So I've been jazzed all day. Why? Because it's Tower's time trial day! What is Towers Rd? It's a 3.45 mile primitive road with 1700 feet of vertical gain. Once a fortnight Nick rounds up the masses and somehow convinces us it would be fun to run up this hill as hard as we can, hoping to earn that elusive and rewarding metallic taste in your mouth that comes with a worthy effort. With a staggered/handicapped start everyone (not sandbagging) has the same chance at being King or Queen of the hill, the first one up. It's the highlight of my week. Of my two weeks actually. Seriously.
Yeah, that probably leaves me a few standard deviations outside the population norm. But in my "pain community" I'm a normal guy. Pain community is a term I discovered in a Runner's World article, linked above, that discusses why we push ourselves to further and further limits, why we endure and in fact embrace the suffering involved in doing something like running hard up a big hill. I'm glad to have the Fort Collins Trail Runners as my pain community, they've certainly helped me improve as a trail runner and inspired me to undertakes things I never would have dreamed possible.
Thur night update: 33 runners tackled the hill today. The spring weather not only had us in jovial moods, but brought out the crowd too. I had a good effort, a minute off 2 weeks ago, all lost in the first mile after the turn. Early I had tight Achilles slowing me down. They settled down after to my attempts to stretch them while walking the steeps or maybe I just out-stubborned them.
Thur night update: 33 runners tackled the hill today. The spring weather not only had us in jovial moods, but brought out the crowd too. I had a good effort, a minute off 2 weeks ago, all lost in the first mile after the turn. Early I had tight Achilles slowing me down. They settled down after to my attempts to stretch them while walking the steeps or maybe I just out-stubborned them.
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