An amazing weekend

It’s been almost exactly a year since I applied for a job in Greenwood Village, Colorado. While I miss my friends in Ohio (and still own a house there), it’s weekends like this past one that help solidify that I’m meant to live here.

On Friday morning, I got up and drove to Manitou Springs and climbed the Incline for a second time.

On Saturday I spent some time in Boulder with friends, hitting up the Farmer’s Market and innertubing at the Boulder Reservoir (until the Lake Patrol advised us that innertubes and swimming wasn’t allowed where we were!)

Sunday morning I rose bright and early and headed back to Manitou Springs to meet with the Incline Club. A few folks were debating on where to run, and three of us (Tara, Mike and I) decided to get some elevation in. We drove up to Elk Park, elevation 12,000ft. It was amazing to start running above the clouds… We headed down to Barr Camp, elevation 10,400. The 5.21 miles took us just short of an hour.
Previously, I’d run from Manitou up to Barr Camp, and never made it further up. This time, we only stopped at the Camp for a quick break and then headed off to run up to the Summit.

Photo credit: Steve Garufi

Almost immediately when we started the climb, I let Tara and Mike go on ahead. They were both much more seasoned trail and mountain runners. I told them, and managed to convince myself, that the run was for my lungs and not my legs. It wasn’t long before I allowed myself to slow to a walk.

You can tell where the climbing started...

I’d read Matt Carpenter’s description of the course so I was almost felt like I was in familiar territory. When I hit the A-Frame, I knew I was roughly halfway. I knew there were mile markers for the last three miles. It was a comfort to have that orientation on the mountain.

I’d only brought two GUs and only had a small chunk of bread at Barr Camp, so I found myself getting hungry as I ran. I’ll need to remember to bring more food on future runs: this was to be a long day on the trails!

There were only a few places where I wasn’t entirely sure which way the trail went, but there were plenty of runners and hikers out to ask or follow. I really am amazed at people here: I consider myself a pretty motivated athlete, but there were tons of people out hiking and running, putting me to shame!

I plodded along, composing this blog post in my head. It was an absolutely gorgeous day: blue skies, amazing views. I was so thankful for the opportunity to be able to experience this almost in my backyard.

Although they weren’t fast, the miles were ticking away. Trail running (or is it running at elevation?) is funny: I was going slow, breathing relatively hard, yet I’m never sore. It just doesn’t put the same strain on the body. Just above the 16 Golden stairs, Mike and Tara came heading back down the trail. I asked if they’d been worried about me; they understood that I was being smart and just getting used to the altitude. They told me I was close to the top, and headed down to do the stairs, and said they’d meet me back at the top. By this point we were high enough that there was a fair amount of snow on the trail, and in some places you were simply following footsteps in the snow. I climbed up what I thought was the trail, right by a large rock, and wasn’t sure where to go next. I decided I may have gone the wrong way, so I turned to slide down next to the rock to rejoin the trail I’d just left. I put my hand behind me to slide down, and when I lifted my hand, I was surprised to see blood across the palm. I cleared off some snow to wash it off, but it continued to bleed. It was a shock, above all. I had been easing myself down the path, I hadn’t tripped or stumbled. There was no pain, just the surprise of seeing my poor oxygen-depleted blood on the path! I had been in the process of backtracking to see if I’d taken a wrong turn, and now I was a bit more distracted with the task at hand. But soon enough Tara and Mike and a hiker came along. It turned out I had been going the right away (darnit! shouldn’t have doubted myself), and the hiker had gauze and duct tape so we bandaged my hand for the short trek up to the top. I was thankful that this had happened so near to the top, and I really appreciated the hiker and his supplies. When it comes to mountain running, I may have to become a fanny pack runner!

Mike was a former EMT, and when we got to the top he and I headed to the first aid station while Tara got me some chicken soup and a donut (oh yes, for the last hour I’d been planning to update my facebook status to announce “Pikes Peak Donuts for Lunch: Guess what I did today”). The EMTs cleaned out the cut (but said that the snow cleaning had already done a good job) and sealed it up with a butterfly bandage. They told me to watch it to make sure it didn’t open, and I was thankful to be left-handed! (the cut is on my right hand).

While we were in the first aid room, Mike picked up what I believe was a blood oxygen saturation monitor. His was 85. I didn’t really know what it was, but I said I wanted to be checked as well. Mine was 76. I asked Mike what the implications were, he told me to “take a few deep breaths”, but neither he nor the EMTs seemed overly concerned. The few people I’ve mentioned that to since then have expressed a bit more concern: evidently it’s at about that percentage that you can start to suffer from some cognitive impairment as a result of the altitude. But really, that’s why I chose to run at altitude on Sunday; to get accustomed to it. I just caution my flat-lander friend Helen to try to get some altitude training in before she runs the marathon next month!
So after getting bandaged up, I enjoyed lunch up at the top with some other runners, before we grabbed a ride back down the mountain. While it had been gorgeous for our run, the weather changed quickly and it actually started to hail briefly just as we left the Summit. But by the time we were down the 20-some miles of the Pikes’ Peak highway, it was again sunny for the drive back to Denver. Over the course of our time together, we’d actually discovered that Tara lives only a few miles from me, so we actually may start to carpool to Manitou Springs on the weekends.

All in all, an amazing outdoorsy weekend. Sure, the fall was a bit o a shock, but better today than next week during the Barr Trail Mountain Race. And so I know I need to do more altitude training, carry more food and maybe some duct tape. Although it’s not what I expected to learn, this is what “training” is all about, right?