Red Rock Canyon

This morning, we headed over to one of favorite trail running areas in town, Red Rock Canyon. We arrrived at the trailhead a little later than planned - around 8:00. We had hoped to start around 7:00 - since it was supposed to be hot, in the low 90's today - but we lolly-gagged a bit before we made it out the door. In spite of our later start, the temp ended up being A-OK.

There were a few people out early, including a couple of groups of rock climbers, but the trails were empty for us to enjoy by ourselves!
Red Rock Canyon has a mixture of dry desert-like landscape, lush shaded green areas, and spectacular red rock formations. We will get some pics of the red rocks for a future post.

Below, Steve has Garden of the Gods as a back drop in the distance (another of our favorite areas!).
We ended the day with 10.5 very fun, smile inducing miles. We cooled off with a cold leg soak when we got home. Our toes turned blue! Yikes!

Next weekend, we may take a day trip up to the mountains to preview a race route we may do in September. We'll see how the week goes. Kathleen has had a little bit of ache in her lower legs the past 5 weeks or so - medial tibial stress (shin splint)? We are not sure. She hasn't increased her weekly mileage and her shoes are good (a shoe lover has lots of options in the rotation!) so we aren't quite sure what has caused/is causing the ache. Has been doing some strengthening, stretching, icing, and massaging, and will be doing more biking these next few weeks. She has always been told she is a "neutral" runner but we are wondering if she over pronates slightly more than we have thought. The legs didn't feel too bad after today's run - we will keep our fingers crossed!

We love Colorado and are so thankful for the many fun places we get to enjoy right in our own backyard!