June 15, 2010 |

Horribly remiss

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The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. ~ Leo Tolstoy


Mon June 7: 00:30 2.87 miles, Casa Trails barefoot
Tues June 8: 1:00, 5.96 miles, Casa Trails
Wed June 9: 2:40, 14.95 miles, Big Zoo loop GGCSP
Thurs June 10: 3:00, 11.47 miles, Hope Pass hike/run
Sat June 12: 1:30, 8.51 miles, Casa Trails
Sun June 13: 7:03, 35.60 miles, Pbville Course
Total: 15:43, 79.36 miles, 13,770 vertical


I have been terrible about updating this past week due to… well… running a lot and work. Seems that is what it comes down to at this point. With just over 2 months to go until show time, I am getting pretty focused and made it up to Pbville twice this past week for training runs.


The week started a little slowly as I recovered from the heat debacle but then I fell into full swing by mid-week. After a couple of nice trail runs on Tuesday and Wednesday, I hit the road Thursday to go to Gunnison and since Leadville is right on the way, stopped to take a gander at the north side of Hope Pass.


The river is raging right now so I headed upstream to cross via the Willis Gulch bridge. Turns out that was badly damaged by high waters so plan B was put into effect. I headed farther upstream to Pete’s Campground (if memory serves) and the camp host alerted me to that bridge being closed due to the rushing water. Plan C. I happened to see another small (yet substantial) bridge between Willis Gulch Trailhead and Pete’s and that became my entry to the Hope Pass trail.


I ran about 1.5 miles east until the junction of the Hope Pass trail then decided to get in a little more warm-up by heading down to the race-course crossing to check things out. Yeah, that water was flowing and I would not have wanted to cross it in those conditions. I spun around and headed up Hope for the first time since ’07. The trail was in really good shape and I made quick work of the lower, steeper sections and made it to Hopeless in under an hour. Since I was so far up, I decided to just go ahead and see how far up I could go before turned around by either snow or time. I did have to cross several very punchy snowfields but made it to within about 50 feet of vert from the summit before being turned by one last snowfield that just didn’t seem worth the effort. Ran back down and finished fairly strongly in 3 hours.


Sunday, I headed back up to Leadville to log some time on the section between the start and the base of Powerline. It rained and snowed the night before so conditions were a bit soggy. I thoroughly lucked out with the weather, however and only got rained/snowed on briefly while running around Turquoise Lake. The Colorado Trail section was super sloppy with a couple inches of fresh, wet snow but Sugarloaf itself was in pretty good shape. A few inches of snow up high and lots of water running throughout but overall it was great to get up there. I summited then dropped down to the pavement on the south side then spun around and headed back up the steep side. This was the first time I had climbed back up Sugarloaf and I have to commend those who can run this thing. It’s a bitch.


I felt a little tired heading back up and was reduced to a diminishing run/walk cycle for the remainder of the run. Not super confidence-inspiring but whatchagonnado? Ended up cutting off the Colorado Trail and Turquoise Lake sections on the way back to try to speed my return to Leadville. I had planned to head back up the Boulevard but given my tight timeline, I decided to stay on the tarmac in order to improve my chances of hitching a ride if I was unable to make it all the way back to my car in the prescribed 7-hour time limit. After run/walk cycles up the hill, I reached the cut off and started walking/hitching. Was picked up fairly quickly by a nice guy from Jamestown who dropped me off at my car after about a 1.5 mile ride.



Overall, I am feeling fairly well. I need to get better control of my starting pace and my focus. The word for the week is “patience” and I am going to work on putting it into play on each and every run from this point forward.


Thoughtful strategy. Practical execution.

Clear thinking, honest perspectives, and experience shaped by years of doing the work. No shortcuts, no borrowed opinions, just lessons learned by showing up, solving problems, and following ideas all the way through.

Four hikers with backpacks walking along a rocky mountain ridge under a blue sky
May 8, 2026
We are each our own greatest inhibitor. People don’t want to do new things if they think they’re going to be bad at them or people are going to laugh at them. You have to be willing to subject yourself to failure, to be bad, to fall on your head and do it again, and try stuff that you’ve never done in order to be the best you can be. ~ Laird Hamilton Yesterday: Hit Range Balls/Hike – Casa del Critters, 1:15 Today: Run – GGCSP, ~2 hours Tomorrow: Ride – Somewhere singlespeedy, ~2 hours Yesterday, Rach and I took a nice stroll in the woods around our house. The songbirds were going crazy-nuts and surprisingly, we only saw one other person walking his dog. I love where we live – close proximity to fun trails and the ability to get away from it all in just a short walk from our house. During lunch yesterday, I went to the driving range to get a few cuts in before playing a round of golf with my dad next week. I don’t get to play very often so need to brush up on my skills (or lack thereof) whenever I can. I am looking forward to playing with my pops and hope to break 100. I shot a 102 the last time I played so I am within striking distance of the sub-triple-digit score. We’ll see how things go. I usually do okay for most of the round and then fall apart on a couple of holes pushing my score way up. Dad shoots in the low 80s usually (I think). I am not sure I will ever play enough to be that good but it is fun to get out on the course now and again. I also went to see Dr. Paul yesterday for my ankle problem (which seems to have been resolved) and my knee (which is still a bit swollen but has decreased in size markedly over the past several days). The knee stems from my unscheduled nose-dive back in May (see this post for details). The shot some pictures and believe that everything is a-ok so that was good news. I just need to select better places for splashdowns in the future. And today is Luke’s birthday. Age is one place where I will always beat him but visit his blog to congratulate him on trying to catch up. Until next time…
Runner silhouetted at sunset on a rocky trail, mid-stride between hills.
May 8, 2026
Progress comes from the intelligent use of experience. ~ Elbert Hubbard Yesterday: Run – Casa del Critters/Flume, 1 hour 15 minutes Today: Ride/Hike/Relax Tomorrow: Run/Hike – Pawnee/Buchanan Passes, 6 hours? Yesterday I ran around the house. Not literally, mind you, but in the neighborhood. It was a gorgeous evening – calm, cool. Perfect. The wildflowers are really starting to take off up here and I was treated with a bold display of color throughout my run. Tons of Columbine lined the trailside as I ran on old mining roads and singletrack trails. It is really fun to see how much differently I am able to handle familiar terrain. I used to have difficulties running this loop and would have to walk major sections. Last night, I ran the entire loop without trouble and was able to moderate my speed to maintain a steady cadence through the run. Good times. Contracting is staying steady. A bit of a drop-off this week given the holiday but I am still managing to put in a decent number of hours. I picked up another new project today and will need to get started immediately to ensure that it gets completed on time.  Tomorrow, we are going to head up Pawnee Pass and loop back around to Buchanan Pass in the northern Indian Peaks Wilderness. This should be a fun challenge as we’ll get up pretty high, have to navigate some snow (most likely) and will be out for quite awhile. I am looking forward to it for sure . Movie time: I forgot to mention Shopgirl, a Steve Martin vehicle, we watched the other night. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but found this to be a charming film about loneliness. It was well acted and would recommend it for sure. The pacing is steady throughout and some might find it a little on the slow side but it was an engaging film that had a lot to say without being overly sappy.
Hands holding a tablet displaying a video player interface. The video is paused.
February 20, 2026
In case you hadn’t seen these (and also for my friends at Adventure Film ), here are a couple of must-see running movies from Joel Wolpert:  Geoff Roes: Slogging to the Top