Sean Gillies (Posts about trail)

Never Summer training week five recap

Sean Gillies — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 20:01:01 GMT

Week five was my biggest of the season so far.

9 hours, 14 minutes
45 miles
5968 feet D+

Twice the climbing, 3 more miles, and an hour more time on my feet than week 5 of last year. Five runs. A long bike ride and session of lifting weight at the gym. Heated flow yoga was extra spicy with sore quads. Back-to-back longish runs on the weekend.

Tuesday I trotted from my house to the gravel track at the site which was Fort Collins High School from 1925 to 1995, now the Colorado State University Center for the Arts, and did the workout I'd been dreading for a week. After strides on the track's infield and some stretching, I ran 4 5-minute intervals at 90% effort, with a minute of recovery between each interval, then trotted back home. I'll be working my way up to 8 faster intervals of the same length by June. The first set is the hardest.

How do I gauge my effort? Partly by feel and partly by measuring my heart rate and math. I use the Tanaka equation for my maximum heart rate.

max_hr_bpm = 208 - 0.7 * age_yrs

I'm 50 years old, and so the maximum heart rate of people like me is something like 173 beats per minute (bpm). 90% of this is 155 and the heart rate monitor in my Garmin watch said I was working at 155-165 bpm during the intervals. I'm curious about getting a more scientific measurement of my maximum heart rate, though I'd be surprised if I was far from the statistical norm. When I was 25, I used to run uphill intervals at what I thought was 95% effort and could sustain 180 bpm. That was right on the Tanaka line.

In 2016, I got an electrocardiogram in France, which is a fairly routine part of physical checkups that are required to participate in club sports and ultramarathons. The doctor said my heart was fine, but also wanted me to understand that he saw a risk of permanent heart damage for older athletes who push hard. I'm trying to be mindful of this and get the benefits of intense training without injuring my favorite muscle. If I am working with a slight underestimate of my maximum heart rate, that's fine. I'm not in this for money or glory, it's all about sustainable fun and health.

Saturday I joined folks who have been training for Quad Rock for a group run from the Eltuck picninc area at Lory State Park. We went up Well Gulch, the Timber Trail, Westridge, down Howard, connected to Mill Creek, went up Mill Canyon, and then did it all in reverse. Almost 18 miles and over 4100 feet of climbing. We had beautifully balmy spring weather and pretty good trail conditions, packed snow degrading into wet slush only at the very end of the run. I ran in shorts and a t-shirt the entire time. My feet got a little wet, but I didn't blister, and only crashed on ice and snow once thanks to my screwed shoes.

The local foothill trails have been closed for two weeks but were reopened yesterday. I went out for a shorter hilly run today at Pineridge and Maxwell and after a couple of miles my legs felt great. I love back-to-back long runs and not in a masochistic way, it just feels good to simmer the stiffness away, see some different trails, and revisit some of the thoughts and ideas I had the day before.

Never Summer training week three recap

Sean Gillies — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 19:51:11 GMT

Here's my week three recap. On time, not a week late like week two's recap.

8 hours, 22 minutes
43.5 miles
3957 feet D+

I skied half a day at Steamboat on Monday, telemark style, so a pretty good workout in 10" of new snow. Tuesday I did an easy 7.5 miles on the bike path. Wednesday I flailed in the snow for an hour at Pineridge. Thursday my quads felt pretty well recovered and I did a tempo run workout on the bike path. Tempo for me, right now, is a little over 7 minutes a mile. Friday my favorite heated flow yoga class was extra challenging because of my tired legs, but I hung in. Saturday and Sunday had my first back-to-back longish runs of the season, 23 miles total. Back-to-back long runs worked for me in 2019 and I intend to stick with them in 2020.

Snow blanket on Mill Creek Trail

February has been all about running in snow. Yesterday I went for a longish hilly run at Horsetooth. I had first tracks on the Herrington Trail and was the second group through on Wathan and on Mill Creek Trail. My lower leg stabilizer muscles got a big workout in those conditions and were complaining this morning during the first mile of my easy longish run up the Spring Creek Trail in town.

Lower down, the amount of snow depends entirely on the slope aspect

Golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) are nesting in Horsetooth Open Space again this year and a stretch of the Spring Creek Trail that passes by their hearth is closed. I'm more than happy to go around. What good are mountains without eagles and other raptors?

Don't mess with the eagles

Never Summer training week two recap

Sean Gillies — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 00:46:19 GMT

Week two was a bit of an oddball because my family and I had a 3-day ski weekend at the end of it and I missed my long runs.

2 hours, 55 minutes running time
17.3 miles
823 feet D+

I did have 3 solid runs, a session of pedaling on a stationary bike, a painless drive to Steamboat Springs, and 2.5 days of telemark skiing at the resort. My first downhill skiing of the season. The telemark turn on modern gear involves a reverse lunge, not a forward lunge, and is an ideal strength workout for trail running. In recent years I've been getting better at making alpine turns in my tele gear on groomed runs and I can sort of do it in powder, but I mostly stick to telemark turns in steeper deeper snow and bumps. Lots of those at Steamboat in late February 2020, it's been a good snow season.

Never Summer training week one recap

Sean Gillies — Sun, 09 Feb 2020 22:38:36 GMT

The first week of my 25 week season is done.

6 hours and 4 minutes running
32.5 miles
2631 feet D+

I ran on 5 different days, including both weekend days, and this will be standard. I'll do 6 on some peak weeks. 3-4 on rest weeks. I'll be increasing the length of runs as I go, but not the number of days a week I run. I'd like to continue to build more muscle, and so I'm lifting weights once a week and doing sets of step-ups and split squats after runs.

We had no precipitation in Fort Collins in January. Zero. But the situation changed quickly and this past week was quite wintry. Tuesday, I took my classic XC skis to Pineridge instead of doing an indoor cardio workout. Thursday I ran in the snow at Maxwell and today, Sunday, I ran in deep snow at Lory State Park.

Snowy Pineridge Natural Area

Between Arthur's Rock and Timber trailheads, 7 miles and one hundred minutes apart, I didn't see a single other person. Or mammal, for that matter. It was just me, the trees, birds, and snow.

Never Summer training week 0

Sean Gillies — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 15:52:22 GMT

This is the first day of week 0 of my 25-week Never Summer 100k training. I'm treating it as a rest week. I feel like I'm in better shape than I was at week 0 of my Quad Rock 50 training in November 2018. I have more of a base. I've got my gear figured out. Most of all, I have more experience. I'm looking forward to regular speed and hill workouts starting next week.

In addition to the Never Summer run at the end of July, I've registered for the Quad Rock 25 mile on the Saturday of Mothers Day weekend and the Kettle Moraine (Wisconsin) 38 mile "fun run" on June 13. There are local runners who do the Quad Rock 50 and the Never Summer 100k in the same year as part of the Gnar Slam (QR 50, NS 100k, Black Squirrel, and Blue Sky Trail Marathon), but I'm not quite at that level of fitness yet. Maybe next year. My guru, David Bitner, has signed up for Kettle Moraine and I'm looking forward to spending some time on the trail with him and gaining some nighttime running experience; the fun run starts in the evening and has a mid-morning cut-off the next day. I'm expecting to cross the Never Summer finish line between 1 and 2 a.m. if all goes well, and I should be able to simulate this at Kettle Moraine.

First long run of the year

Sean Gillies — Sun, 05 Jan 2020 20:54:26 GMT

Yesterday I joined runners training for Quad Rock in running 15 miles up and down Horsetooth Mountain Open Space, my biggest outing since October 2019. It was lovely up there.

View to the south and west from a bend on the South Ridge Trail

There's a lot of packed snow and ice on the trails and for lack of traction I was going very slowly on slick descending stretches like the shady parts of Towers and South Ridge. After I got home and ate I bought and installed some some cheap hardware to add traction to one of my pairs of trail shoes.

The shoes I wore at Loopet Loppet

I followed the instructions on Matt Carpenter's screw shoe page and screwed 11 3/8" sheet metal screws into the lugs on the bottom of each Speedgoat. A 1/4" magnetic socket and a cordless drill made it as easy as advertised.

The neighborhood glacier

This morning I tested my shoe hack on a inclined patch of ice near my house and was pleased with the extra traction. I can run straight up and down the ice at an easy pace without slipping. I'm looking forward to trying these on my next icy hill workout.

Never Summer 100 km registration

Sean Gillies — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 04:43:27 GMT

Registration for the 6th Never Summer 100 km opened today and I immediately signed up. I can't wait to get this next running season started.

Montgomery Pass, Diamond Peaks, and the Never Summer Range

Training week 15 and Salida trail marathon recap

Sean Gillies — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 14:44:54 GMT

The last week was challenging. I reached a new personal mileage record, ran 9 consecutive days (ending Wednesday), finished the Run Through Time trail marathon on Salida's Arkansas Hills Tail System on Saturday, and then went out for another long run on Sunday.

68.4 miles
12 hours 45 minutes
6430 feet D+

The weird thing is that I'm feeling good and not at all worn out or burned out. I guess my training regime must be working. Next week is a recovery week. I'm going to do much less running and more cycling, yoga, and hiking with my kids on the weekend.

Friday I drove 200 miles from Fort Collins to the town of Salida in the center of Colorado to participate in the Chaffee County Running Club's Run Through Time trail marathon.

My race bib.

In the 1990s I used to come to this part of Colorado regularly for hiking and skiing in the Sawatch Range, but it's been a while since I've visited Salida. The race day weather was fine. Cool and sunny with just a bit of a breeze. I wore my windbreaker, hat, and gloves at the start and for about half a mile of the course, then stashed them in my pack for the remainder.

At the starting line with Mt. Shavano and Mt. Princeton in the background

My performance expectations were low. The race was coming at the end of what were, for me, three big weeks of training. I didn't feel tired, but I didn't feel very fresh. After the start I drifted towards the back of the pack while trying to find a suitable pace. After a few miles I settled in and started to feel comfortable on the winding, rolling singletrack at the bottom of the course. At mile 7, the course turned onto a steep graded road for six miles. I hiked most of this and passed a number of runners. I've been working on hiking quickly and efficiently and was satisfied with how I did during the race.

At the top, the course switched onto completely snow-covered trails for about six miles. The snow was deeply drifted in places and the footing was poor. I took this slowly, got passed three times, and conceded a bunch of time. As the snow clear, the descent turned very steep and rocky for five miles. I managed this well, but my legs were feeling heavy in the last two miles and I conceded more time. I finished in 5 hours and 33 minutes, two hours after the first finisher. I'm pleased with this. That's 15 minutes faster than my 2017 Blue Sky marathon time, on a comparably challenging course, without any tapering or rest before the race. I'm also pleased that I was able to recover and go for another long run on the Coyote Ridge and Blue Sky trails on the way home from Salida. 37 miles in all for the weekend. I'm feeling more confident about finishing the Quad Rock 50 in May.

Tenderfoot Mountain, Salida landmark, and the first climb of the day

Trail des Étoiles Filantes

Sean Gillies — Mon, 28 May 2018 23:19:20 GMT

I just signed up for the Trail des Étoiles Filantes (Shooting Stars Trail Run, in English) during my family's upcoming summer vacation in Montpellier. I don't have any experience with night races, but I love being outside after dark, I love the Pic Saint-Loup region, I need to run something before the Black Squirrel, and no French race has yet failed to satisfy me.

It looks like we'll be leaving the village of Murles at dusk and running through the vines and rock outcrops around Pic Saint-Loup. I think this could be a ton of fun.

Festa Trail

Sean Gillies — Sun, 21 May 2017 16:51:32 GMT

I did another trail race today. The Festa Trail starts and finishes in Saint-Matthieu-de-Tréviers, a town in the Pic-Saint-Loup vineyard region north of Montpellier. It's a 3-day multi-race event. I ran the 18 km Tour de Pic Saint-Loup with 875 meters of elevation gain in 2:36:10 (unofficially).

Pic Saint-Loup on the left and the Château de Montferrand on the right

The French word pic is related to the English peak. According to Roger Brunet in Trésor du terroir: les noms de lieux de la France, pic does not, despite common characters, have the same origin as the French puy, Catalan puig, or Occitan puech, all of which derive from the Latin podium.

The Château de Montferrand seems to have its origins as a Roman fort and was mentioned for the first time in 1132 as a property of the Count of Toulouse (who I've mentioned before). It passed into the hands of the French crown and remainded a royal fort until Louis XIV authorised its demolition in the 17th century. We stormed the castle during km 4 of the run.

I felt good most of the way, made it through some mild calf cramps around km 15, and managed a bit of a kick at the end. There was one steep kilometer of going up (200 meters) to the ruined castle on the way out and one steep kilometer coming down from the peak on the way back (190 meters), but nothing so sustained as at the Trail Quillan. The trail was completely dry and very rocky (caillouteux, we say here), treacherously so in several spots. There's a layer of limestone that has splintered crazily and traversing it was like running on the threads of a giant screw.

Festa Trail is a fun race and I highly recommend it. With time running out on our séjour, it might have been my last trail run in France this year.