NicoleWeek of Aug 2, 2021
With just a few weeks to go until the Pikes Peak Ascent, the window for race-specific training is closing. My training so far has been going well, but I had not been above Barr Camp, which is around 10,000ft elevation. The summit of Pikes Peak is 14,115ft, so there was a significant portion of Barr Trail I still needed to see. And living in Colorado Springs I have no excuse for not getting on the entire trail before race day.
Get to the top
On Thursday, Rudy and I headed to the summit to explore the top 3 miles of the trail. We were going to do this the prior weekend, but the weather conditions were not conducive to being on the summit of a 14,000ft mountain. Thursday was the next best opportunity. We drove up 16 miles of the Pikes Peak Highway, parked at Devil’s Playground, and took a shuttle to the summit. Once we found the trailhead to Barr Trail with all the summit construction. The new summit house just opened to the public but there is construction still taking place. (Hence the shuttle as there isn’t much parking right now.)
Barr Trail from the summit
We went down Barr Trail a little over 3 miles, slightly past the ‘A-Frame’ timberline shelter and then turned around to experience the final summit climb. With these steps up the mountain, I had to tell myself on race day for this final stretch I will already have 10 miles of trail and nearly 5000 feet of gain already in my legs. We were lucky with the weather and picked a good day for our training, although race day will will have to accept whatever weather happens!
Side trip – Boulder 70.3
Saturday I took a trip up to Boulder with a friend to spectate the Boulder 70.3. Always a treat to return to my roots of endurance sports in Boulder. The 5430 Long Course triathlon was my first half-iron distance race in 2007! The competition was on fire (not to mention the air quality was awful with ridiculous amounts of smoke being blown in from all the western wildfires, as you can see in the photos.) It was fantastic to see Taylor Knibb who was on the mixed relay team that took the silver at the Olympics in Tokyo just over a week prior! I did get in a run with my friend around the reservoir, which afforded us the opportunity to see the lead pros on the run course.
Sunday: Long run day
If the Ascent was the last race of the season, we’d probably do something a little shorter, but with the Crested Butte Ultra 8 weeks away, a longer run session was in order at altitude. So we once again drove up the Pikes Peak Highway, but this time we went to the Elk Park Trailhead. It’s about 5.3 miles down to Barr Camp, and then we went up to “A-Frame” to cover the section of trail that we had yet to see. So now I can say I’ve been on the entirety of Barr Trail from Manitou Springs to the summit, just not all at once (yet.) The Pikes Peak Ascent will be a challenging race, and I can only hope the air quality is much improved over what it has been the last couple days.
Nicole
