Week Summary 4/9 - 4/15

Monday              

PM: 14 miles, Aerobic, South Platte Trail

Tuesday

AM: 3 miles, Recovery, South Platte Trail

AM: core strength/stretching

PM: 12 miles, 3182’, Mt. Falcon

I set a new PR for an ascent with a first lap time of 28:53. Second lap came in at 30:47. I ran in my Saucony Peregrines which I haven’t used much. I’m trying to work them in every once in a while to get used to the low, 4mm drop. I can definitely notice a bit more stress on my calves and feet, but I love the response and close-to-the-ground feel.

Wednesday

AM: 14 miles, Aerobic, South Platte Trail

PM: 3 miles, Recovery, Cherry Creek Trail

Thursday

AM: 8.4 miles, Hill Workout, Treadmill

I warmed up with 2 miles, then set the treadmill incline to 15% for one hour. I set the speed to 5.4 and managed to hold it for the entire time, and actually bumped it up to 6 for the last couple minutes. I made it 5.42 miles, which equates to 4293’ of climbing. The cool down mile at 0% incline felt like I was flying downhill.

Friday

AM: core strength/stretching

PM: 10 miles, Aerobic, South Platte Trail

Saturday

AM: 16 miles, 16000’, Manitou Incline

Today I participated in the Inclinathon, an event proposed by friend and fellow Leadville trainee, Brandon Stapanowich. A couple months ago Brandon mentioned to me his plan to run/hike the Incline an unprecedented 13 times, resulting in a marathon with 52,000 feet of total elevation change. For those of you not familiar with the Incline, I’ll give you a little background to show you the absurdity of this event…

The Incline is the old route of the Manitou Springs cog railway which climbs 2,000 feet in just 1 mile. The “trail” up the incline is made up of uneven railroad ties, covered with loose gravel and rocks. The fastest known ascent of the incline was set by pro triathlete Mark Fretta in a time of 16:42…for 1 mile! That’s 3.6 miles per hour. The uneven terrain and awkward footing means that the descent is not much easier. The reward for climbing up is not an easy cool-down mile; it’s 15 minutes of quad pounding where you need to stay focused the entire time of you’ll face plant on some gnarly terrain (as I did).

I was excited to join Brandon, but was not sure how many laps I would complete. As much as I was interested in the challenge, I will be racing in the difficult Quad Rock 50 in 4 weeks and I didn’t want to do a ton of damage this close to a big race. The night before the Inclinathon I tentatively decided on 8 laps. I figured this would be enough laps to gain some respect from the other guys, but not so much where I’d totally destroy my legs. 

According to plan, after 8 laps I decided I did enough damage and called it a day. Huge props to Brandon and Fred Baxter for continuing on for the full 13 laps. Brandon set the Inclinathon record at 11:47! Very impressive.

Here are my splits:

Lap	Ascent	Descent*	Total
1	0:28:31	0:17:36	0:46:07
2	0:30:19	0:18:10	0:48:29
3	0:32:19	0:18:34	0:50:53
4	0:30:00	0:17:41	0:47:41
5	0:29:33	0:16:29	0:46:02
6	0:29:53	0:15:43	0:45:36
7	0:32:57	0:23:13	0:56:10
8	0:34:49	0:20:19	0:55:08
Total	4:08:21	2:27:45	6:36:06
*Descent time includes time spent at aid station

after 8 laps, with some battle wounds

  

Sunday

AM: 4 miles, Recovery, South Platte Trail

Jess ran the Platte River Half Marathon this morning and I had some time to kill while spectating. My legs were sore from yesterday, mainly my quads, so it was nice to loosen up with some real easy miles. Congrats to Jess for a solid, early season race! 

Jess and me after the Platte River Half Marathon

PM: 6 miles, 1561’, Red Rocks / Dakota Ridge

Given yesterday’s effort, I would have normally taken this afternoon off. However, my uncle Mike was in town and I wanted to show him some of the trails around Denver. My brother Matt also came along for a leisurely run of Dakota Ridge and Red Rocks in Morrison. 

Matt, Mike and me after our run at Red Rocks

I’ve had a really solid 5 weeks since Salida, with the average weekly mileage of 92 and average weekly vert of almost 18,000’. I’m definitely in need of an easy recovery week, due in large part to Saturday’s suffer-fest on the incline.

Recap

Time: 17:08

Miles: 86.5

Vert: 25,426’