I took a sub day yesterday to go down to Boulder and run with the Special Idiots. SI is a amazing group of runners and adveturers that take off on running/hiking trips of epic proportions and the stories I've heard always blur the lines between hilarius and insane. I've met many of the Idiots at ultra races and on some runs in Fort Collins, but I had never been to Boulder to run with the Idiots on their home turf. Friday's run involved running multiple loops on the approximately 3.5 mile Sanitas Trail just west of town. The trail climbs 1250 feet in 1.5 miles to the top of Mt. Sanitas and then descends just as quickly to the trail head. If you do the math on what that rate of climbing looks like, it is roughly equivalent to a steep set of stairs. That is exactly what the trail looks like. In places, I was reminded of scenes from the Lord of the Rings and Gollum's secret route into Mordor. It was much prettier though.
The run was a birthday celebration for three of the Idiots--Chris, Kari and Staph. Their plan was to run enough laps to get a mileage total equal to their age. They invited others to join them. For me that would have meant about 10 laps or 36 miles. I woke up at 4 am to meet the group at 6 am at the trail head and I ran/walked 6 laps in just over 6 hours for about 20 miles and over 8000 feet of vertical gain. By the last lap my pace was reduced to slow steps up and careful hops down. My legs this morning had the dull ache of doing the equivalent of several thousand squats with 165 pounds.
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