Catching up... again

So last Saturday, October 27th was my last day of deer and elk season.  I really wanted to make the best of it since I failed to get anything during antelope season and the freezer is probably down to 25 pounds of deer from last year.  Mr. Murphy intervened when my hunting partner for the day failed to show up at 4am.  At 4:15 I called him, at 4:20 he called back and said he was running late and about to leave his place in Lakewood.  Not cool.  By the time we met up in Evergreen we were about 40 minutes behind schedule.  As a result, by the time we arrived in Summit County it was just starting to get light on the eastern horizon.

It was cold, 4-5" of snow on the ground, probably 22-24F outside and of course the hike in starts with a near vertical ascent (or so it feels) for about 1/2 mile.  That gets you nice and sweaty for the next stage in hunting, sitting down without moving for 90 minutes to two hours in the snow.  Did I mention it was cold?  Anyway, by the end I decided to really beat the bushes and give it my best shot, so we hiked in past Harrigan Creek and by 1:30pm we'd put up about 8.5 miles and based on the lack of any animals or good sign to work with, called it a day.  Probably the highlight of the day for me was this scene out of a Bev Doolittle drawing:

We also ran across a cleverly concealed hunting camp that was apparently empty, from the lack of tracks going in or out.

Sunday was my ticket to getting out of the doghouse for two weekends of hunting away from my wife.  We went for a great little run in Bear Lake Park.  Just random wanderings on various trails with no rhyme or reason for my trail selection.  3.9 miles, 48:37, 12:31 pace including some walking along the road.

Suz snapped this hopelessly posed picture, which never seem to turn out, do they?

Somehow that one run wasn't enough and after spending some time doing horse stuff with her, I left her to untack and did another quick hit, this time it was Green Mountain and very short.  Just 2.2 miles, 26:45 and a pace of 12:03, but it worked it out of my system.  I'm not a big fan of GM runs because, well, I'm not good at running up hill.  Hiking up hill, yes, running up them, not so much.

So other than a dog walk on Friday (1.47 miles, 29:55, 20:20 pace), it was a pretty weak week.

Today, Saturday the 3rd of November I drove over to Elk Meadows.  I hadn't run continuously in a few weeks so I wanted to put in a good effort on one of my favorite loops.  As usual, I struggled early on to warm up the mojo and get a good pace going, but by the high point in the loop, I was cruising.  In the end it was somewhere in the neighborhood of my PR for the loop, not that I'm absolutely certain what that is, but I recall it being around 1:04.  Today was 5.7 miles, 1:05:03, 11:24 pace.  I felt good the entire loop and even did alright on some of the flatter climbs.  The sub-11:30 pace makes me happy, as I've struggled with getting there on longer runs without feeling completely wasted.

I took several pictures, but unfortunately failed to notice I left my memory card in my computer when I grabbed the camera.  Opps.  Oh well, it's likely I'll be back soon enough.

Total mileage Sunday to Saturday on the week was 13.27, which is my lowest since the first week of September.  With hunting season behind me now, while some workouts are likely to move onto the stepper and into the gym (or fire department), I hope to get back into the 20-25 mile per week range for the next couple months before making any moves to build on more base.  Since this is just the beginning of getting back in shape, I want to be sure to make sure my joints, tendons and ligaments are getting the time they need to adapt, not just my heart and muscles.  Patience is the key to getting this 45 year old machine back into fighting shape.