The Incline.......

After the marathon last Saturday, I took Sunday off and resumed training on Monday with a 1 hour 20 mile bike ride. It was a partly sunny day with temps in the high 80's. The idea with the bike ride was twofold (i) low impact work out on the right foot and (ii) get time in the saddle and start thinking about doing the bike portion of the Leadman. After my nasty fall I had swore off bikes and as usual, time makes the memory fade. As I hit 40MPH + it really made me think about just how dangerous the bike is......

Today I got up at the crack to catch my flight to Denver. Had a productive day and decided to hop in the car and drive down to Manitou Springs to tackle the infamous "Incline". It's a straight ascent up the mountain that peaks around 9,000FT + on a series of railroad ties. Instead of committing suicide and descending the stairs, I made the intelligent decision to hit the trails that switched backed down the mountain side.

The total loop was just shy of 3.5 Miles at took 1:11 on the first loop and 1:07 on the 2nd loop....yep a negative split. I did the incline in 40 minutes on the first loop and 40 minutes on the second loop, and made up time on the descent as I had some young runner thinking he was going to pass me.....not today slappy. Overall felt pretty good other than my right arch, which is giving me issues....nothing serious, but just nagging right now. Gotta catch these issues early and pay attention to them so that they don't turn into something more significant.



At the top of the photo is a false summit, when actually it's only 2/3 of the way up the mountain....my average HR was north of 130, I'm guessing. There were quite a few tourists trying to climb this bad boy. It was a great training day, which was about 2:18 minutes and 7 miles. Yes, that's right only 7 miles and it took me 2:18......it's a tough hill to climb....but i'll be thankful come August....

Cheers!!