who runs? Who competes, who runs to get/stay fit for the mountains?

Did a 10km road race today, lousey slow 51mins 49 secs. I´m no great shakes, but last year I did it in 49mins... grrrr!! But it was a nce country race along good roads through a nice village. The weather was sunny and warm so who could ask for more... except maybe 3 minutes off my time.

I try to run up the Palm Springs Tramway road which is 4 miles with 2200 ft elevation gain. It takes me 56 minutes.
The guy that won the annual race last year did it in 25 minutes. The Mount Baldy Labor day race is more interesting with 4000 ft of gain. The Pikes Peak marathon is even better up to the 14000 ft summit.
<a href=http://www.pikespeakmarathon.org/>http://www.pikespeakmarathon.org/</a>

I run 15 miles per week give or take a few but I rarely do more than 4 miles at a time. I find if I do I usually end up tweaking something or my knees ache and I figure at 17 that must not be a good sign, I guess I must not have a runner's body or somethin.

I compete in triatholans (usually short ones) and do the running leg of it, but I prefer hike racing myself.

Whatever your view is, no doubt that it is great cross-training for climbing, especially when one throws in a few hills.
Sean

Running is great! I put in about 40k a week, usuall in 8 and 12k increments. Although I don't run fast, I just did a 2 mile for the APFT in 13:59. Not old yet baby!

Well done Charles! Since you are in and around Munihc, you should run a 10 or 20k volksmarch. They are usualy on a soft trail plus there is plenty of beer at the finish!

I normally run 3-5 times per week for at least an hour at a time. While running is great exercise, I find myself still needing to bike and rollerblade to strengthen the knees for ascents/descents.

I'm an occasional runner. I usually try to run twice a week, sometimes more. I have some fire roads near the house which provide some good hill workouts. When I'm feeling masochistic I'll load up a pack with gear and hump a load up to the top, about 1,600' gain. I find I get bored with running, so I need to mix it up with other kinds of aerobic exercise. There's nothing like it, though, for preparing for a climb.

I would say I am more a runner than a mountaineer. I run to be in shape for adventure races...this fall I intend to run my first ultramarathon, 50 miles.

Well, it sounds like all of you are faster than I am, but I still love running. The more peakbagging I do, the more running seems like the natural mode of locomotion to me. I've been running 10 or 15 miles per week for several years, just to maintain health, but am now training up: I do 3 or 4 miles three times each week, and then a long run once a week. I'm now up to about 20 miles, always with some elevation gain (since I live right at the foot of the mountains!).
Lolli--how can you get bored?? Running pumps my mental state up like nothing else!

I run to the refrigerator to get another Dr. Pepper, does that count?

I compete in triathlons, so I don't just focus on running. I just finished an Olympic distnace triathlon two weeks ago and my 10k was 48minutes after a 1500M swim and 40K bike so I figure I could take about 4 minutes off of that if I were running it fresh. I run about 20miles per week on top of my biking and swimming.

I used to run a lot when I was in school. My specialty was 400m and 800m track. When I was given a choice to either run professionally (full time) or quit serious training and focus on college, I chose education.

Since then I slowly picked up long distance running and completed my first marathon in 2001. It was a brutal and rather boring outing, so I decided not to run another marathon for a while and instead climb / hike as much as possible.

I may start regular running again now that days are longer, and I just discovered a great 5-6 mile trail around my house.

I like running x-country... up hill and down dale is never borring, brutal but never borring ) There is something fine about moving quickly, or in my case, relatively quickly, through the landscape.

I finished my first marathon a week ago, but hurt my knee in the process. I merely strained my MCL, and shall be fine. I have 2-3 more in my sights within the next year. My goal is to be around 3:30 by next April. Before the injury, in both training and the actual race I was running a 4 hour pace.

I run all distances from 5K to 50K races. Probably the hardest running race I've ever "run" (much of it hiking) was the Tahoe Rim Trail 50K. Cy, I would love to run the Pikes Peak Marathon, have you ever run it? I'm sure it's much tougher than TRT 50K.

I suppose someday I'll step up and try a 50-miler, but I'll have to shop around for the "easiest " one around N. California. I guess I don't have much to show for my climbing/mountaineering experience, but I do know about suffering!

BTW, what's with all these people saying a 50-minute 10K is slow??

Scott, the guy that won the race lapped me and came in at 34 minutes.... made me feel like I was walking - which I nearly was )