Playing Catchup

Looks like I've been a bit delinquent with my training log, so here are the last two weeks as well as a few things on my mind lately. First, I watched the Kentucky Derby this past weekend and was sickened by the sight of Eight Belles collapsing with broken ankles at the finish. Does this really qualify as a "sport?" After reading the views of the two sides in the newspapers this week (PETA types on one side, horse racing insiders on the other) I was most struck by the following statistic; 2.4 horses die per 1000 starts, which the horse racing people used to justify the relative safety of the sport. Humm, can you imagine 2.4 runner deaths per 1000 starts in trail or road racing? Math isn't my strength, but I think that would mean 30 - 40 runners dropping each year at big city races like Chicago, NY, and Boston marathons. Of course if that were the case, at least each runner was making up his/her own mind about the risks before signing up, which can't be said for the horses. Another interesting fact was that each of the 20 horses in the Derby were all descendants of the same 1950's horse. Kind of makes you wonder about trail racing in 2050; will all the top contenders be descendants of Scott Jurek! Better get started Scott.

Ice Caves

You'll see in my log reference to the ice caves. These are some neat caves (dry in summer, ice in winter/spring) in the Ice Cave creek drainage about a mile from my house. They are just a few hundred yards off one of my running routes but I had never veered off to check them out so Rick, Jill, and Abby the dog joined Judy, Darwin the dog, and myself for some exploring. After hiking up there, Judy, Jill, and Abby sat in the sun while Rick, Darwin and I rooted around. Pretty cool stuff. As soon as we got down into the drainage near the caves, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees. Next year we'll go in earlier in the spring and they should be more fully coated with ice.

Off the Beaten Path

While Barr trail is great, it gets very crowded and there are plenty of other great trails on Pikes Peak. For our last CRUD long run, we started up Barr Trail and then took what is known as the Water Pipe trail, which heads towards Cabin Creek. There is a pipe and supporting structure there crossing the ravine (no trespassing allowed of course) which you cross to continue on the other side. You then get to the Cog railway (no trespassing allowed) where you head uphill. We only ran on the cog for a few miles till we got to Mountain View, where there is a 1.5 mile trail that heads over to Barr Camp at 10,200 feet. Just a little bit of snow here and it is melting fast. We then headed down the Barr trail and zipped over on another trail back to the Cabin Creek area and reversed our trip. While I'm not suggesting you take this exact route, there are plenty of other trails all over Pikes Peak you should consider exploring.

In the spirit of our "no trespassing" run, here's a little music quiz. One free beer to winner (must come to Manitou on a Thur evening to collect). Name the song and artist of the following:

The little country store
with a sign tagged to the side
Said, "No L-O-I-T-E-R-I-N-G, A, allowed"
Underneath that sign always congregated
quite A crowd
Take a bottle, drink it down
pass it, hey, pass it all around

Mon 04/21 – walk 45:00
Tue 04/22 – walk 45:00
Wed 04/23 – walk 45:00
Thu 04/24 – 1:30:00 including mod tempo run up to No Name Creek (38:00)
Fri 04/25 – 30:00 easy on roads with Darwin
Sat 04/26 – 3:36:00 Gold Camp/Old Stage/Frosty Park/Pipeline tr
Sun 04/27 – walk 1:15:00
Week – 5:36:00 / 40 miles

Mon 04/28 – run 35:00 hard/hilly on roads
Tue 04/29 – run 47:00 up by res and back
Wed 04/30 – run 1:18:00 up past res and back
Thu 05/01 – run 1:40:00 including tempo run to No Name Creek (34:37) and then easy to 7.8 sign
Fri 05/02 – walk
Sat 05/03 – 2:45:00. Barr trail/Water Pipe/Cog/Mountain View/Barr Camp/7.8/Water Pipe/Barr Tr
Sun 05/04 – hike 2:00:00 by ice caves
Week – 7:05:00 / 52 miles