Gettin' my Mojo Back

"The life you are meant to find will wring your heart to the point of breaking 

and then douse you with buckets of joy when you're not looking."

- Linford Detweiler

Selfie on the Falcon Trail

After three months of struggling to get back to where I left off last fall, I feel like I've finally turned a corner. The past 10 days or so, I've had some really great runs and have started turning in some PRs. I can see where my speed is improving ever-so-slightly as I push the pace on some of my shorter runs and was very encouraged to see that I can run 50 miles with just a marathon training run three week earlier.

Now that I'm recovered from the Rockin' K, my focus has been increasing my vertical. With my right Achilles still a bit sore, I'm trying to do this gradually and give it a day of rest in between hilly runs. I've been getting out to Mt Falcon up in Denver where I can get 3k of vert in 13 miles. The trails are dry out there and weather has been amazing, around 60-70 degrees. Ran into photographer/filmmaker Matt Trappe today, who did a great job documenting Scott Jaime's FKT (Fastest Known Time) on the 486 mile Colorado Trail last year. Check out the trailers here and here. I met Matt at Salida and will see again at Quad in a couple of weeks. He preparing for his first hundo at Bighorn and I'm sure he's gonna do great.  

Some snaps from my runs at Mt. Falcon:

Looking north toward Red Rocks

Looking south on the long climb up

Downtown Denver is off in the distance

Parmalee Trail take 1

Parmalee Trail take 2

The other place I go to for some vertical is Pikes Peak. For the steep climbing, I start at the Manitou Incline and catch the Barr Trail to either go back down or go further up the mountain. I managed to PR going up the Incline by two minutes (my first time this year!) and snagged a 3 minute PR going back down the Barr. Sa-weet!

That's the false summit you see at the top

The "gut" of the Incline, where grades are around 60%

Looking back at Manitou & Colorado Springs

The other thing I'm starting to do is bring the kids to the track with me. I was hoping I could get both of them to run a couple of warm up laps before they occupied themselves otherwise. My 4YO did run a little with me but my 6YO got distracted with the hurdles and rolling a tire around. Eventually, they landed in the sand pit and played while I finished my workout.

Practicing his long jump

She ran 600 meters, woot woot!

“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; 

if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.” 

- Tim Keller, The Reason for God

We had a great day celebrating Jesus' Resurrection with our friends at Westside Church last Sunday and the kids had fun looking for Easter eggs at the annual potluck afterwards. We even managed to get a decent family picture too where both kids are actually smiling normally. That was a minor Easter miracle.

Lastly, just look at this lovely video from Mountain Hardware. Is it any wonder so many of us love trail running? I'm really looking forward to getting out into the San Juans for some running during Hardrock week. It's gonna be awesome.

The Running Connection from Mountain Hardwear on Vimeo.

Happy Trails,

Shelby