Stranger Than Fiction

A very bizarre fire was recently fought and extinguished in the Foothills where I like to run.  The cause of this fire is so strange it seems to ridiculous to be true.  Yet it is true!  Here is the clip from the headline in the local papers:

A cyclist stops to poop, ends up starting wildfire

No joke!  This is copied and pasted straight from USA Today's website!  This really happened.  What he did was try to burn his toilet paper when he was finished and....... well what else would you expect when you strike a match in dry, dead grass?

So, a few days after the fire Michele and I ran in the area to check out the damage.  It was pretty bad.

So for Heaven's sake!  We all nee to "go" sometimes when we are out there on the trails.  But what ever you do, don't strike a match!!!

Photo from the News

We started off so early!  There were zero cars in the parking lot!

Burnt Hills in the distance

The trails were torn up pretty badly in order to get the fire crews in.

April Fool's...Kickin It Old School!!

Michele and I have been trail running together for just about 2 years.  When we first started, we knew nothing! The only runs we knew of were, Mtn Cove (because of the Les Bois 10K) and Rocky Canyon Rd (because of the Race to Robie Creek).  The most used and well known trail was Camel's Back and Hull's Gulch as a loop.  We would park at the Camel's Back parking lot, run up Hull's Gulch, then back down into Camels Back on what many refer to as the "highway".  We knew nothing else so this is what we did.  Eventually we learned that it was EASIER if we went the other direction.

Then we slowly fell in love with the trails, bought the Ridge To Rivers Trail Map and last year successfully ran EVER SINGLE trail in the 152 miles system!  That is in fact what started this blog.  It is cool to see how far we have come!  We used to get lost, write trail head numbers on sticky notes or on our hands so we knew where we were going.  Now we know, and we just go!

So, we thought it would be fun to go back to the start and run our old loop.  We rarely do this loop anymore because honestly there are so many better ones out there!

It's amazing that is is the first day of April and we are already in Capris and short sleeves for our runs!  We were really warm too by the end!  We had both run a really hard run on Saturday, me 18 and 16 for Michele. Our legs were really tired after only one recovery day.  Michele was also feeling under the weather, like she may be coming down with something.  SO, we took it slow and just enjoyed ourselves.  We did have a great time too.  It was very Nostalgic.  Sometimes you just need those types of runs.

This is the "W" sign when it is time to walk!

Beautiful day to run!!

The Grove

Secret Bathroom

Fast Cory Jump

Water was really flowing today

Michele is sick

We refer to this part of Hull's as "little Zion"

It was all in all a good run.  We ran slow and easy and had a good time.  I swear at "little Zion" I did about 10 Fast Cory jumps before Michele figured out my camera.  It's a miracle that no one happened to pass by to look at us strangely.  The best part of running Lower Hulls was because of all the warm weather the stream is starting to run.  We had a beautiful nature musical to accompany us as we ran!

So this run wasn't funny or filled with new discoveries.  It was a very reflective run to see how far we have come as runners, and how much further we want to go!!

Aaah Trails....It's good to be back!

Now that Robie is OVER! we can stop training on that cursed road!  It was so great to get off the roads and hit the trails again.  It has been WAY too long!

Since there was so much rain yesterday we were forced to do the Gulch and Camel's Back.  We knew it was least likely to be muddy and of course, we were right.  (Actually it was Michele who said this but I will claim the wisdom as well)  It was such a fantastic run!  Our route was one we have done before...

Red Fox to Chickadee (I cannot stand the gravel portion of Red Fox) then on to Lower Hulls Gulch.  The creek was so full and everything was super green it was so beautiful to run through today!

When we got to the bridge that you cross to get onto Crestline, Michele dipped her jacket sleeves into the water to mop off her face.  She had been complaining about sweating so much.  (we were a tad over dressed)  "It's running down my back!" was one familiar holler that I heard from behind me.  We were quite warm but it was not even close to dragging yourself uphill through a furnace like a race we all know about!

 We hit Crestline and had a wonderful downhill descent onto Kestrel, then Owl's Roost and finally the Grove.  There is just something about Trail Running that makes everything great in the world!  Ah!

However, there were quite a few ornery people on the trails today.  Usually runners are so friendly.  They pass with a wave, a "Good Morning" or at least a smile.  For what ever reason we got snubbed by several runners when we waved or said Good Morning.  Perhaps Michele was pulling mean faces behind me as I greeted Passer-bys, maybe I really stunk from sweating so much today, or I guess there were just grumpy people running today.  Whatever the reason, those downers did not taint our run!  We loved every single minute of it!

On the drive home I even got to rip off my shoe to show Michele my new running trophy.  The purple rotten toenail that will be coming off any day now.  Oh yes, we are officially Trail runners when that happens.