Waterton Canyon

The Arapaho call it Niinéniiniicíihéhe.  You and I call it the Platte River.  It originates in Park County along the eastern flank of the Mosquito Range near Fairplay at a place where you could cross it with one step.  From South Park, it passes through 50 miles of the Platte Canyon and, at its lower section, Waterton Canyon.  It was in this lower section that our little group met to run this past Saturday.  We ran up and down South Platte River Road which parallels its namesake from Waterton Road to the Strontia Springs Dam.  

 

I suggested the change of venue for this week’s long run because I wanted some hill work and I wanted a break from our usual hill run at the Cherry Creek Reservoir.  It has been a particularly mild winter so far and the Highline Canal Path is virtually clear of snow.  The path is less demanding on our old joints, but is virtually flat.  The spring marathons we are running are hilly and require adequate training.

It is seven miles from the parking lot to the gate at the top of the dam with an elevation gain of about 800 feet.  In comparison, the Newton Hills in the Boston Marathon rise only about 200 feet over six miles.  Those hills culminate with Heartbreak Hill which rises only 88 feet (from an elevation of 148 feet to 236 feet), but it comes in the portion of a marathon distance where muscle glycogen stores are most likely to be depleted at mile 20. 

So, we train on hills to acclimate our bodies to climbing.  Running uphill trains the lungs; running downhill trains the legs. 

Uphill running teaches us to run with much better technique.  It forces us to lean forward and to run with shorter steps with a higher stride frequency.  It also trains us to keep our weight on the balls of the feet.

When running downhill, the tendency is to try to “brake” which puts a lot of stress on the leg and hip muscles.  We need to train ourselves to keep some of the forward lean so we don’t tax our legs. 

The Boston Marathon course elevation drops about 220 feet from the crest of Heartbreak Hill to the finish.  Anyone who has ever run the Boston Marathon can tell you how hard it is to run down Beacon Street. 

My spring marathon is the Colfax in May.  I came across an ad for the inaugural edition in 2006.  “It's flat, with elevation gain of only 279 feet.  No Heartbreak Hills.”  Whoever wrote that should be pummeled with Pumas.  While it is a fact that the finish was 279 feet above the start, the elevation chart looks like a hockey stick.  That course rose 538 feet over the last nine miles including about 150 feet in the last mile. 

This year’s edition of Colfax has an elevation gain of 548 feet, which is spread over about 15 miles.  The nice part of the course is that there is a six miles descent from “the Glenns” down Colfax Avenue to the Platte River. 

Sunday morning my legs were feeling the effects of the hill workout.  This means the workout was effective and it means I have more work to do.

Highline Hypnosis

What a difference a week makes!  This Saturday the high temperature was 54 degrees.  What little breeze there was came out of the south-west.  It gently pushed me along the outward leg of my 15 mile loop. 

When I left my house at 6:30 a.m. the temperature was 31 degrees.  As the saying goes, hot air rises, and the temperature steadily dropped while I followed the creek near my house downhill towards the Highline Canal Path.  Once on the Highline Canal Path I felt distinct changes in temperature as I ran past places where the canal was dry and where there was still some frozen water.  Those large ice cubes accounted for major swings in the air temperature.  I was dressed appropriately: tights (the required uniform), a long sleeve t-shirt, a wind breaker, cotton gloves and a lycra cap. 

Once I made the turn at the Big Dry Creek trail (at the 11 mile point) and started the four mile ascent towards home, the temperature steadily rose.  As a result of the combination of climbing away from the creek coupled with the sun warming the air, by the time I arrived back home I was sweating nicely. 

While running, I recalled when I registered for the 2005 Boulder Backroads Marathon.  The web site made a remarkable claim.  It said that for over 100 years, there had been no precipitation on that date (September 25^th) in Boulder.  As runners, we experience all kinds of weather in the Mile High City.

Because I run so many miles on the Highline Canal Path, I am able to recall a mental image of the path during the latter stages of races.  This is particularly helpful on courses I have not run before.  During the early stages of the marathon I concentrate on conserving energy.  The last miles of the marathon are all about focusing on finishing and finishing strong.  I relate the miles I have left with points on the path.

My reference points are the Goodson Rec. Center and my home.  Here are my benchmarks:

            It is ten miles from Hampden Ave. to Goodson.

            It is seven miles from where the Highline Canal passes under Belleview Ave. to Goodson.

            It is six miles from my dentist’s office on South Broadway to my home.

            It is five miles from the white bronco statue to Goodson.

            It is about four miles from Orchard Rd. to Goodson.

            It is also about four miles from Writers Vista Park (where I stop to use the loo) to home.

            It is two and a half miles from where the Highline Canal passes under University Blvd. to Goodson.

            It is about one mile from the little park by the church on Orchard Rd. (where I used to take my girls) to Goodson.

In the latter stages of races when I am suffering, I mentally put myself on the Highline and that gives me the confidence that I can finish the race. 

Tools of Ignorance

I rode the bench.  When I wasn’t in right field, that is.  One of the perks of riding the pine is that you get to score a lot of baseball games.  I studied the arcane rules laid down by Henry Chadwick in the 1870s.  Thus was born my love of sports statistics and the reading of box scores.

One of the peculiar rulings is that the credit for the put out for a strike out is awarded to the catcher (the person who caught the out).  I had an epiphany and decided to become a catcher.  Kids idolize their sports heroes and I found mine in Thurman Munson, The Yankees’ catcher and captain.  (The previous captain was Lou Gehrig who retired in 1939).  I would stay up late scoring the games.  I couldn't care less what 2/3 multiplied by 3/4 was, but I kept a daily tally of Munson’s batting average.  While watching games on TV I would squat as I emulated his style.

It was a very sad day on August 3rd 1979 when I read that Munson had died when the Cessna Citation I/SP jet he was flying crashed the previous day.  I was on a bike tour through Maine on Route 9 near Kennebunkport when I saw the newspaper headline.  The death of a childhood hero is a life shaking event for a fifteen year old.  (The Yankees would not select another captain for three years).

I continued to play catcher until my freshman year in high school when I was cut from the team.  My eyesight and reaction time had not kept pace with the pitchers' skills so I couldn’t hit a curve ball, or a fastball, or any other kind of ball.  I don’t remember the exact words the coach said to me, but he left me with a great love for the game.  He told me to focus on sports that took advantage of the talents I had, my height and relative light weight.  I concentrated on swimming and the world of endurance athletics. 

All of these memories came back to me this Christmas when my father sent me the New York Yankees 1979 Picture Album.  There is a photo of Thurman and one of Yogi Berra, the great catcher from the previous generation.  Yogi was one of the Yankees’ coaches and my house was about 200 yards from his. 

Watching a complete baseball game is a luxury I get to enjoy about once a year.  A baseball game lasts approximately three hours, or roughly how long it takes the members of our little group to run a marathon.  Coincidence?

Thoughts of spring filled my head as I ran along the Highline Canal path Saturday afternoon.  The trail was a ribbon of white with an inch dusting of powdery snow.  The temperature on Saturday afternoon was 13 degrees.  It was a great day to break in my new running shoes – New Balance MT110s, size 13 EE.  I passed two runners. 

When I think of spring, I think of budding trees, I think about baseball and I think about spring marathons.  I registered for the Colfax Marathon.  So, whatever else I’ll be doing on May 19^th, I’ll be running 26.2 miles up and down those long hills on Colfax Avenue. 

Carry That Weight

Dijon, France is famous for many things; most notably mustard and burgundy.  It is also the birth place of Nicolas Clement.  He is famous for his achievements in physics and chemistry; most notably establishing the value for absolute zero and for being the first person to define the calorie.  (He also married his colleague’s daughter.  Guys with unmarried daughters, ponder that as you consider the single dudes in your office.)

A calorie is approximately the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1 degree Kelvin.  We use it when referring to the energy in food which we use to fuel our bodies.  A pound of fat contains about 3,500 calories.  We burn approximately 100 calories with each mile we run.  Therefore, a typical runner would have to run about 35 miles to burn one pound of fat.

The reason for this dissertation is because I decided to step on the scale this past Tuesday (New Year’s Day) and see how much I weighed.  It was not a happy moment.  There was much wailing, moaning and recrimination.  In the interest of full disclosure, the output read 182.4 pounds.  That is about seven pounds over my “normal weight” and about 12 pounds higher than what I weighed at my “peak running form”.

The Thanksgiving / Christmas / New Year’s celebrations have taken their toll.  Bouche de noel for breakfast, leftover Ina Garten’s macaroni & cheese for lunch, calorically dense dinners and an endless supply of cookies and candies at the office were my undoing.  It is time to reverse the trend.

Mary says there is just more of me to love.  This is true, but there is also more of me to carry up hills.  Weight, or more accurately, mass also has an effect on VO2 Max, or the maximum amount of oxygen a runner can use per unit time per unit body mass.  More simply, the lighter a runner is, the higher his VO2 Max and - at least in theory - the faster he will be.  

Research has shown that ten pounds equals 20 seconds per mile, which equates to a minute-plus in a 5K, more than two minutes in a 10K, nearly four and a half minutes in a half-marathon and almost nine minutes in a marathon.  Imagine running a marathon nine minutes faster than last year and all you have to do is loose ten pounds.  What could be simpler?

How do you go about shedding pounds?  The answer has to be through some combination of eating fewer calories and exercising more.  While I track my workouts closely, I need a system to track my caloric intake.  Well, there’s an app for that.  I downloaded LoseIt! – a free app – to my iPhone. 

You create a profile in LoseIt! based on your age, sex, height, current weight and goal weight.  It accesses databases of foods and activities which you select.  It gives you a calorie budget, tallies the calories and tells you if you are over or under budget.  I have been under budget every day this week.  I do find, though, that if I am well under budget near the end of the day, I eat just to get close to the budget.  It is kind of like how government agencies view their budgets.  I’ve got a budget of 2,038 calories per day and, damn it, I’m going to use them!

LoseIt! also gives you a breakdown of where your calories are coming from: fat, protein and carbohydrates.  Not surprisingly, 60% of my calories come from carbohydrates.  I was surprised, though, to see that 25% of my calories come from fat.  I thought I had a lean diet.  15% of my calories come from protein.  This tool is great because now I have something else to obsess about.  This is how technology brings joy to our lives.

Winter is a great time to get your body to race weight.  One way to lose weight is to stand outside in shorts and a t-shirt.  The thermal activity of shivering burns more calories than sitting on the couch watching the Packers beat the Vikings.  You’d burn even more calories if you were at Lambeau Field watching the game in shorts and a t-shirt. 

The other way is to go for a run.  Saturday our little group ran 15 miles at Cherry Creek State Park.