Mon - Noon: 8.5 miles (2,100'). Horsetooth/Audra long route. Legs got into the groove half way through. Still some fatigue from Fruita.
PM: 9.5 miles (800'). Overlook route from Soderburg.

Tues - PM: 12.5 miles (500'). 1:37. Soderburg to Lory Visitors Center, with tack on at the end. Felt good for the most part. Running at a slightly up-tempo pace seems to be less fatiguing than slower, which was the pace I thought I wanted to run. Still some heaviness in there, but getting better.

Weds - Noon: 9 miles (2,200'). Horsetooth/Audra long route.
PM: 5.5 miles at Pineridge with Dennis.

Thurs - Noon: 11 miles (2,700'). Followed the hard-flowing Spring Creek today after originally planning on getting around and doing my usual lunchtime loop. It must have rained pretty hard overnight as the creek was swollen, moving well, and calling for me to follow it to its source - and so I did. Beautiful, yet misty, spring day. Soderburg - Falls - Spring Creek - Westridge - Rock - Audra - Southridge (back up) - Rock - Soderburg - home the long way.

Signs of spring: Horsetooth Falls running strong after the rain.

Pretty much the last patch of snow on Westridge.

Deer everywhere.

PM(1): 6 miles easy on sloppy valley trails before meeting a group of 11 from the Fort Collins trail runners for a hard effort up Towers. Waited around for about 30 minutes between runs as I was last to go in the handicap.
PM(2): 7 miles (1,700'). Towers Road. It was wet and pretty sloppy out, plus I was already tired, but I ground out a good consistent effort up the hill for 34:25. Definitely didn't flat-line it, but was working.

Laura (left) was first up in the handicapped race so assumes the title "Queen of the Hill," while Amy established a female FKT at 42:13.

Friday - PM: 5 miles (800'). Falls route, super easy. Squeezed in a run during a brief window of relative nice weather between some ugly rain/snow/wind. All the drainage channels at Horsetooth were alive with water. The sound of moving water today was a real treat - the whole park takes on another dimension when it's in filtration mode. Took the time to 'smell the flowers' and enjoy.





Sat - AM: 6 miles, w/5k in 17:43. 3.5 miles hiking and a bit of running with Alistair at Horsetooth in the pm. I'm pretty sure this is the furthest he has walked in one go, so that was cool.

Sun - AM: 25 miles (7,800'). 4:34. Two times up Round Mountain and then back up for a third time to 3-mile marker for an even 25 miles & 7.5k. Solid outing at the crack of dawn with Pete, Alex and Eric. Eric and I picked up a steady effort on the first climb and I led us up there in just under 61 minutes (13:14, 13:01, 11:48, 11:47, 11:05) down relatively easy in 45 minutes. On the second climb, I could tell Eric wanted to get after it, so he led and pulled me up in 57 minutes (10:59, 12:24, 11:19, 11:55, 10:19), which is a solid effort, especially with the snow through the last mile or so. Down in 46 minutes, then up for the last three climb miles in 38 minutes (12:38, 13:09, 12:38), down in 25. Legs felt great and the run was over before I knew it. Felt like there was plenty left in tank. Good stuff.

Total: 108 miles (18,500').

So this was a good week with some faster stuff added to the usual heavy dose of vertical. By Wednesday the legs were feeling better than they did going into Fruita. Took a couple of easy days on Friday/Saturday after a hard effort on Towers Thursday, then felt great for the first outing of the year on Round, which has now officially been added into the mix. I'll be looking to run some big-mileage runs on Round and other local 8-9,000' peaks every weekend from here on in to States. Lots of quad-mashing downs, that's the ticket.