25 Gorgeous Miles of Green at the Quad Rock 2013
When you look at this beautiful photo Mike Hinterberg took yesterday, it would be hard to guess that the lush, verdant scenery is actually arid Colorado...but with two snowstorms in April and one on the first of May this year, the hills are green and the wildflowers are blooming all over.
This year's Quad Rock course on the trails at Lory State Park and Horsetooth Mountain Park was almost unrecognizable to me, since so much of the year these trails I know so well are either dry & dusty, or snowy!
It felt fantastic to finish this challenging 25-mile race today, because I've struggled a lot with motivation this spring, and have had a hard time getting the long training runs done. I'm fairly sure I would've been a DNS for today's race were it not for the help of Cindy Stonesmith at Ultrarunner Training; in the past couple of weeks, she's helped me boost my mileage and start to recover my motivation.
Though my time today was slow, finishing a challenging 25-mile trail race with 5,500 feet of elevation gain is something I didn't expect to be able to do before Cindy helped me back on the road to a systematic, strategic training plan. I'm gradually getting back on track, and it feels great.
Another bonus of running today's race was getting back in touch with so many of my trail-running buddies here in Fort Collins. Nick and Pete know how to produce a world-class race, and the competition out there looked to be fierce so clearly the running world has taken notice! A stellar team of volunteers staffed the aid stations and cheered us on, and the finish-line party was awesome. All in all it was a fantastic day on the trails.
See you on the trail, friends!