Recharging

Between work and family obligations and the grind of trying to squeeze runs in between it all, I have been starting to feel the pinch...that feeling that you're not doing anything well and constantly rushing to be only moderately late to something.

As a result, my head has usually been somewhere else, and my body has just been along for the ride.

Add to all that the fact that winter is coming and the wind soon will be bitingly cold and our trails will be snow-covered.

Early this week I decided it was time to do something to recharge the mojo a bit.  So, I took yesterday afternoon off of work and headed to the hills.

Looking down Eldorado Canyon toward Denver.

I started my recharge run at the Fowler Trailhead south of Eldorado Springs and climbed into Eldorado Canyon State Park. The wind was really whipping as I ran through the old narrow gauge railroad cuts. By the time I got to the trail above the visitors center that leads to Walker Ranch, the winds had died down and I settled into a meditative, relaxed pace.

From there, I climbed over to the Walker Ranch connector trail and descended down to South Boulder Creek and started the 7.5-mile Walker loop running clockwise.  About this time, I started looking at my watch, wondering if I was bitting off too much since I had to pick up jP at school at 3:30 p.m.

Views of the Indian Peaks from the Walker loop trail.

I quickly decided I would have just enough time and disappeared back into my head.

This was my first trip back to the Walker loop in years. I used to mountain bike this loop regularly when I lived in Boulder. I really enjoyed the modest grades and mostly non-technical trails. I just ran easy and focused on enjoying the sounds of pounding feet, the feeling of a cool breeze on warm skin and the Zen of moving unhurriedly up and down hills under one's own power. Recharging.

The mouth of Eldorado Canyon as the afternoon shadows march down the canyon walls.

As expected, I got back to my car exactly on time. I was depleted, though.  With my focus on recharging, I neglected to refuel. I was out for about 18(ish) miles, 4,200 feet of elevation gain and 3:20 and only brought two gels...not enough for me on this day.

Still, driving down Highway 93 on my way to pick up jP, my mind was in a better place, more relaxed and positive...maybe even rejuvenated.

Fowler - Eldorado Canyon - Walker Ranch

Great late afternoon run complete with vibrant fall colors and a bit of drizzle...all on some of the best trails in the area.


Time: 1:57
Distance: 11 miles

Effort: Easy
Body: Good
Weather: Cloudy and Cool

Originally planned to do this run first thing in the morning -- even went so far as to drive to the trailhead -- but realized at the last second that I had work commitments early enough that a morning run of this length wasn't in the cards. A little adaptive management resulted in a late afternoon return to the Fowler Trailhead, just east of Eldorado Springs.

Set off jogging up a dirt road, gazing at the beautiful colors of the grasslands to the east and the forests to the west. After a mile-and-a-half, the road joins up with an old narrow gauge railroad grade, the remnants of a two-mile effort in the early 1880s by the Denver, Utah and Pacific Railroad to link South Boulder Creek, presumably, to the rail lines serving the mines and towns to the west. The trail goes through a couple of deep, narrow cuts through rock before emerging at two miles on the road road through Eldorado Springs State Park. 

I ran up the park road and hopped onto the Eldorado Springs Trail and started climbing. After a day off yesterday to give my achin' toe some time to heal up, I was feeling solid. I ran a modest, but steady pace up to the overlook above South Boulder Creek and Walker Ranch. I paused here a while to soak in the views and revel in the stillness.

WIth the low cloud cover, even the expansive views to the west felt compressed, as if everything were within reach. As I stood there, the only sounds I heard were the steady roar of South Boulder Creek making its way down the canyon and a lone sparrow calling from a patch of nearby brush. One of those moments...

With a bit more time for fun and plenty of energy yet to expend, I bounded down the switchbacks into the eastern edge of Boulder County's Walker Ranch Open Space.  I made a quick stop at the creek's edge before turning tail and  retracing my steps back to the truck.

Really felt good this whole run...physically and mentally. Eldorado Canyon is one of those majestic places, and the trail leading over to Walker Ranch is superb...just pure singletrack bliss. Even the light drizzle the last four miles or so was welcome, a sign that something was just clicking today.

Elevation gain: 2,292 feet.

Coal Creek Canyon - Long Run

Time: 3:49
Distance: 22 miles
Effort: Very Easy
Body: Good
Weather: Chilly and snowing


Eager for some new ground to cover, I headed over to Coal Creek Canyon to run a long route Lucho mapped out on mapmyrun.com. With a print-out of the turn of the turn-by-turn directions and a small map from mapmyrun, I parked at a retail area in the canyon and headed up Highway 72 20 meters or so to the first of seemingly dozens of mountain roads I would run on today. Here's the link to Lucho's route.


Eager to protect my aching left knee, the plan was to run at a way-easy pace, uphill and downhill. With a moderately heavy snow falling, I began climbing up a series of roads that did a little lollipop before dumping me out on Gross Dam Road. As a harbinger to the rest of the morning, somewhere in this section I managed to lose the little map I brought. 


Following the turn-by-turn directions, I crossed over Highway 72 and ran along a whole mess of minor dirt roads, with names like Divide View Road, Ridge Road and Rudi Lane. With the help of 3-4 locals out walking their dogs here and there, I managed to stay on track...but just barely.


Finally, around 15 miles in...the inevitable happened: several of the roads the directions said I should be seeing never appeared. I'm sure there was some weird disruption in the space-time continuum that made those roads temporarily disappear, since there's no way my sense of direction failed me.


I surrendered to the mountain road gods and just headed downhill, based on a few pointers from Greg and his malamute Tahoe, who happened to be walking by as I was weighing my options. After a mile or two, I was back at Highway 72 and Gross Dam Road.


Eager to get in a few more miles, I headed down Gross Dam Road, crossed the railroad tracks and found myself on the southeast side of Eldorado Canyon State Park/Walker Ranch. Here in the Crescent Meadows part of the state park, there was a trailhead for the 7.2 mile Walker Ranch Loop. This part of the state park doesn't appear to connect to the eastern part of the park, which includes the actual canyon. Walker Ranch connects the two parts, though. I ran a bit up the trail, but decided that since I already was 19 miles into the run, I had better just head back.


I didn't realize that one could access Walker/Eldorado from Coal Creek Canyon. If I had gathered a bit more beta on the area before leaving the house, I would have included the loop in this morning's run. Instead, I did the climb back up Gross Dam Road and wound my way back to the truck via some of the roads on which I began running three-and-a-half hours ago. Hit the truck at exactly 22 miles.


I loved running in the falling snow. The 1/4 to 1/2 inch of fresh powder on the roads provided just enough softness to cushion every footfall and absorb virtually every sound, save for the occasional cackle of a passing crow. Twas a great morning to be out in the sticks.


My left knee felt pretty good today. I definitely could feel the ache at the beginning, but there were long stretches where I never thought about it, which means it wasn't bugging me. I will continue icing it this week in hopes getting past it before the coming weekend and the Moab Red Hot 50K.


I hope to make it back to this area sometime soon to wander a bit into Eldorado/Walker from that side.


Elevation gain: 3,521. Average HR: 139. Average pace: 10:26.

Saturday, November 14 - Backside Loop

Run: Backside Loop - Boulder

Time: 3:52

Distance: 20.3 miles

Effort: Easy

Body: Fair

Weather: Chilly, Socked-in

Left the house this morning around 5:30 a.m. bound for Chautauqua in Boulder. Upon opening my garage door, I was greeted by the hooting of a distant owl. Such a great way to start a day. On the agenda on this chilly morning was the Backside Loop, an approximately 20-mile route that circumnavigates the dramatic Flatirons, the mountainous backdrop to the city of Boulder.

After the 50-minute drive from home and a quick stop for a bagel, I hit Chautauqua and was the first and only car in the parking lot. I strapped on my North Face hydration pack, stuffed with water and four gels, and headed out across the meadow toward Gregory Canyon.

I ran up Gregory Canyon to the ranger cottage, then jumped on the Long Canyon trail. The trees throughout the canyon were covered with a thin layer of snow, the product of a cold front that moved in the day before,swapping our 70-degree weather for temps this morning in the low 30s. The trail, thankfully, was clear of snow and the only white stuff I ran through was on the bridges, plus a bit in the north-facing depths of the canyon lingering from the snow storm of two weeks ago.

Up the first two canyons, I followed a solitary pair of footprints, but my only company on these two trails were the dark-eyed juncos that flitted about as I approached and a small flock of wild turkeys near the top where Long Canyon meets Flagstaff Road. The light dusting of snow seemed to absorb any and all sounds, save for the cacophonous cackle of the occasional magpie.

Where Long Canyon ends at Flagstaff Road, I headed uphill on an old roadbed, but soon lost the track and did a bit of bushwhacking to just above the last switchback on Flagstaff. After 2-3 miles on the paved, and sometimes icy, Flagstaff Road, I hit Walker Ranch, a 3,778-acre bit of Boulder County Open Space and Bureau of Land Management land.

I can't believe how long it's been since I'd visited Walker Ranch. I used to mountain bike there regularly, when I lived in Boulder. I think it's been about nine years since I'd been up there. A number of things had changed. A fair bit of trail work had been done. And, the Eldorado fire, which burned over 1,000 acres in 2000, was evident with a hillside of charred trees near the western trailhead.

From the Walker Ranch Loop trailhead, I headed northeast cruising up a short uphill section before winding my way

to an east-facing hill and descending on switchbacks through trees to an old two-track that led down to South Boulder Creek and the Eldorado Canyon Trail. After a quick jaunt down to check out the creek, I began the ascent up the Eldorado Canyon Trail. This trail was new to me, as it was built since my last visit to the area. The trail climbs relatively steeply up to a highpoint with normally great views back down into Walker Ranch and down into Eldorado Canyon (I'd run to this high point from Eldorado Canyon earlier this fall). Today, though, the views were obscured by a thick cover of low-lying clouds.

I made pretty quick work of the Eldorado Canyon Trail as it dipped and turned along hillsides and into small sub-drainages. After a few miles and three short climbs, the trail drops suddenly down into Eldorado Canyon via a series of well-built switchbacks. Interestingly, on the last stretch down to the dirt road near the canyon's bottom, I passed five people with a television-style video camera on a tripod. I didn't pause long enough to even make a guess as to what they were shooting, but had to laugh at the strange scene.

From the upper picnic area in the canyon, I followed the road down to the small hamlet of Eldorado Springs. Trying to remember directions I read last night, I headed across a bridge over South Boulder Creek in search of an unmarked trail that would take me up to Shadow Canyon and the Mesa Trail, which I would follow back to Chautauqua.

I knew the trail was past a couple of trailers and up a driveway, but once in the area, the jumble of ramshackle houses, trailers and assorted dirt roads, drives and tracks left me scratching my head. After an ill-fated attempt to find the trail off a driveway clearly marked "No Tresspassing," I was accosted by the owner who just happened to pick that moment to head down his drive in his Honda Civic. Fortunately, he was good natured and understanding and pointed me in the right direction. The trail, it turned out was toward the east end of Baldwin Circle and, as advertised, accessed off a gravel driveway.

The trail began as a pretty rough social trail. After it winds around the edge of a few private property lines, it climbs steadily up a long grassy valley to the intersection with the Shadow Canyon Trail. I imagine this stretch of trail would be absolutely gorgeous in the summer, when the grass is green and tall.

I took Shadow Canyon to the Mesa Trail and ran Mesa all the way back to Chautauqua. Once back at Chautauqua, I did a quick loop through the meadow and did once around the paved road by the dining hall to get the total mileage just over 20 miles for the day.

This is a great loop, with excellent and well-marked trails (save for the jaunt up from Eldorado Springs) and just a little bit of pavement. As I write this here at 7,800 feet in Evergreen, it's snowing pretty hard, making me even more grateful to have had at least one last opportunity to do a long run on snow-free trails this late in the season.