Frosted Trails and SnowyPeaks

Another week of running is in the books. This last week I was in Farmington, New Mexico for work, so not many funny stories of running with friends but I still have a few things to think about, and “oh boy” wait till we get to the weekend.

Landing Monday for a week in the field, no I did not get to hang in Colorado the whole time.

Like I said above one of the hardest things about traveling is doing all the runs solo. It is true that every now and again you might find an awesome local running group to share some miles with, but in this case it was a series of solo runs, and some interesting workouts on the off days (I am sure people were wondering who was stomping up an down the hotel stairs for 45 mins). Because it was just me, I tried to keep my pace a little stronger for this week, but that is not what I am going to talk about here. What I want to talk about is the amazing adventure that you can (and will) have by busting out of your hotel and hitting the local trails and streets while traveling. It is easy to fall into the rut of just pounding out your training miles on the treadmill in the hotel, the excuses are limitless and for the most part totally justifiable. And I am not going to bag on treadmill running, I have a treadmill and I really like it. Sometimes it is a great option, and I have to admit I seriously considered it last week because let me tell you it was cold as hell in Farmington. But I was lucky to get back to the hotel most nights before it got too late (aka too dark), and I figured you can’t pick the weather on race day so I should just deal with whatever Mother Nature had to throw at me. So how cold was it? Oh what is the word I am looking for? Stupid cold, complete with beard frost, but it was also beyond beautiful. I found out that just down the street from my hotel was a crushed rock path that followed the Animas River. The path was dotted with strange, mostly empty, pads of brick (like they planned to put something there and never got around to it) and sections of the crushed path did not get that much sun light and were still basically packed snow.

Part of the River Trail in Farmington

A couple of things struck me about this trail. First, the number of people that were using it, this trail was not wasted on the people of Farmington. This has not been the case on all of my travels, you would be surprised how many amazing trails I have found that were basically empty, but here despite the cold there was a good number of people out there walking up and down the trail (did a say the trail was beautiful, because it was). Next the trail was quite, despite going under several roadways there was not a great deal of road noise so I was treated to the sound of the river and about 100 million geese that were hanging out in the water. This is a special part about being a traveler and a runner. As a runner we get to experience places in a way that you don’t get if you never leave a car. It is a much deeper look into these towns, and by braving whatever it is that makes you not want to leave the hotel (weather, dark, or the unknown) will allow you to be rewarded with things you get to carry with you the rest of your life. My first run this week got started a little late, so as the run went on I found myself running in the dark. The part of the trail I was on did not have any additional lighting and I was too stupid to pack a headlamp.The moon not much help as it was not bright but the little bit of light that was out was reflecting off the snow which made me relatively sure that I would not slip and die. I was shooting for 11 miles that night and did not want to end up doing loops, so when the trail was coming to an end (despite the growing dark) I shot off on a side trail that was heavy with snow. My decision was almost immediately rewarded with something amazing. As I came around what I assume were camping sites on this side trail I ran right into a herd of mule deer just hanging out on the trail. This must be a safe spot for them because they made no attempt to move and did not seem too worried about me being there. So there I was in the dark, in the woods, with a herd of deer just feet from me. I made my way past them and was having trouble shaking how cool that experience was. So before I knew it, it was time to turn around where I was even more surprised to find they still had not moved. The deer covered the trail and did not care that I was there. Pretty amazing stuff if you ask me. But this was not the end of the surprises that the trail had for me this trip.

This was my view in the field this week, not too shabby! About 6000 ft.

The next night we got back to the hotel a little earlier and I only had 9 miles so I thought here is my chance to knock this run out before the sun went down. It was a little warmer that day so much of the frozen hard pack ground was now soft and squishy in places, but still a great trail. I saw even more people out than the day before. The people seemed  friendly and there was a 5k amount of waving. As the run went on I approached one of those brick sections of the trail and something cool happened. This being a shorter run for the week, I was really trying to push the pace as much as I could while still holding it for the whole run, but as I approached the brick section I noticed that a kid's bike and two of those razor scooters where on the side of the trail. As I got close to the pile of kid transporters, three kids that had to be around 6 or 8 years old jumped out of the woods and mounted their various modes of speedy trail conveyance. So here I am in an obvious race with these kids and they are laughing and having a good time. I will not leave you in suspense, they won but we all left the area with a smile on our faces. I gave them a thumb up and told them that they were awesome. As I left that section of the trail I realized that this what I had just been part of was stranger than the herd of deer from the night before. How often do you see a group of kids just playing by the river? It was pretty cool. Almost right after that I ended up in a fairly weird spot. It was actually an area they called the “All Veterans Memorial” but on first glance I thought I had run into a satanic worship site. Let me explain, this area was similar to the other brick pad sections but much larger. In the center of the section were 5 pillars that had super realistic eagles on the top of them all facing the center. These pillars were connected by a huge upside down star. And, in the center of that star a weird orb fountain, seemed pretty crazy to me particularly as it was getting dark. But when I found a picture of it in the daylight maybe it is less satanic than I thought. As for the non-running parts of the trip itself I was in luck, because one of the guys traveling with me was also on a diet. So we were able to forgo our normal road trip diet of hamburgers and beers, and this time ate fairly reasonably. It is never easy to keep up a diet while on the road, but let me say if you can talk your co-workers into sharing in the misery it really helps. Running is all about sharing and caring, mostly sharing pain and misery and caring that you are not the only one suffering.

I stole this photo off the internet, but you get the idea.

On Friday I got up early (4am) to get to the airport and fly back to Tulsa, I had to get back for my annual check-up at 1:30pm with the doctors. There I found out I had officially lost 20 lbs since October so that was a big win. I celebrated with a 10 mile run before hitting the pub to meet with the Executive Club. Much of the discussion this week focused on the race the next day. My hope was to get a quick dinner and hit the road before too late to get to my hotel in Poteau for the Switchcbacks 50k 8am Saturday morning. Sleep be damned. Around 8pm Pip, Sarah, and I loaded up in the hot rod Fiesta to get to the hotel. It was a fairly uneventful trip but we were surprised as we pulled up to the hotel to find my cycling team’s van out front. Turns out their winter training camp was in the same area (I am currently taking a break from cycling till after Western States). So we were greeted by many familiar faces and said some quick "hi" and "what are you doing here" talk before we rushed to bed. Luckily the race had a fairly late start so we got some sleep in our room that shared a wall with the elevators. We could have complained, but the beds were soft and we were two hours closer to the start line than if we had left from Tulsa, so it was a win.

Turnoff for the Race start line.

When we showed up to the race we found a spot in the ditch along the dirt road right by our buddies Jenn, Jenny, Scott, Allyson, Rachel, and Wes. Victor and John found spots much closer to the start line because they got there the night before and camped out. Friday was a beautiful day in the 60s but the morning of the race was plenty cold and the rain/sleet started right before the gun went off. We stayed warm however because we had the warm smiles of Shannon and Jody (our friends from NWA) to keep us warm, lol. We all had a good laugh and a spirited discussion about how stupid this activity was.

A bad photo Clint took at the start line.

Photo of the race course I stole from TZ

That is me crossing the River

If you are unfamiliar with the switchbacks, I encourage you to look it up. It is a rough and beautiful course with lots of climbing and river crossings to ensure you get your "cost of race" to "time in the woods" formula to the max benefits (dollar per hours on the trail one of the cheapest races around). I wanted to make sure I kept this as a training run. Not meaning that I would not run hard, but I did not want to "race" this course. I needed to not trash my running for the next week or worse injure myself and be down for a few weeks. To keep this promise to myself I started towards the back of the field, and as this is all trails there was a lot of log jamming at the start of the race. This forced me to ease into the race and by the time I broke free from the mid pack I was far enough from the lead group to not worry about them. There are plenty of places to trip and fall, or slip and crack your head on this course. So I took every tricky spot very carefully and made it to the first out and back without much drama. The course is set up with an out and back in one direction with the 25k runners and then back through the start finish line and on to an out and back in the other direction for the second 25k. Because of this layout no matter where you are in the field you get to see all the runners. It is pretty awesome. I got to see John having a blast in his crazy outfit and Rachel crushing the course on her first time at this race. Shannon was not too far ahead of me at the first turn around so after getting a tortilla filled with peanut butter from Kate at the top of Winding Stair, I was able to catch up to Shannon and we ran together for a while. For some reason anytime I got around Shannon I started tripping on everything my feet could find. This must have distracted Shannon because he ended up turning an ankle and had to drop to the 25k. It sucked, I was having fun running with him and the rest of the course was devoid of people for the most part. But I ran with a smile on my face, the rain had stopped and I was making fairly good time on the climbs. I am in general a very weak downhill runner, but I was able to really limit my time walking on the climbs and kept it at a jog for most of the climbing sections. About 200 ft from the second turnaround you have the biggest river crossing of the race. This seemed a little unnecessary but all part of the fun. The water was high, very cold, and moving fast. So I tried to look for the positives and decided it was just a free vasectomy, lol as no one would be able to have kids after freezing to death in that river. On the other side I was treated to awesome volunteers and some cheese quesadillas. Then it was time to turn back and get right back into the river. I finished strong and got to hang around with everyone for several hours at the finish before heading to Jenn O’s house for a post-run homemade pizza party. At the finish I got to talk with the man behind the race Tommy for a while. I also found out that Rachel had won the 25k as first overall female and Victor had come in Second overall in the 50k. Later when Sarah came in and she was the 3rd overall female in the 50k. So it was a great race for team TATUR or the OK Dirtbaggers or the Executive Club or whatever stupid name we have come up with for this week.

Aid Station at top with Kate making tasty snacks

Rachel on her way to victory

Sarah picks her way through the river

Jody, Me, Sarah, and Pip at the finish

The ride back was entertaining with some laughs and snacks. And the pizza was just what the doctor ordered for post race recovery. I had to leave early unfortunately and get back to the house to pack for my next work trip. I was on a plane for New Orleans Sunday afternoon, but that adventure is for next week. Run hard my friends and remember to enjoy all the stupidity we share on these adventures.

A special thanks to Tommy who not only put on the race, but hauled water to the out and back aid station which had no road access. Think about that guys, this man is so dedicated to his race that he hand hauled water for 200 runners to the top of a mountain. You have to love that.