Never Summer training week nine recap

It's 20 days to the start of the Never Summer 100k. My objectives for this last training block are fine-tuning and tapering. I'll be reducing my mileage every week. Week nine's numbers remained relatively high.

• 14 hours, 16 minutes

• 64.7 miles

• 10,735 ft D+

I ran six days in a row. One interval workout on Wednesday. One hilly tempo run at Horsetooth on Friday. Back-to-back long runs on the weekend. These were my last back-to-backs before my race.

Mike Thompson and I ran and hiked to the summits of Hagues Peak (13,573 ft) and Mummy Mountain (13,430 ft) from the Lumpy Ridge trailhead on Saturday, a 25 mile round trip. These are the 4th and 8th highest peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park. Hagues is a rocky scramble and Mummy is a steep tundra walk. Both have big, flat tops with nice views. Including stops, the trip took ten hours. Because the weather was neither cold nor wet and streams were still running at the bases of the peaks we were able to go very light. I have a Sawyer brand squeeze filter with a 16 ounce pouch. It doesn't have much throughput, but weighs only 4 ounces and takes up very little room in my pack. I filtered and re-filled my two 16-ounce soft bottles at the saddle below Hagues and repeated this at the top of Black Canyon Creek on the way home. Still, I got a little dehydrated and was feeling pretty spent by the time we finished.

Sunday I convinced my tired and sore legs to go back out again for a much more mellow two-hour loop in Fort Collins. I felt much looser after.