At Tahosa High Adventure Base, our internet was incredibly limited and stopped me from posting about the mountaineering dream that this summer was.
Training has been less than mediocre, but the personal transformation has been huge. Before July, I would have never considered myself a mountaineer -despite having climbed a few of the Indian Peaks. During the first few weeks at camp, during June, I even told someone that "peak-bagging and real mountaineering didn't really do anything for me."
While I still plan to never do the Hardrock 100 -or any races that mountainous or technical, I now identify as a mountaineer. This summer, I climbed or bouldered every chance I got and bagged Longs Peak (the Keyhole route, and the easier class 5 climbing route) and the first Flatiron. I also hit the major peaks visible from Tumblesome Reservoir, including Mount Audubon(13,223) and Sawtooth(12,304).
Before leaving for Tahosa in June I went out with three solid wins: first was the Bluffs 5k, with 1500 feet of elevation change; then came the Mt. Carbon Half Marathon, a competitive and roughly rolling race that I went into having already run more than 80 miles in the five days leading up to it; last was 50s For Yo Momma 50k, where I made Ultrarunner magazine for devastating the previous course record.
Basically I left while I was on fire. Summer gave me a break from serious running, but also got me even more excited to keep winning, PR'ing, and setting course records(CR's).
The American Heroes Run (9 hours and 11 minutes solo run) has a CR of about 50 miles, but this year will have a much more competitive field coming out -being its third year and since the race will be held on the weekend instead of on the 11th. Either way I'll be well above 50 miles when the day ends, so we'll see who's with me on the 8th.
Check back later this week to see what I've been up to since I've been home to ensure that I win on September 8th...
No comments:
Post a Comment