Merry Merry!

I sent a post here from my phone, but apparently it didn't come through. The extent of the message, which was authored on Friday, was happy holidays! I hope everyone has enjoyed hearty meals with friends and family. Here's the view from our cabin here in Estes Park:

As you can see in the above photo, it's fairly icy on the smallest streets. The main roads are actually fairly well maintained and they've surprisingly had very little snow for this time of year. I figured I would explore some trails on Saturday, with the help of some Microspikes I picked up back in Denver. The crampons turned out not to be entirely necessary because the trails were not very well packed. Snow shoes would have been better actually, and I took the opportunity to hop onto a road when I came to it. I ended up running up Bear Lake Rd, within Rocky Mountain National Park now, toward a small picnic area before heading back downhill. Between stomping through the snow on the lower trails and popping onto the road at an unknown point I won't attempt to map it. I'll call it a 6 mile effort, 47:29. The road miles were definitely faster than the trails, especially the uphill ones which are pretty sluggish at this altitude. I think that's about 35 for the week.

I had a 12 mile run penciled in for today and I decided to stick to the streets, as I feared the effort to trudge through the trails would have made the run less enjoyable. I headed down the hill to Estes Park and back up a long climb to Mary's Lake. I'm not sure what the elevation change was but the climb up to the lake was very tiresome. The view from atop made the effort well worth it but I felt like I was moving pretty slowly. I made up some time heading back down to Estes on a grueling, mile-long descent that made any east coast hill seem like a wrinkle in the sand. By about 70 minutes I had to make a decision to bite the bullet and focus on putting one foot in front of the other. The ups and downs mixed with the altitude put me in a painful place, and my momentum was slowly draining. I had to stop a few times on the climb back up to the cabin, which wasn't as steep or long as the climb to Marys Lake, but it was tough enough. I finished strong though, and I was ecstatic to have completed such a scenic and challenging run. 12 miles, 1:38:07. Not bad considering the altitude and hills.

I spent the afternoon snow-shoeing up in the national park, and it was the most fun I've had in a long time. I could totally get into this in a big way. The dearth of majestic scenery out east would make it somewhat of a different experience, but I'm glad I tried it today. Headed back to Denver tomorrow, then back to DC on Tuesday.