New Goals, First Week of Training

Well, it's February, and I haven't done much running recently. A few weeks ago, I went to Fruita with the CMC Lead Lightning running club to do the Sweetheart 10k. The start was a little chilly, but promised a beautiful day. My optimism was soon crushed, however, by my right foot going completely numb. It had felt cold at the start, but so did the rest of me. I stopped and pulled my shoe off to discover that my sock was wrinkled and was cutting off circulation to the rest of my foot. That fixed, I trucked on, and finally caught my second wind around mile 4, finishing just over an hour. Not great, but OK for not having run since December.

I came back and decided to get back on the horse. So I started mapping out routes to run on Google Earth, and that's when I found it: an elevation gain of 6,845ft, seven miles above 13,000ft, one 14er and three 13ers, the Mt Sherman Marathon (name may be subject to change). 26.3-ish miles from the CMC campus to the summit of Mt Sherman, across the saddle to Mt Sheridan, then South through Peerless Mountain to Horseshoe Mountain and back.

Course as seen from Google Earth. Peaks from North to South: Sherman, Sheridan, Peerless, Horseshoe.

This is going to take some training, of course, so I started this week. It a word, it was slow. In two words, it was slow and sloppy. I logged 33.5 miles this week, and my average pace was about 15:30 a mile (for the record, I blame the snow). Plenty of room for improvement.

Monday- Rest/Bouldering
Tuesday- 6 mi
Wednesday- 5 mi
Thursday- 6 mi
Friday- Rest/Hiking in the snow for hydrology
Saturday- 11.5 mi
Sunday- 5 mi
Average temperature- 9° F

My Saturday long run did not quite go as planned. There are some great singletrack trails South of campus, but due to the recent snow, I had to make some adjustments.

The trail goes this way... I think.

Planned route on the left, actual route on the right. The circled places are where I lost the trail.

I lost the trail, but found a pretty good view.

 I made it out alive in the end, and got some hot chocolate to celebrate.

My ankles keep getting cold, I can't figure out why.

Apart from running, this week was awesome. On Monday, I found out that I have been accepted for the Natural Resource Management student internship over the summer, which made me very happy. I was also invited to become a part of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society.

On Thursday, I got to help the Department of Wildlife tag bighorn sheep for a study they are doing on lamb mortality. The rangers would dart ewes, and then we would drive up, roll them into a stretcher, and take them back to the field station they had set up.

Holding her head up to help with breathing. I'm glad my head isn't that heavy!

The vets then did an ultrasound to see if the ewe was pregnant. If she was, they gave her an implant that will fall out when the lamb is born, allowing them to find it and observe it. They also gave the sheep antibiotics and took blood and snot samples. Overall, it was a very cool chance to work with the sheep and the DOW.

Overall a good week, and some good goals to shoot for. Looking forward to many more miles to come.