Monday, March 21, 2011

Skiing: Running: Etc

Hope Presbyterian Church does a great trip every year - an annual ski trip to Monarch, CO. The past four years I went on this trip as full-time staff, a position I worked to after a few summers of volunteer help and then internships after that. So it was a little strange this year going as work crew again, but it was fun getting to be around the kids and getting to ski in CO again.

The real reason I am writing this post is because last year on this trip I was afforded with an amazing opportunity. We had two ski trips in a row and I was given the chance to stay behind in CO while the busses carted students back to Memphis so that fresh ones could replace them. A few months out I knew that this was going to be happening so I started looking at different things that Sarah and I could do during that time. One of my thoughts was running, naturally, so I started looking for the shortest race/run I could find anywhere during that weekend.

Of course the shortest run I could find was a half-marathon that started in a little town called Salida, CO. It is also to be expected, which I did not know at the time though I did have suspicions, that the run went directly six miles up at a constant climb. But it was on an abandoned railroad track that went along a gulch through the mountains of Colorado, and that was pretty fricking cool. So after running six (barely plus) miles, having to slow down and stop, throwing up twice, getting passed a number of times by the same people after I started back up and passed them, and feeling overall a little out of my element in the thinning altitude air, I finally reached the turn around point. That was a great feeling!

Another six plus miles down the "hill," as I like to call it, and then there was this last little, tiny really, obstacle that I had not completely forgotten about during my trek and that was a real daisy. As it turns out I had to stop one more time and throw up one last time before flowing down the backside of that baby to the finish line. In the end I recommend that run to anyone - it's called the Run Through Time and it's worth checking out if you're ever in the area around that same time! (Last years race results - only two females beat me - not bad!)

And for now let's look at runs like this and hope that as we engage in seemingly crazy ideas that land us on runs we have no business being on, let's enjoy the ride and have fun getting our butts kicked by the experience... cause that's what it's all about anyway. When I was younger it was easy to get wrapped up in the competition and mark everything as excellent or terrible based off of the results, but even then the experience, the run, was what it was all about!

So... enjoy!

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