Dan's Big Run

Since I had never run longer than 18 or so miles (and even that entailed a bunch of walking), and since the marathon's two weeks away, I wanted to do a longer run. At least 20 miles. I thought including the Mesa trail would be race-appropriate training with all of its rollers. So I half-baked this idea of running the whole Front Range of Boulder.

After having lunch with JJ one day, remembering a picture of a mountain he posted once from France with a caption of "I hiked here from my house", and remembering how that inspired my desire to say the same thing about Green Mountain, I continued baking my idea for this run.

This is what I did:

1. Put my bike in the Echo and drove to the South Mesa trailhead (20 minutes).
2. Left the car at the trailhead and biked back home (35 minutes).
3. Ran the Cottonwood trail and a few roads towards the Boulder Reservoir.
4. Ran past the Rez to the Eagle trailhead.
5. Ran the Eagle, Sage, and Cobalt trails to the N. Foothills trailhead.
6. Ran the N. Foothills trail to the Lee Hill trailhead.
7. Ran the S. Foothills trail, Wonderland Lake trail, and a footpath to the end of Spring Valley Road.
8. Ran down the road, crossed Linden Rd., and picked up footpaths to the Goat trail.
9. Ran up the Goat (OW!) and down Dakota Ridge to Sunshine Canyon.
10. Ran the Red Rocks trail to Settlers Park.
11. Ran under 119, along the Boulder Creek trail for a bit to pick up a dirt road providing access to the Viewpoint trail.
12. Ran to Panorama Point on Flagstaff and continued to the summit of Flagstaff (had to walk some).
13. Ran down the Ute trail to Realization Point.
14. Ran up the Ranger trail to the summit of Green Mountain (walked most of the way).
15. Took a 10 minute break to enjoy the summit.
16. Ran down Green Bear and Bear Canyon to the Mesa trail.
17. Ran and walked Mesa trail and Big Bluestem trail to the South Mesa trailhead.
18. Drove home.

All that running -- about 25 miles total -- took me 6h24m. And now I can say that I ran up Green Mountain from my house!