nice of a day and I can never pass up a free opportunity to get outside.  Not to mention, I needed it more for my head than anything.

The run turned out better than I expected.  I went a moderate to almost hard pace at times, never really pushing, but just letting the run come to me and I felt like I was making decent progress despite my initial reservations.  I also thought quite a bit about the events 10 years ago....

10 years ago today, I, along with the rest of the nation, watched in horror as the tragic events in New York, DC and Pennsylvania played out on live TV.  The entire day, though crystal clear, calm and perfect, contrasted heavily with the events on the East coast and seemed like a nightmare.  After spending almost the entire day glued to the TV set, I could not take it anymore, so I called my lifelong friend Joe, who was living in Boulder at the time, to see if he wanted to escape for a hike up Bear and S. Boulder Peaks to regain at least a shred of normalcy.

The hike up Fern Canyon from Cragmoor was eerily quiet.  You don’t really notice on regular days how much noise pollution there is from planes, cars, buses, trains, loud people yapping, etc…., but on 9/11/01, there were no planes flying, no horns honking and the difference was a stark contrast to every other day. 

There were a surprising number of people on the trails for a late Tuesday afternoon/evening (seems like many were out for the same reasons), most of whom we saw in Fern Canyon and we stopped and exchanged friendly words with everyone.  A rare time where we were all feeling a bit more compassion for those around us and shared a need to restore faith in humanity.

We continued over Bear and on to South Boulder Peak, where we sat on the summit for more than an hour, all by ourselves, remarking how silent it was, each in our own meditative thoughts, occasionally sharing a word or two.  Tears may have been shed.

As the sun began to set, we collected ourselves and began the long walk back home.  Though we could never entirely forget what had happened that day, just getting outside and connecting with our natural surroundings really helped to begin the healing process.

And so it was today, I ran the same route and it was a real boost mentally and physically.