Time Capsule: Dinner, Running, and a nice Fall Week!

Here is some of what we have been up to the last week - grab a chair and some popcorn, as there will be a FEW more pictures than usual!!!

Happy Trails and Happy Texans! 

Saturday evening we headed up to Denver to have dinner with Tina and her husband.  He was in town for a conference and Tina decided to run the Denver Rock'n'Roll Marathon since the dates coincided.  Pretty handy way to get in a destination marathon - and we tend to believe it would be hard to beat a Colorado one.  We had a great time getting to know them and they are both wonderful people.  Tina ran a great marathon, by the way - Congratulations!  We could certainly see them as Colorado folks...some day....  Hopefully, they enjoyed their time here this past week!

On the Trail again... and it's a good thing!

Sunday we hit the trails again - we stayed close to home just in case K's leg acted up.  So no better place to run than Ute Valley Park.  It was a pretty near perfect fall day (again) and we were soaking it up! Since most of you know what we have coming up for the next several months in terms of running weather, we have to capture ALL of the fall sun we can!

Cruising some Slick Rock at Ute

Pikes with some snow on the north face!

The arch - and why were we leaning backwards??

Fall colors are peaking

Watch your step

A collage of Fall color paints the bluff

New trail heading around the west bluff...

So, as you can see from the great scenery, it was another fabulous fall day in the Rockies.  Kathleen squeezed out 7 miles, which is awesome.  I made another lap around the park to eek out 11 miles and called it a day.

Shoes - K Asics Trabuco

S Pearl Izumi SyncroFuel XC

Here are some pics that Kathleen took from near our home on a midweek run.

Blodgett Peak and the colors of fall

One of our local trails

The neighborhood park

Thursday evening we had a visit from Tim on his way to Cuba, New Mexico, to participate in the Deadman Peaks 50 Mile race.  He got there just in time as our work was being finished to re-establish hot water in the house, after a few day hiatus from such luxury rudely interrupted our week!!!  We were going to be taking care of his dog, Pippit, while he was gone, so he crashed here Thursday night and headed out in the wee hours of Friday morning.  It was a good trip for Tim, as he ended up winning the race ahead of Colorado Springs' own Brooks Williams.  Congratulations Tim!!  He will be heading out to Salt Lake in two weeks to run the Antelope Island 100k - stop by his blog and wish him luck!

Saturday morning, we awakened to gray skies and a cold wind - guess it really IS fall after all...  We needed to get in a quick run before Kathleen left for work.  We did a nice 4.5 mile route - pain free for K, I might add - and then she was off to work.  I rested a bit, then headed over to meet some folks from Team C.R.U.D. for a run at Garden of the Gods.  The sun decided to come out of hiding, which was very nice!  Brownie had tossed out an invite to join them for their Saturday run, which was way cool since I am far from an "ultra distance runner".   I was not able to hang around after for the pizza eating contest, which looked like it ended up being pretty competitive.  It was definitely cool to be running with some multi-100 mile race finishers - maybe some of it will rub off....  I left the camera in the truck since I was the "new guy", so I may have to snag a pic or two from one of the guys that ran who had a camera.  We ran 7.5 miles in the Garden.

Shoes - K Asics 2150 Trail

S - Pearl Izumi SyncroFuel XC

Flying W Ranch

Sunday we waited a bit to get out - we had sun but along with it, gale force gusts of wind.  Some upper level disturbances have been keeping a little weather instability stirred up and with it comes the winds!  You may get tired of seeing Ute Valley, but we're thankful to have such great trails close by while Kathleen nurses the running legs back into action.  So off we went into the windy day to get a few miles in the legs.

Kathleen hugging her new best  friend - the foam roller might get jealous!

Very Steep drop in - why do the pics look flat???

Fall holds on a bit longer

There she runs - woo hoo!

Catching some fall rays

HT, Close Up

Kathleen made a pass on the frontside of Ute, then headed out and back up toward home.  She was able to run 5.5 miles today and ran a total of 4 days this week- pain free!  Just keeping the fingers (and toes) crossed that the gradual climb out of the pain cloud will continue.

Pikes Peak - more snow than last week

Sweet singletrack

Hole #13 on the Disc Golf course by UVP - "The Big Ugly"

Got a shot of hole 13 on the DG course that runs along the east edge of Ute Valley - no one out today, which was very odd.  For whatever reason, this hole is marked as The Big Ugly!  Finished out the run with 11 miles, so had two good days of running for the weekend after ZERO midweek runs for me.  But, since I average out to be a 2-3 day a week runner, that's "par for the course" I guess!  Thanks for sticking with me this long - it was indeed a good week.  Happy Trails!!!

Shoes - K Asics 2150 Trail

S - LaSportiva Wildcat