A Thousand-Mile Year

Finishing off a remarkable year of trail running

Mile 995, Springbrook Tr, Eldorado Springs, CO

It's the season for wrapping up the old year and thinking ahead to the new. So please indulge me while I wax nostalgic and rest on whatever laurels I may have accumulated in 2008.

On a cold, clear winter morning, five friends met at Dowdy Draw, a popular trailhead in the grasslands south of Boulder. The temerature was in the single digits, but the sun was bright, the wind minimal, and the trails well-packed. We ran a lovely, fast, snowy loop on new trails in the spectacular Open Space and, in the process, finished something I'd started nearly 12 months before, a thousand miles of running in one remarkable year.

It's been a notable year in a number of ways, but the running has been a big part of it. First, some perspective. I started out in early 2006 and rapidly developed an obsession with running. That first year, I ran 373 miles. In 2007, I set more ambitious goals with a number of big races and a goal to double my 2006 mileage. It was a lot of work. In the waning days of 2007, I spake thusly:

"[2007] has been a long year with lots of running. I met my goal of 750 miles (by a good margin) and am now happy to hang up my shoes for a week or two and enjoy the holidays. Will this trend continue in 2008? I'll certainly run, but I'm not going to try to double this year's mileage next year! I've got a couple races in the works and I intend to train up for that, but not otherwise go overboard."

Stats geekery is a large source of motivation for me.

So here I am at the end of 2008 having run nearly the sum of the previous two years. Is 1000 miles in a year overboard? Certainly many of my running friends had racked up that kind of mileage by mid-spring. But I'm still quite proud of it. If you break it down, 1000 miles/year is only 2.7 miles per day or less than 20 miles a week. I spent 203 hours out on 104 runs. The average was 9.6 miles, but this was by no means typical. My shortest was a 3 mile jaunt at -7 degrees F and the longest was the epic, 50 mile San Juan Solstice race.

And that pretty well defines the variety. There were lunch-hour maintainence runs and dawn-till-dusk epics, night runs and early-morning runs, solo runs and huge group efforts; gravel, dirt, ice, mud, slickrock, streambeds (both wet and dry), snow of every variety, and (worst of all) pavement. There have been runner's highs and runner's lows and every emotional and physical state in between, often within the same dozen miles of trail. I've been blessed with reasonably good knees, but my toes are a mess. At one point I was down to two toenails that weren't purple, warped, stunted, and/or missing.

2008 was the year I became an official ultrarunner, whatever that is worth. While the Pikes Double is often considered an honorary ultra, by the strict definition, my first ultramarathon was the Moab Redhot 50k+ in February. Add to that the San Juan Solstice 50 miler in June and you've got two, bone-fide ultramarathons. Hard ones, at that. I ran two other 30-plus distances this year in training and half a dozen 20-something milers and was relieved to find that I felt pretty much the same in the fifth hour of a run as I do in the second.

I learned two lessons this year. First, training at the level required for 50-mile mountain runs requires an incredible amount of time and devotion. Thankfully, I had both an accepting family and a ready supply of like-minded friends to facilitate a busy training schedule. I learned that I can complete some really incredible races, but it requires sacrificing most other recreational fun to the cause of training and that level of single-minded devotion which is hard for me to muster.

Secondly, I learned that running really is (for me at least) an addiction. Whether it's the endorphins or something else, I don't know, but I'll find myself driving past a gravel path, trail, or dirt road and think to myself "I wonder where that goes? I should go run that!" Amy notices that I get seriously grumpy and morose after a week without aerobic exercise of some sort. All it takes is an hour or two of distance accumulation and I'm good as new.

A thousand miles is a lot to keep track of, but I've selected a handful of particularly memorable miles along the course of the year.

Mile 20, Town Lake, Austin, TX	Mile 37, Devil's Backbone OS, Loveland, CO
Mile 184, Metal Masher Tr., Moab, UT	Mile 209, Poison Spider Tr., Moab, UT
Mile 381, Little Wild Horse Cyn., San Rafael Swell, UT.	Mile 395, Buckskin Gulch, Escalante, UT.
Mile 424, Gem Lake, RMNP, CO	Mile 454, Kenosha Pass, CO
Mile 531, Guinn Mountain, CO	Mile 579, Chapin Pass, RMNP, CO
Mile 597, the Incline, Manitou Springs, CO	Mile 615, Barr Trail, Pikes Peak, CO
Mile 643, Alpine Gulch, Lake City, CO	Mile 651, Grassy Mountain, San Juans, CO
Mile 690, Lake City, CO	Mile 802, Louisville, CO
Mile 866, Devil's Backbone OS, Loveland, CO	Mile 914, Green Mountain, Boulder, CO
Mile 927, Lyons, CO	Mile 1000! Spring Brook Trail, Eldorado Springs, CO

In closing, I need to thank three distinct groups of people for helping me achieve my thousand miles. First, thanks to my running friends who have served as inspiration, distraction, and motivation all through this year. A lot of my runs were solo affairs, but the best of them were in the company of like-minded friends, often at night, in the snow, through quicksand, or in sub-freezing temparatures.

Second, my appologies to my non-running friends who I have largely ignored this year as I opted to rack up trail miles rather than get out on ropes and mountains. By the looks of it, you managed pretty well without me, but I look forward to tagging along on your adventures in 2009.

Finally, and most importantly, my profound thanks and appreciation to Amy. It was only through her support, understanding, and even encouragement that I could take the equivalent of a month and a half of 9-5 job and spend them running around like an idiot.

Thanks, everyone!

Adventure Library

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