Foothills

The Colorado relay has been on my mind a lot lately since we have been training in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains every weekend. Here’s a Google Earth view of a good portion of the run as well as the elevation and my HR for the run. I have forgotten how beautiful the foot hills are at this time of year. The Google Earth view doesn’t really do justice of the foot hills. The terrain is rugged and very green considering its high desert and on the Dry west side of the mountains.

The idea is that we get some tough hill workouts plus a little altitude. Albuquerque is about 5500 feet and the top altitude on our trail run is about 6700 feet so we are at altitude plus we have almost 3000 feet of altitude change. We don’t really want to run the top of the mountain because you don’t get enough oxygen to your legs which makes for a poor quality workout.

It has been about 10 years since I’ve run in the foot hills and I have forgotten how tough the trails were and what how intense the hills and altitude make the workout it was a lot of fun, but definitely not a base building workout.