Mt Evans Training Run

I met the group today for a Mt. Evans upper part training run. After yesterday's bad run, and calf injury. I wasn't sure if I was going to run or just drive everyone around and rest it. I really wanted to run to see if it was more than just tight and sore and get the altitude workout and test it for the race next week.

There were 6 of us today including Diann who we met last week. Once I got there and got in that Evans mood, I decided to run it and if I had to walk it and get swept so be it, but I was going to give it a shot.

Diann, Jill and I were only going to do the 5.4 miles from Summit Lake to the Summit.

Jeff and Matt did the 8.4 from Mile 6 up to the Summit, Pete dropped them off on his way up.

Pete and I did the car swap while everyone else was running. It was windy at the Summit, then Pete and I drove down and I dropped him at 7 miles. Took Jeff's van to Summit lake and I was finally running about 8:30.

The first mile is relentless up the bowl with no switchbacks or turns, just up. My goal was to run that stretch without walking. I made it to the 10 mile marker, which was a bit short of my goal. From the moment I started running I had pain in my left calf on every step. Even walking on that incline hurt most of the time. My other calf was tight also and in general I struggled even with the breathing part and had to walk often for the 5.3 miles with 2000 feet of altitude gain.

It was windy, but only in certain sections as you hit the switchback on the back side. At one point I thought Pete would pass me and I would tell him to sweep me when he got to the top, but I pushed through and when all was said and done it took me 1:05, which was 3 minutes more than last years training run. I counted 32 walk breaks based on my Garmin Data.

Wow, way more than I thought. A 12:18 pace. compared with 11:29 for the bottom half with no injuries. Pete finished right behind me and I could see him gaining on me on the switch backs.

Everyone else did really well and had a good time. We took some pictures at the top (thanks Jill). It was getting cold at the top with clouds moving in, so we headed down quick.

Diann, Jeff, Matt, Pete M. Jill and Dennis after the Mt. Evans Summit training run at the Summit.

We dropped everyone from Jeff's van and then followed them down. Jeff's a little on the cautious side as you can see from this picture, driving as far away from the cliff as possible.

Afterwards we hung out and had some lunch and then headed back to Denver, it was fun despite my problems.

Now I am faced with the delima of running the race or trying to heal.

I plan to take a few days off running and then test it on thursday with an easy run and make a decision on the race. I don't want to do a 4 hour mt Evans run with a lot of pain along the way and set back my training.