11/10 - Off
11/11 - 5.5 Miles
11/12 - 8 Miles
11/13 - 5.53 Miles
11/14 - Off
11/15 - 10.4 Miles at Mount Falcon Trail
11/16 - 20.75 Miles

50.18 Miles Total

Saturday, I headed out to Mount Falcon for a run, I’ve not run this trail before. I’ve always enjoyed hiking, but I’ve never loved it, I think it’s the pace, but I love trail running, even though I don’t do it very often. The downfall obviously is you don’t have the time to take in the sights but I like the increased intensity. However, I must admit that I need to do it more often, I woke up Sunday morning with a sore neck and shoulder muscles. It’s amazing the different muscles used when running trails, I assume you use your upper body a lot more, either that or my form is abysmal. Even though I enjoy running trails, I have to admit that I’m not a great trail runner. I’m not a fast climber and I realized this year, when running with a few others, that I’m not great on the descents either. You would think that the descents would be easy, but their is a lot of technique to becoming a great downhill runner and I think what holds me back is the fear of spraining an ankle. In the past my ankles have been suspect, in my younger days I had two really bad sprains playing basketball and two more sprains while running, thus I am probably a bit timid.

Sunday, I went out to South Boulder with Mr. Colfax, and I’m not talking about Denny Neagle either. Justin and I were meeting up with the Calorie Burning Club at 8:30am, but before the group took off we got in 8 miles at 7:30 pace. At the start the wind was really stiff and I was struggling. The group is coordinated by Olfer Bariniv and there were probably around 15 guys there today, all fast, with the exception of myself!

The group took off and ran into El Dorado Springs, back through Doudy Draw, Community Ditch Trail, then back to the Vista Trailhead. The first few miles were really slow, then we were knocking out 6:40 pace through the trails. With about 4 miles to go, I let myself slip off the group, I couldn’t hang anymore, so this was probably mile 17 for me and I was also a bit dehydrated. I ran by myself for about a mile, looked back and saw that there was a guy behind me, so I stopped and waited for him to catch up, so that I would have someone to talk to for the last few miles.

RunColo “How you doin’?”
Guy “Good, those guys are going to fast for me today”
RC “Me too, I don’t have it today”

We introduce ourselves, he tells me his name is Jeff and that he is just trying to stay in shape. We chat for about five more minutes, I then realize it’s Jeff Keil and say “Oh, you’re Jeff Keil.” Jeff was 39th at Ironman Kona this year and the 7th fastest American. I start laughing inside, thinking of his modesty, one of the top triathletes in the world! Jeff ran a 2:58 marathon at Kona, so Jeff and I are of similar speed, it’s just that he can run the marathon in the same time it takes me but first he can do a 2.4 mile swim, with a 112 mile bike ride as a warm up, so yeah, oh and I guess he ran that marathon in 108 degree weather, so to be fair he has a slight edge on me!

Jeff was a great guy, I was really impressed, I had about 100 questions I wanted to ask the guy about training, etc. But Jeff was asking all the questions, asking where I was from, my background, how much I run, what I am training for, what I do, etc. It’s pretty cool when you meet an elite athlete like Jeff and find a guy that is down to earth and a true nice guy. That made my day and it’s the great thing about running in Denver/Boulder.