Mixed week.  Off to a good start with two solid workouts.  Lots of things going on over the weekend, and I consciously let them derail the running.  I could have forced it, but chose not to.  I did get to spend a little time in the mountains, and about froze to death on the Continental Divide taking some pictures after dark.

I’m still leaning towards jumping in the 6 hour ‘fun run’ in Boulder this weekend.  I have a couple days left to register, so might as well leave it until the last minute.  Just taking things one day at a time for now.

Monday
9 miles

Intervals on the HC. .5, .5, 1 mile, .5

Nothing too extreme, mostly just blowing the rust out.

Tuesday
6 miles

Calves shot from yesterday.  They just don’t seem to handle the faster efforts very well (probably due to my running form).

Wednesday
9 miles

Good day. Rather, I made it into a good day. My calves were pissing and moaning big time again, but I called their bluff. Did 8 miles worth of tempo at the Boneyard. After 4 laps I was sitting at an average of 8:10, started feeling a little better and whittled that down to 7:50 after 3 more.

I owe this run to scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, peanut butter cups, a little cherry coke zero, and the Foo Fighters.

Thursday
8 miles

Easy jog.

Friday
0 miles

No running today.  Tied up in meetings, then drove to Leadville and back to bring Malcolm home for the weekend.  First snowfall of the year, had to brush the car off in the morning.  Took this shot of 14,267′ Torreys Peak in the afternoon.

Then I stopped near Frisco and spent 30 minutes walking in the hills to take a break from the drive and snap some more pictures.

Saturday
0 miles

Could have run, but chose to go up to Boulder instead.  Met up with RT at a photography seminar, and listened to 4 adventure photographers give presentations.  Good stuff.

Fairly tight on time afterwards, but did have a 30 minute cushion to work with.  Used that time to hit Eldorado Canyon on the way home.  The place was empty due to the weather, so it was nice to have it pretty much to myself.

Tried another panorama with the camera held vertically.  This shot is 9 frames stitched together.  The file Photoshop spit out was a 2.5GB TIF!  If I did the pixel math correctly, it would be 12 feet wide and 4 feet tall if printed at the native size.

Sunday
0 miles

Took Malcolm back up to Leadville.  Spent some time on the way back working on getting some night shots.

Big Dipper over the Continental Divide:

Milky Way:

The Tunnel:

Loveland:

Total: 32 miles / 4:45

Coming off of the 40 miler last Saturday, I was surprised to feel as good as I did this week.  I know my log entries mention being tired quite a bit, but I really should have been more crippled after all that pavement.

It was a super busy week in all aspects of life, and I didn’t quite make my mileage goal.

I am backing away a little bit from the idea of running the 24 Hours of Boulder in two weeks.  Every time I think about pulling the trigger on registration, I have an overwhelming feeling of – meh.  My birthday is the following Saturday, and the idea of coming up with some sort of cool/crazy/stupid run for that instead is becoming a more attractive alternative.  Maybe a DIY 100 miler is in order?  The wheels are turning…

Lots of fun with the camera as I took over 1,000 photos this week including my first serious attempt at portraits, and first time spending the day shooting a trail race/ultra.  I spent both Friday and Saturday evenings chasing the moonrise, which would have been spectacular if not for a thick layer of haze/smoke on the horizon which killed the best views.

Monday
6 miles

Boneyard with Stu. Felt really good considering the 40 miler on the weekend. Almost unsettling…

Tuesday
10 miles

Highline Canal. First 4 were rough, then felt better. Thinking I will target 70 again this week and try to keep it at that level up through Boulder.

Wednesday
11 miles

Strange day. 1st attempt to run was thwarted by a work call that led to being slammed most of the day. Thought I would stop off at Chatfield on the way home and get in an easy 5 or so. Felt very slow and tired, ran out onto the dam. Turned around at 2.5 and there was a very nasty storm that sneaked up behind me with lots of lightning that basically cut off my retreat. To my immediate south, the skies were clear and sunny. I decided to keep going and run around the south end of the lake before turning back north to get to my car. I was dragging pretty bad, but finally made it.

This was looking away from the storm, much worse behind me.  In any case, not a good place to be with lightning around.

Went out later that night to try and get some night shots of the lightning over the city.

Thursday
11 miles

Included 10 miles in the high 7’s. As tired as my legs were, it forced me to work a bit to hold that pace.

Found a GREAT spot for shooting portraits and my daughter was a good sport and let me practice taking some shots.  It’s not an area of photography that I’ve done much with, pretty much favoring the landscapes, but I liked the new challenge.  Most of all, I was happy that she was happy with how they turned out – teenage girls being somewhat hard to please in that way…

Friday
12 miles

Very tired again (theme for the week), but put in some good work at the Boneyard.

Made a pretty big effort to get a moonrise shot from Chatfield State Park.  Didn’t quite get what I was after, but had a fun evening running back and forth alternating between moonrise and sunset.

Saturday
12 miles

Really felt broken-down today. I think that is my cue to start letting up. I’ll abandon the goal of 70 for this week and be content with what I’ve gotten so far.

Spent the evening chasing another Harvest Moon shot.  Mostly thrwarted by a super thick layer of haze/smoke on the horizon that spoiled the moonrise, but did get a couple shots I liked.

Sunday
OFF

Spent a fun day at the Bear Chase Trail Race cheering for the runners and taking a bunch of photos.

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See the rest here.

Total: 62.6 miles / 10:06