December 6, 2009 / 8:00am

Garden of the Gods and Rampart Range Road
Distance: 13.1 miles
Time: 2:22 hours

Whew! Sorry about not posting yesterday; a little tired and a lot of mall Christmas shopping after the run.

Yes, I ran half marathon distance yesterday in almost 2.5 hours. Can I explain? How about snow and continued snowing? Hills? Fire road up hill for 1.25 miles, does that count?

Yesterday was the first time I ran with the Incline Club. Tracey, yes, the infamous Tracey, has run with them for almost two years and I finally caved and said yes, I'd run with her. she picked me up at 7:05am and drove me to Memorial Park in Manitou in time for bathroom break and sign in before deciding what to run with her core group. I stepped out of the car with some trepidation; not sure how this was going to work - it looked like there were 30+ runners there, standing in line waiting to sign in for the second run of their season. Wow. Now, that's a lot of runners going up a trail at one time.

The scheduled run was up Longs Ranch Road; however, the amount of snow on the ground and the fact that it was still snowing, made most people change their mind about that run. I hung back and waited to hear what Tracey and her friends would decide. I found out that the Incline Club usually has a long run and a short run scheduled with quite a few runners showing up, sharing the early morning comeraderie and then taking their own tack for the run.

Tracey is running a marathon at Catalina in March with her friend Louisa and they need their mileage. Finally, it was agreed to run in the Garden, do the 10 mile road race route and add mileage somewhere along the way. We took off down the road toward Garden of the Gods and the run was on.

Wow. It was cold; but this time I wore my ski gloves. Thought I was kidding didn't you? I actually was quite warm and, at one of the bathroom breaks, stripped off my outer shell and just had on a sleeveless and long sleeve tech shirts with a fleece tops over that. I did have have two layers of pants and probably could have done with just one. It is difficult to know what to wear in weather like that. The snow picked up during the run and I couldn't decide if it was better to have the snow stay on the fleece or sweat under the shell. The fleece won out. It's not a traditional outer layer for runners; however, I really like the fact that the occasional breeze makes it way through the fleece to cool me down a bit.

I also carried my water bottle upside down since, on Thursday, my water froze within and I had difficulty getting water on the run. Tracey said she had used the technique in the past and, believe me, it worked like a charm. I highly recommend that for anyone running in cold weather.

The route starts out on the city streets of Manitou before you make your way into the park proper. What a great view once we hit the park. The towering red rocks jutting out of the ground were blanketed with a layer of snow. It was also very quiet with few vehicles daring to drive through the park at that time and the snow masking the rest of the noise. I really like running the trails in the park and shy away from the roads as much as possible. However, yesterday, one had to run on the roads due to the weather. I picked out a tire track and tried to stay in that one until a better one appeared.

We wound our way around the Garden with light banter coursing through the group. I did not contribute much, just tried to listen and get a bead on each runner. There were seven of us in this group and it was a perfect number. I enjoyed them very much and the courtesy shown to all with bathroom breaks and equipment malfunctions was nice.

At 8.75 miles into the run, Rampart Range Road loomed ahead. This is where those runners who wanted more distance peeled off to tackle the road, others continued out of the park to finish their day. By this time, I was with Tracey and Louisa with Larry behind us somewhere and another runner already up the Road. I told Tracey and Louisa to take off, I wanted to practice my run / power hike method up the road; a technique I will need for Leadville. I practiced this for Collegiate and it worked great. You do engage different muscles as you transfer into power hiking and those muscles need to be exercised and prepared as well.

Unbelievably, there were already tire tracks up the fire road! And people think I'm crazy. The views from the road are just beautiful. It heads up, up and up out of the park and when you finally turn around on the road, the city carpets the valley below.

At the ten mile mark, Tracey and Louisa turned around and I wasn't too far down the road from them. When they met me coming down, I turned around and joined them for the easy, slow run down the road. Snow makes everyone take it a little easy. I felt my left calf tightened up on the way down. It did this last spring and bothered me a bit. I hate the feeling of a knot in my calf. At the end of the road with about two + miles left, I told Tracey and Louisa I needed to stretch it out. That worked for awhile until we hit a downhill section again and I felt it tighten once more. Not bad enough to stop, but enough for me to slow down a bit and not stretch it out on the down sections.

Finally! The park was in sight and the end of the run was met at a stop sign. I'm not sure if that's a rule; but we didn't stop until we made it to a stop sign. There were still other cars in the parking lot; other runners still out for the morning. Unbelievable.

My hair was crusted with ice and my fleece had a thin layer of snow on it which was rapidly melting and making my outer layer wet. The fingers, which stayed warm throughout the run, also began to get very cold. It always amazes me how quickly I can go from being comfortable on a cold run to downright freezing when I stop.

Back in the car and heading home, I told Tracey it was a good run. Hard but not overwhelming. Something that I truly feared with this group of runners. I'd say weather permitting, I would run with them again; but as yesterday proved, they run despite the weather! Thanks guys for a great day!