As the sun was just coming up, I stepped out the front door greeted by several inches of snow & whipping winds… so why not go run up Mt Elden where the snow is deeper and the wind always blows harder..
After a short drive to the Y (Schultz Rd/Elden Rd), I hopped out and got to running. The conditions weren’t too bad.. in town the temperature was a fairly warm 31 degrees.. a slushy snow was falling pretty steadily.. and the roads were covered in slush.. I quickly ran to Elden Road gate (which signals the start of the climb), I was surprised that there were no foot prints, tire tracks, and no plows being “warmed-up”.. so it looks like I get to “trail-blaze”.. On the run up, the snow amounts on the road ranged from a 3inches to 10inches.. I felt a bit like Rocky training to fight the Russian in Rocky IV.. except I didn’t have a cool trainer yelling words of encouragement.. I only had the wind throwing snow pellets in my face.
Once I got to the top, I decided to only go to the first tower.. as it was COLD & WINDY!!!.. Forgot to mention, that I was only wearing shorts.. what was I thinking??.. From the gate, that ~4.5miles took about 50min. Pretty slow… but considering the conditions, I was pleased that I got that high on the mountain. The only negative was that I started feeling “tight” in my right hip flexor. This was probably thanks to doing nearly 50min of “high knees”.. so I stretched a bit hoping it would subside.
After the stretch & taking a few quick pics, I headed back down the mountain.. It seemed like the wind had picked up a notch. I started having trouble seeing thanks to the icicles forming on my eyebrows and frozen snow on my eye lashes.. Further, my legs were starting to sting.. They began to take on the color of canned beets. Not a good sign. So in response to the cold, I pushed the pace hard until I got down to a lower / warmer altitude. It must have been quite a sight seeing me practically sprint down the mountain in shorts, with frozen legs, an ice covered face, and soaking wet.. what a goober!..
The Road Up:
The Road Down:
Once I got 2/3 of the way down, it was noticeably warmer, but the hip flexor issue had really started to become a problem. I figured I had about 2.5miles to get back to the car and at this point and I was in full-blown “limp mode”. I slowly crawled back to my car doing the 2inch shuffle. I was feeling SUPER frustrating and Beat Down. My total time running was a brutal 2hrs.
As for the hip flexor, I am hoping that with a couple easy runs and lots of stretching, things will straighten out quickly. I guess time will tell.
For those who have never seen it.. below is the Rocky IV Training Montage.. It was a lot cooler in the '80s
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