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Snow Running and Other Adventures |
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Written by Felix Wong - View Profile
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Monday, 09 April 2007 |
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"Maybe we'll be able to drive with the top down on the way back," I said to my friend Nick, whom I was to go for a long run with on Saturday.
Heh, in hindsight that seemed a tad optimistic, as were most of our ideas on Saturday. Observe:
The plan was to meet up at Nick's place at 7:00am, drive over to Horsetooth, and go for a nice morning run along the Blue Sky Trail. We'd start at 7:30am, run down to Loveland and back for a total of 20 miles, and be done by 10:30am. We'd be back at our respective homes by, oh, 11:00, and still have an entire day to Get Stuff Done. Sounds good, yes?
Well, I got out of bed on time and met up with my friend at 7:00, but then there were a few things that prevented us from getting out of his home for a while. Like food, talking with his wife, playing with his kid, and, oh... snow. It was 70 degrees inside his place and only 20 outside, which hardly helped motivate us to get us moving along.
By the time we hit the trailhead it was 8:15am. Ah, well.
Then there was the issue of the trail. For some reason, despite all the forecasts calling for snow, I was positive that no white stuff would actually stick. Let me say this was also a tad optimistic. The good thing was, in the first 15 miles, I only slipped about, oh, three times. No blood or sprains, so that was good.
Running would get harder after that.
That is because my quads started aching from the rolling terrain, and soon I was lagging far behind Nick, a 2:55 marathoner. Then my hands sent numb, and my left calf started cramping. Suddenly running a single mile seemed like ten.
But we made it back to the car, with our reward being... a parking ticket. Doh! I my distracted state, I had forgotten to deposit $6 in the parking kiosks. Well, good to see that the rangers are still working on a 20-degree day!
The last challenge of the day was driving back. Now, that would seem fairly trivial, except my hands were so cold and numb that I could not even turn the key in the ignition. Ultimately, I was able to do so using two hands, much to the laughter of Nick. Though he wasn't laughing much when he saw how ineffective the defroster was in my little convertible ("that's Italian engineering for you," I remarked.)
Needless to say we didn't drive with the top down after all. Nor did we get back at 11:00, or even 12:00. But it was a good little adventure, and probably our last snow run of the year until October.
One can be optimistic, after all.
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A Breath of Fresh Air (60)
writen by: felix
Felix Wong is an outdoor enthusiast living in Fort Collins. A mechanical engineer by day, he is especially passionate about bicycling, running, and backpacking. |
|  | "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth." | |
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We call it insight, you call it what you will. | |
| | Felix Wong is an outdoor enthusiast living in Fort Collins. A mechanical engineer by day, he is especially passionate about bicycling, running, and backpacking. | |
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