9/23-9/29, Got the bull by the horns

Sept 23
Am: 3.9 miles recovery on CR 220 in 31:20, max HR 140. Felt appropriately recuperative.
Pm: 3.1 miles on Little Cochetopa trail above CR 210. Probably about a 1000 ft. of gain.

Went to scout out the leaves, but there was a huge herd of cows. Normally not a big deal, but there were a few bulls out there, too. I’ve seen one bull in a field of cows before, but never a bunch of bulls.

Not sure if it’s mating season or what, but they were crazy loud, aggressive, and going at each other. At one point, there were two, full-ton weight bulls with locked horns ramming each other and going to war between me and my car. Eventually they moved, but holy crap, I’ve never seen anything like that before. I was honestly wondering for a while whether I was going to have to abandon my car and bushwhack home in the dark.

The joys of country living.

View from Cochetopa to the Sangres - Fire!

Sep 24
Am: 3.6 miles very easy w/ strides on CR 225/Colorado Trail, 33:50; 800 ft. gain
Pm: 7.4 miles on a prog run w/ one of the middle groups of the XC team, town to spiral drive to to the river to gun club to the blue house and back

Sept 25
Am: 4.4 easy in 41:30 on CR 224 to the Colorado, about 1000ft. gain. Trying to take it easier on my easy runs this week to avoid a repeat of last week where I put myself in a hole.

224 goes up

Pm: 4.6 miles easy in 57:30 on Greens Creek trail w/ the Chaffee County Running Club. About 1200 ft gain. Leaves are starting to pop!

Greens is a fairly technical trail, but my ankle handled it well and I wasn’t too sore afterwards. Admittedly, we were going slow, but still a good sign.

Sept 26
15 x 1 minute on/off fartlek on CR 220. Average 5:36 pace on the up sections.

6.3 miles total w/ warmup and cooldown.

Sept 27
8.8 miles in 83:30 on CR 210 to Pass Creek to Windy Ridge to check out some leaves. About 2000 ft. gain.

Beautiful up there!

September 28
2.5 miles easy trotting around at the home XC meet. I got the emcee the event. Fun stuff.

Boys got 2nd and girls got 3rd, only finishing behind 5A schools Regis and Arapahoe.

September 29th
Am: Track workout, 2 x (6 x 200), 1 minute between reps, 4 minutes between sets
36.5, 38.4, 38.3, 39.2, 38.6, 37.6; 38.8, 39.3, 39.2, 38.0, 39.4, 37.4

This was another workout that I stole from Mike Smith of NAU. That man is a genius!

This workout gives you 2.5 miles of work at or about mile pace, but because there’s only a minute break between the 200 reps, the HR during the sets stays mostly between 140 & 170, which is aerobic to LT threshold range for me. There’s a real aerobic stimulus there. Definitely a positive workout for running economy without sending you to the well. My kind of workout.

5.4 miles total

Pm: 3.8 miles on CR 221 above Greens Greek. 1300 ft. gain.

Lots of gain and loss this week, particularly for a guy who, to the extent that he's training for anything, is training for flat 5ks. Just going to the places where it’s nicest this time of year, and around here, that means lots of vert.