Today I finished up a Wilderness First Responder (WFR, pronounced woofer) class. It’s somewhere between an EMT and Advanced First Aid. I’m a big proponent of the ignorance is bliss school of thought and this class only reinforced that. I was much happier going out into the mountains before I knew all the stuff that can wrong and how hard it can be to get people out of the backcountry. I think I’m going to spend my time reading at the library from now on (and no I do not want to hear about any diseases I can catch from all the germs on the books). Actually the class was really good, it was just a lot of information to absorb in 80 hours. Hopefully I’ll never have to use any of it, but hopefully I’ll remember at least some of it if I do need it. I didn’t learn anything that will change what I’ve been doing, but I probably will be spending a little more time indoors. Tomorrow there is a 40% chance of snow with a high of 39 and a low of 19. Sounds like winter is about to begin.

Sorry for the long delay in posting. The last 14ers I climbed were Mount Harvard and Mount Columbia.

I was initially just going to do Mount Harvard, but on the way up I met some people who said they were going to hike the ridge from Harvard to Columbia. That sounded like a good idea (it wasn’t) so I decided I would do that as well. It was definitely a challenging hike. I don’t know if it was any harder than hiking Columbia though, because going down the normal trail was really steep as well. The rest of my pictures can be found here.
Yesterday I had planned to hike another 14er, but when I woke up, it was so cloudy I couldn’t see the mountains near town, so I decided to wait. When the clouds finally cleared up around 10, everything above 12,000 feet was covered with snow, so I decided to go for a bike ride instead. I only rode about 22 miles, but it felt pretty good considering it was the first time on my bike in over 2 months. About 10 minutes after I got home, it started hailing, so I’m glad I didn’t ride any longer.

This past weekend I hiked 2 14ers. Mount Massive is the 2nd highest and La Plata is the 5th highest. I hiked Mount Massive first and found it to be relatively easy. La Plata I found to be more challenging, but I’m not sure how much of that was due to being tired from Mount Massive. The sunrise while going up Mount Massive was awesome. I didn’t take a picture, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Because it was the weekend there were quite a few hikers on both peaks.

This is a picture of me at the top of La Plata. The rest of my pictures can be found here.

This past weekend I did the Leadville Trail 100 (a.k.a the race across the sky). It starts in Leadville, goes around Turquoise Lake, along the Colorado trail to Twin Lakes, then over Hope Pass to the ghost town of Winfield, then after a nice 50 mile warmup, you get to turn around and go back home. It was a lot of fun, I hope to do it again some day.

Here is my race report in case you’re interested:

I knew it was going to be hot when I checked the weather at 3 am and it was already 46. Most days it doesn’t get that warm until well after 9 am. I started the race in a singlet and didn’t ever need anything warmer until about 2 am the next day (and even then only for a couple of miles near the lake)
At Mayqueen (13.5) and Fish Hatchery (23.5) I was about 2 minutes ahead of my estimated times for a 25 hour finish. I was feeling good at that point (mile 24), by mile 25 not so much. After mile 24 the pavement starts for about 3 miles and there is no shade. The sun was out and it was already very warm. Around mile 25 I was thinking that 25 hours would be very unlikely. By mile 30 I was thinking i’m going to have to really work to break 28. At mile 31 I filled up my camelbak w/ powerade at an aid station, but for some reason it tasted terrible to me. By mile 35 I wasn’t sure if I would keep going past Twin Lakes (mile 40). I was way overheated. I was drinking and taking as much salt as I could, but I couldn’t get cool. I’ve felt worse during an Ironman, but in an Ironman I’ve never had a possible 20+ hours of racing left. It was a mentally very tough place to be.
At Twin Lakes my crew had some ice for me. With that in my hat and in a bandana around my neck and a bunch of water to drink I felt a little better. The creek crossing about a mile later felt so good. I stood there for awhile just to cool off. I felt much better for about a 1/2 mile, then I reached the start of the Hope Pass climb and the heat and the climb hit me like a hammer. I’ve hiked that section many times and that was by far my slowest ascent of Hope Pass. I had so many people passing me that I started to think I might be going backwards. At the Hopeless aid station I had some soup and cola, but I was really feeling bad. At that point I was trying not to look too pitiful because I was afraid that if they took my vitals they might pull me.
I made it over the top and finally felt a cool breeze which lasted until the treeline. Even without the breeze it was definitely cooler on the south side of the pass, I shuffled down to the bottom of the pass and then walked the road to Winfield. I reached Winfield (50) in 12:08 which was about 1:20 slower than what I had hoped for. I was in 217th place.
At Winfield I drank a bunch of coke and ate some soup and a ham sandwich. I left Winfield w/ my pacer around 12:20 feeling much better mentally, but still not very good physically. I jogged a little, but because I had eaten so much I didn’t feel very good running, so I still walked a lot of the 3 mile downhill to the trailhead.
The climb up Hope Pass was slow (this is the steep side), and I still didn’t feel good, but having my pacer helped (this was her 5th or 6th year pacing, so she knew what she was doing) and I passed a few people although there were still more people passing me. Once I got above tree line and felt the breeze again I started to feel better and the closer I got to the top the stronger I felt. I ran from the top all of the way to Hopeless (55) passing about 10 people over that stretch. I had some soup and water and started running again. I ran most of the way down and passed a bunch of people. (I’ve become a pretty good downhill runner this year and I knew that section of the trail really well, I think the downhills are probably the hardest thing for a flatlander to train for). I made it to Twin Lakes at 15:30 (it took 4:10 from Twin Lakes to Winfield and 3:10 from Winfield to Twin Lakes, the return was actually much faster than I had estimated even for my 25 hour finish). At this point I was feeling really good. I ate, changed shoes and decided that I was going to try to push as hard as I could to see if I might still break 25 hours.
I felt good hiking the hill out of Twin Lakes . I had estimated it would take about an hour and I made it in 50 minutes. By the time I got to the top it was dark. I started running and was passing lots of people. This was a lot of downhill from mile 63 to 72 and I ran quite a bit of it. When the road flattened out I did a lot run/walking, but I was still making pretty good forward progress. I made it back to the Fish Hatchery (76) at 19:16. I left about 19:25 which gave me around 5.5 hours to cover 24 miles.
The climb over Sugarloaf was rough. My hamstrings were really hurting. I got passed by a few people but was still making relatively good time. Once I got to the top I started running again and passed about 15 people. I made it to the start of the Colorado trail with about 3 hours to cover 15 miles in order to break 25.
About 5 feet into the trail I literally almost fell off the trail (and it would not have been a nice fall, it was very steep at that point). If it hadn’t been for a small tree, my race would have been over right there. At that point it became apparent that my brain and body weren’t communicating very well. This was probably one of the most technical sections of the whole course and I had to take it very slowly just to stay on it. It took me about 40 minutes to make the 2 miles or so to Mayqueen. The combination of pushing so hard for the past 25 miles and knowing that I wasn’t going to break 25 hours, put me into both a mental and physical downward spiral.
I left Mayqueen (86.5) still feeling pretty bad. It was a lot of walking/shuffling. It took me 2 hours to cover the next 5.5 miles. Around mile 92 all the food my pacer had been forcing me to eat started to kick in and I began to feel a lot better. I started running a little bit more and even passed a few people who had passed me earlier. By mile 94 I was feeling really good. Once the sun started to come up around mile 98 I felt great. Crossing the finish line was indeed an awesome experience. I finished 82 overall (I was 81st at Mayqueen) and am very happy with my race, especially the second half.
Recovery has been going well. The hamstrings were really sore the day after and my toes were really achy for about 2 days. I’m going to lose one or two toenails, but things are mostly feeling pretty good.

Today was the Leadville Trail 100 mile mountain bike race. It seemed like every car in town had a bike rack. I thought about signing up for it when I first moved here until I found out how big it was.

The cycling fans among you may recognize the guy in black in the center of the picture

Lance Armstrong was here for the second year in a row. This is the race where he started his cycling comeback with a second place finish last year. The next picture gives you a better idea of the size of the race.

At this point Lance is about a mile into the race and the last people haven’t even crossed the start line yet.
I spent most of the day working at one of the aid stations. Occasionally you would see someone with a slight mechanical problem:

I also got to see the racers close up. Here is Lance at mile 76. At this point he had a 16 minute lead over the next closest guy (the guy who beat him last year, I guess that little ride he did over in France is good training)

Lance ended up breaking the old course record by over 15 minutes. I heard he ended up riding in on a flat tire, so he could have been even faster. You can read more details about the race here. It sounds like he’s coming back next year, so it looks like that’s my best chance to beat him

On Tuesday I climbed to the top of Huron Peak (14,003′). It’s one of the shortest 14′ers, but since the trailhead is also one of the furthest from a paved road, not too many people were doing it. It was a very nice hike to the top and the views were awesome.

I finally decided to try to run to the top of Mosquito Pass. I maintained running form the whole time, but at times it seemed like I was barely moving (probably because I was barely moving). It took me 2 hours and 26 minutes to go 7.75 miles. It was very windy at the top. I had trouble running a straight line at times. The way down was much nicer. Here is the elevation profile from my run route (average grade 7.3%):

Last night I saw snow in town for the first time since June 6 (it’s about time, this summer was starting to feel like it was dragging on forever). Actually it was mostly rain, but there were definitely times when it was snowing. This morning my car door was frozen shut and I had to scrape my windshield. It was a pretty cool and wet week and there is definitely more snow up in the mountains than there was last week, but it sounds like the weather is going to be back up into the 70’s again this week.

Today I drove to Winter Park to see a friend from Chicago who was out here on vacation. We went for a bike ride and stopped to eat at a restaurant near the ski resort. It was a very nice area, but I think that I prefer Leadville.

On Wednesday I hiked to the top of Mount Sherman (14,036′). I think Mount Sherman is the closest 14er to Leadville. The trailhead is at 12,000 feet and it is only a 2.25 mile hike to the top, so it is one of the easiest 14ers. Since it was easy, I decided to do the adjacent Mount Sheridan (13,748′) as well.

In other news, I sort of got back into the triathlon world last week. I did the swim leg for a relay team in the local sprint triathlon (my how the mighty have fallen). I had the 5th fastest swim overall, so there is definitely a home pool advantage when you are swimming at 10,000 feet. We won the relay division, but were beaten by 2 individuals.
On the fitness front, I finally broke 7 minutes for my downhill mile (6:56). That was at the end of a hard 5.5 mile run, so I probably could have gone a little faster on a solo mile, but I don’t feel like hurting that much again to find out.