The Springs!

 

I had the pleasure of spending my birthday week in Colorado Springs, known by locals as The Springs.  It was such a breath of fresh, autumn air!  Although we stayed in a beautiful resort called the Cheyenne Mountain Resort, I had only a few days to explore and wanted to make the most of it.

The afternoon we arrived, we met up with some colleagues, drove to Garden of the Gods Park, and walked a version of the Perkins Central Garden Trail, which was paved and easy, with views of most of the major rock formations in the park.

We were pretty wiped out from our red-eye from Hawaii, but I felt an urge to attempt the Manitou Incline the following day.  We've already done the Grouse Grind in Vancouver and Koko Head Stairs in Honolulu, so this seemed like the next logical step.  I was a little worried about the altitude and not being in the best shape after resting my plantar fasciitis foot for the past month, but I figured I'd be okay if I took it easy.

I started out relatively early, found free parking at the 10 Old Man's Trail lot, caught the free Manitou Springs shuttle to the base of the incline, and was off!  I was greeted by this sign at the start of the trail:

The Incline eases you in with a good warm up at the bottom then slowly starts pitching up.  I was taking my time, but I was already breathing quite hard near the bottom.  Still, my quads felt fine and I didn't feel any headaches or dizziness.  By the time I got to the middle, though, some of the stairs had become pretty high, especially for my short legs.  I overheard a woman telling a couple that Apollo Anton Ohno used to train on the Incline, doing single-leg hops up and down.  I found that difficult to imagine as I had to sit and rest after every 10 steps, but I suppose the change in altitude had a lot to do with it.

I reached the false flat, only to see hundreds of stairs climbing upward to heaven again.  I was up for the challenge, and it felt really good to undertake a physical challenge that didn't hurt my foot.  In the end, I finished in just under an hour with only one minor moment of panic when I turned around and realized just how high up I was.  It was such a great sense of accomplishment to finish a day after arriving from sea level!

In fact, I felt so good once I finished and started down the Barr Trail that I broke into a trot.  My foot felt surprisingly good -- better than it had all month -- and the trail was perfect for running.  I was treated to gorgeous views of Mount Manitou, boulders, and pine trees.  It was a perfect way to spend my birthday, and even though I was alone, I felt it was exactly what my soul needed.



A couple days later, my husband was finally free to play, so we did a bike descent of Pikes Peak in the morning.  It was quite chilly in the wind and frequent stops, but it was exhilarating taking those rail-less turns down the mountain.  I think that's the highest I've ever been in elevation.  Here's a view from the summit of Pikes Peak:

 One of our many stops to get the group back together:

As a bonus, I got to see autumn leaves on quaking aspens, one of my favorite trees!