In July my wife and I went to Iceland and Ireland for a little summer vacation. I have not yet flown on a plane since I moved to Salida nearly two years ago, so the idea of a trip sounded fun. Our main mission was to attend a cousin's wedding in Ireland, but we figured we'd do one of those Iceland stopovers, since it was on the way, and we had heard good things.
We didn't do a whole lot of planning for the Iceland trip, but there was lots to see when we got there. It would be a great place to be a trail runner the few months of the year when the weather's decent enough to do it. Very beautiful, rugged terrain, and a decent trail network.
We actually booked an AirBnB in Reykjavik for the whole time we were there. I mainly did runs by the local bay, so not as much trail running as I might like. But we did a bunch of day trips with hikes, which piqued my interest. I suspect I'll go back some day.
In Ireland, I did most of my running in Phoenix Park in Dublin, which is about a mile from my Uncle's house. I gave the whole 17:30 thing a time trial effort by myself, but it was definitely not happening. Not sure if it was jet lag, constant overeating, or just the fact that I'm not fit enough, but I was not even close to getting it done.
When I got back to the US, I weighed myself for the first time since before I left and found that I had gained a solid 13 pounds in three weeks. Impressive!
Since getting back to Salida, I've been trying to get up high as much as possible. Last Saturday I did an ascent of Ouray at 13,900-something feet and this morning I did an ascent of Mt. Aetna, which is 13,700-something feet.
Views from Ouray
Views from Aetna
This morning I was actually trying to climb Taylor Mountain, which is next to Aetna, but got turned around and did the wrong mountain. Then, the hike down Aetna was way more of a challenge than expected. Nothing super exposed, but basically a super steep scree field the whole way down. I ended up sliding on my ass much of the way just to get down the mountain without killing myself.
(Also fun: I saw two bears running through the meadow while I was on the way down. They were the fourth and fifth bears I've seen this summer).
It's supposed to be a good place to do a hike/ski in winter, but upon further reflection, it was not an ideal place for a summer run. Very little running (or even fast hiking) happened outside of the first two miles up and down. In fact, I have not seen any documented evidence online of anyone else doing this ridge without some combination of skiing/glissading. For good reason. It was doable, but tedious and hard.
Not quite 14ers, but it's nice having the mountain to yourself and exploring the local terrain.
In sum, a good summer for adventures, but no races in a few months.
In terms of future focused efforts, I'm thinking about doing the Breck Crest Half, the Autumn Color Run in Buena Vista, and then maybe the Royal Gorge 5k in Canon City on October 6th. But all of those plans are fluid, depending on if I still feel like doing those races as they get closer.
It would appear that my first year as a master has been more of a directionless meander than a focused effort toward any goals. Whatever. It's been fun. Perhaps the lesson is that I should just learn to stop setting goals.
