On Friday Mark and I ran the Flatirons and the first time up the first Flatiron I was dragging. I have this brilliant theory that I’m good after 4 miles…and in this instance we were tackling badass elevation gain very early, so I could use that as an excuse. But man, do you ever have that run that you just want to stop with every single step. Ugh! Then right at the end it turned, and I beast moded the rest of it. BM is how we do epic shit right? I pride myself on my ability to beast mode elevation gain, in races but more importantly the real world. I get “can’t stop/won’t stop” in my head and just blast right past where I think my edge is. It seems to have environmental factors (and by that I mean COMPETITION), but there has to be some way to trigger it just any time. Right!?
Flatirons are so sleepy you can’t even see them
I was thinking during this run how much I’ve changed. Even from that moment in a spin class I was teaching when I thought about BASELINE (is your baseline sitting on the couch watching Netflix?) and I was already training then. Powering through the mountains has changed everything. Beast mode is now rocking 1000ft gain/mile. But there’s always so far to go.
I scheduled the rest of the 28 fourteeners. It’s pretty surreal; last January 20 seemed like an insane number. A month ago 28 seemed improbable. I’ll finish the remaining Collegiates (and the rest of the Sawatch range) next week. Up next is the Long’s trip. I’ll be riding the 82 miles to the trailhead, running the 14 miles to and from the summit of Long’s Peak, and riding home to Denver, hopefully in less than 20 hours (bagging one peak the long way). Last week of September Mark and I are going back for the Mosquito Range peaks we missed the last time around (due to ice and Luna’s cut foot). Then, it’s Capitol Peak with the boys. Colorado’s most technically difficult fourteener, and the #5 most dangerous (happy birthday to me!).
braking for pull ups on the way to Evergreen on my new bike, Blow
Monday was the Columbia ascent 11.5 miles and 4200ft gain
Tuesday off
Wednesday 42 miles on the bike
Thursday 6mi city
Friday 5mi 3000ft gain at the Flatirons
Saturday 15mi bike
Sunday 14mi Mesa Trail (NO BEARS!!!)
next adventure 
“Beast mode is now rocking 1000ft gain/mile.” – haha that is great!! Sounds like an awesome day too and some more awesome days on the horizon 🙂
Always awesome days ahead…no matter how miserable the moments (and by moments I mostly mean steepness) seem sometimes. My sister calls that “fantastically miserable” and we redefine the severity every day 🙂
Be careful running down Long’s. My friend Steve told me when he and another friend of ours did Long’s some guy just stopped on the way down and sat down on the trail at a point where they couldn’t easily maneuver around him and falling meant certain death. Moral of the story: be mindful of people in front of you doing stupid shit, especially if you’re gonna run it. Don’t forget to check construction on your way up to RMNP just in case they’re still working on the roads that were taken out during last year’s floods. I’m sure you and Luna will have a blast.