RUN HAPPY!

...or Don't Run At All!

After another week of, shall we say, "atypical" summer weather, we decided to run where it is normally too hot to run right now - Pueblo Reservoir. In the background above, you can see the wonderful fresh coat of snow on Pikes Peak from yesterday afternoon's storm! The reservoir was hopping today with jet skis, boaters, and water skiers. Surprisingly, it was not hot yet there was little trail traffic - in 13 miles of trail, we saw 2 mountain bikers, 2 hikers, and 1 dog. (Oh and one super tiny rabbit, but more on that later...) We started our run at the marina today, instead of up on the mesa, and headed down the South Shore trail to get things rolling. It has been so green at home, we forgot that even with lots of rain, desert still looks like ... desert! It was great because the trails were not super dusty and the traction was probably a bit better than when we last ran here in March.
Kathleen is climbing one of the first hills out on South Shore, with the trail winding along behind and to the left of her. It was a bit overcast with a few peeks of sunshine, but the cloud cover probably helped out as we were pretty warm by the time we finished.
We stopped out on Pedro's Point overlooking the water - the long horizontal stripe just above waterline is the top of the dam and the water is pretty high for this late into June. We hope it stays that way!

Kathleen cruising along the Outer Limits trail.

I scared this poor little guy half to death by almost running over him! This rabbit was no more than the size of my fist and his little heart was beating at high rev when I stopped, though he did not try to move. We encouraged him to leave the trail so he did not get run over by a bike - they would never get stopped in time!

Kathleen running Outer Limits ... or is it the Serengeti?

We took a little trip out to the first overlook on the Voodoo trail - never done the loop yet but that will be on the list for this Fall. From the bottom of Outer Limits, Voodoo is an additional 11.2 mile loop according to our maps. It appears to be sweet singletrack just like all the other trails we have run here - nice!
We were enjoying the trails so much, before we knew it we were back to the South Shore area and heading in toward the marina. We are a bit torn - this is such an awesome trail running area, yet not many runners come here. At the same time, it is nice to not always share the trail with 1000 of your "closest friends" on a weekend day. So come down and explore these trails but only tell a person or two...
Crossing the stream and heading for home - it was a nice warm day at Pueblo Reservoir and we followed the directions on Kathleen's new lid - Run Happy. Hope you do the same this week!

Shoes - K Montrail Odyssey
S - Asics Trabuco

If you want to see some of the fine weather we have been having, here is a link to a video of Lance Armstrong and friends training today outside of Aspen, Colorado. BRRRRR!