Adventures in Endurance: Week 33: Running with an Old Mountain Biking Friend

This week I had the opportunity to hook up with a friend from many years back and introduce him to running with the CRUD. Mark was among the first mountain bikers I met when we moved to Colorado Springs from Germany over 20 years ago. He is responsible for getting me involved in mountain bike racing in Colorado and arranged for my first sponsorship and pro-deal on a bike; a Schwinn Homegrown, a top of the line bike at the time. Ironically we ran the newly constructed Iron Mountain Trail that crosses over the former property of the “Troll on the Hill”. We were chased off that mountain by the “Troll” himself 18 years ago. Although the Troll is long gone not much has changed with Mark; he still leaves me in his dust, only now it’s running instead of mountain bikes.

Long Time Friend from Early Mountain Biking Days - Mark Tatum

This week’s training was pretty easy. I was kind of dragging Monday morning, so I took Monday off and skipped a day at the gym to let the batteries recharge. With semester final exams, final papers and final presentation due, this was a good week to back off from training. I continued to feel a bit worn out through mid-week so I continued to keep the runs and rides easy and to a minimum but started feeling energetic again by the weekend. Saturday’s CRUD run was 18 miles and a bit of a shock to the system. Typical of a CRUD run, we did a ton of climbing (4,472 ft) and descending (4.452 ft), which I haven’t been doing. My legs got tired from all the climbing and beat up from all the descending. But also typical of CRUD, everyone is so awesome and fun to be with that no matter how hard it is, it's fun. Plus I got the extra bonus of running with a long-time friend.