Sunday Six

My friend Josh was in town visiting his kids and I found out about it just before I went to bed Saturday night. So we quickly arranged to meet at the Horsetooth trailhead at 8 Sunday morning. I was supposed to run the 6K Tortoise & Hare with the Running Club, but a trail run with Josh sounded like a lot more fun.

So I drove up past the reservoir this morning, and the parking lot was surprisingly empty. Guess it was too early for most people.

We ran Southridge, Audra Culver, hit the summit, down the Wathan, to Spring Creek and back. Nice 6 1/2 mile loop at an easy pace with some decent vertical. It was great to catch up, we haven't seen each other since he left last spring and moved to Colorado Springs.

Longs Peak was emerging from behind the clouds all lit up, it was hard to catch in a photograph but glowing in real life.

It's been years since I ran these trails but it all looked familiar once we started hitting the intersections and the landmarks I remember from my days of training for Leadville. I am so thrilled to be able to run trails. It doesn't hurt except for the really loose rocky stuff, but there wasn't much of that today. Remembering how to run on different surfaces and how things move under your feet, different sizes and shapes of rocks, pine needles on the trail, it's like riding a bike. You remember where to place your feet and how likely your feet are to slide out from under you on different objects.

We're supposed to have nice weather all this coming week. I got 44 miles in this past week, again about half on trails. Not tired, not wiped out at all. So nice to feel refreshed after my runs and have the energy to do other things.

We are so lucky to live here.