"When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top." - Jacqueline Susann, from "Valley of the Dolls"
Monday:
7 AM: 7 miles averaging 8:20pace. Easy two laps of Davidson Mesa and a half lap of Harper. Tried to keep
it chill since the legs are so damn sore from Saturday on Mount Werner.
Did feel the calf again today which bugged the shit out of me, just
slowed it down when I did. Half mile cooldown walk afterwards.
-- Took off to drive most of the way to where I am to meet Jeff Browning tomorrow to help pace him on the Colorado Trail over the course of the week. Heading towards where the trail crosses over HWY 114 about an hour southwest of Salida. Made to just outside of Salida about an hour away this evening. Plan is to work some from a coffee shop tomorrow then head the last hour down to the meeting point. Someone was not happy that I am leaving without her.
Tuesday:
5 PM: 20.5 miles w/ 5000ft of vert in 6:10. Pacing Jeff Browning on Section 17 of the Colorado Trail. This is from
Hwy 114 to Sergent. Had a few issues with being sleeping and had to
take a 7 min dirt nap about halfway through this section but overall was
moving really well considering this was miles 180 to 200 for him. I got worked a little bit due to the 6 liters of
water I had on my back, that was a lot of weight but had no choice due
to there being no streams on this section to filter from. Got to sleep
about 1am and woke up in the middle of nowhere as you can see in the last photo below, this was at about 11,600ft....
Wednesday:
Rest day: Rest day today as Jeff keeps moving along. Slept late today since I did not get to bed until after 1am. Next pacing duty should be over Hope Pass tomorrow morning. Spent the morning driving to BV and the afternoon working in the coffee shop. Don joined me before heading up for his section tonight from Cottonwood to Sheep Gulch.
Thursday:
-NOTE: Weight check in: Nope out in the van all week with no scale.
- Jeff hit the struggle bus in the last 12 hours so took a long break to sleep on top of Cottonwood Pass for over 6 hours this morning. He is super swollen and having a lot of pain in his joints and stomach from it. Thought is maybe a longer sleep will help clear it up a little bit. FKT is out now unless he can get back to the speed he was at the first day but now I think we are to the point of how far can he go without compromising his health. Here are some photos of sunset last night and the swelling we are dealing with.
5 PM: 12.2 miles w/ 2000ft of vert in 4 hours. Switched my section with John who took Hope Pass so he could catch a plane tomorrow. Paced Jeff from Twin Lakes to Mount Massive trailhead. On the struggle
bus big time this evening. The swelling is still there but manageable
because Jurek showed up with this air boots which seemed to push a bunch
of fluids out allowing Jeff to start bending his knees again. Slow but
we got there. He took a long sleep at Massive trailhead as did I since
it was 1am when we got here.
Friday:
6 PM: 17.75 miles w/ 3600ft of vert in 6 hours. Pacing Jeff from Camp Hale to Copper Mountain. Nice steep one up and
over the ridge between Leadville area and Copper. I have never been on
this section and man was it neat. I need to go back and see the second
half on the Copper side of it during the day. We were just below the top on the Leadville side when it got dark.
Scared a bunch of elk and a porcupine up around 12,000ft on the ridge. He was
moving much better this evening verses last night. We jogged most of the downhill. The boots were a
game changer..
Saturday:
3 PM: 12.5 miles w/ 1300ft of vert in 3:25. Pacing Jeff from Georgia Pass to Kenosha Pass. This is a new section
for me as well, the first half of it anyways, the second half of it I do
often when I drive back from Fairplay as an out and back. Moving really well through this
section. Every time we use the boots, the first half of that section he
is moving then as the swelling sets back in he slows. We did have to
avoid a moose on this section, that woke us both up! Once we got to
Kenosha Pass he took a 2 hour nap in my van.
Sunday:
- After passing out at 3am and getting up at 7am I spent the rest of the day following the crew to the last 2 aid spots and the finish. Over the course of the whole trail there were basically 3 main pacers with few others sprinkled in to give us some rest. Jesse Haynes did most of the miles in the first 3rd of the trail, I did most of the miles in the middle part of the trail, and Scott Jurek did most of the miles in the last 3rd of the trail. Honored to be given this responsibility and trust, especially considering coming back from an injury which Jeff was fully aware of. He has been writing my training and helping me get back without putting me in a hole or getting injured again. This has been such an awesome thing to get the chance to be apart of and made some lifetime friends on this trip. We did not get the overall Colorado Trail record that was set in the other direction about a month ago but we did get the Northbound Collegiate West route FKT at 7 days 9 hours and change.
Below is a photo bomb of the last 2 aid spots and the finish on Sunday. CONGRATES BRONCO BILLY!
Total Weekly Numbers
What a fucking week. Most mileage in a week that I have done all year. Yes they were slower than normal for me which I think is a good thing to build up more strength in my so called comeback. Now I need to keep building on this for Javalina in Oct. Next week, burro race in South Fork. I just hope I can run fast enough for Yukon and Bob. I can do the distance but been a bit since I have tried to run at a faster pace.
