Monday, February 10, 2014

Till the Arkansas freezes over

You know its been a cold winter in Oklahoma when the Arkansas begins to form into thick sheets of ice.

I got out for a seven mile run on the river trails this afternoon. It was cold, with a steady wind out of the North, and yet I still managed to sweat in my thermal bike pants and top. I have yet to master the science of appropriate layering in the cold.


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

West Tulsa

I love the smell of Tulsa in the morning... That sewage, methane, and sulfur smell. Smells like... victory.



Monday, February 3, 2014

Run to Sloan Lake, Denver

I got out on Sunday morning for a run to Sloan Lake in Denver from the West Highland neighborhood. Five miles, more or less.







Red Rocks and Lair O' the Bear



I was in Denver last weekend for work and managed to get into the foothills for some "running" on Friday afternoon. The area had been hit with six inches on the previous night. At first I was resigned to staying low and parked at the nearly empty Red Rocks Park and did the 2 mile loop from the visitor center. The sound crew for the techno band Icelandic was setting up to play that evening (brrrr!), and they were blasting Daft Punk on the speakers. Not exactly what I want to hear while tramping around in a wintery wonderland! I wonder how many people showed up to their concert. Considering their name, maybe playing in the cold is their thing.






After finishing the loop, there was still some time to kill, so I braved the road leading West from Morrison. There is a great little park a few miles up called Lair o the Bear. It has miles of single track, and connects to other trail systems in the area.




There is a trail that slowly climbs up a ridge on the South side of the valley that I followed in until I was high enough to get a view of the nearby town of Evergreen. It is one of those trails, so common to the Western part of our country, climbs gradually but persistently through the use of switchbacks. It was a workout pushing up through the snow, but the reward was running back down at a 8 minute mile pace with little effort. That may sound dangerous, but the trail was already fairly beaten down by fat tire bikes, and my Yaktrax have great traction. Mountain running really is completely different beast than trail running in the Midwest.