Thursday Hill Tempo Run

For the last 8 years, on Thursday mornings from the end of October through March, you can find Team CRUD runners meeting at 0'dark:30 for our trek up North Cheyenne Canon. We do this run as a handicap run (which is fitting given the stupidity of most of us) which makes it a fun competition to see who gets to the top first. We then all run down together. For the first several years, the "winner" would then be handicaped more the following week by having to carry a football size purple wooden pineapple up the hill.



The run itself is 4.25 miles and averaqes 7.5 percent grade. It ends at the high point of High Drive, which is just under 8000 feet elevation. The conditions vary quite a bit of course, but most mornings finds at least some snow and ice. Incidentally, the first 3.1 miles of this run (the part on pavement) is also a classic road bike climb, and many of the best road bikers in the world have tackled it. Lance Armstrong has the 3rd best time I think (his coach lives near the top of the road).

Nitty Gritty Details:


The best part is seeing the sun rise over Colorado Springs:


The following photo shows the finish line at the top of High Drive. Behind me is Buckhorn Mt (just another few hundred feet to the top via a trail). There used to be a huge tree that marked our finish line but it blew down in a storm 2 years ago so we have a finish stump now:


It was 13 degrees this morning, which means shorts weather for some of us. The all-time CRUD record for this run is 31:22 by Dan Vega. His time has an asterisk, however, because he stopped to drop a deuce and stopped his watch while doing so. That is a rest break in my book. Next best (at least till Justin beats it) is my time of 32:31. After so many years of doing this run, I have a hard time getting motivated to go hard so my PR will probably stay the same. Today was a typical 38:something day.

I just bought a very small "running" camera which I carried today so expect more of these route write-ups over the next few weeks. Next up: Mt. Herman/Limbaugh Canyon.