Maybe it was the annual January arrival of the mail-in application form, but something put my mind on the Leadville Trail 100 as I went for a jog Tuesday. Mostly I was thinking about how differently I feel about cold-weather running now than I did four years ago as I began training for the race.
The Rocky landing on your doorstep this morning is full of suggestions for New Year's Eve. Most involve bars and entertainers. Backcountry skier Pete Swenson has a different idea; Put on skis and a headlamp and climb 1,200 feet through the snow.
While the TV cameras were focused on the pros in the Winter Dew Tour's debut at Breckenridge on Saturday, just over the mountain at Keystone a bunch of citizen racers braved a cold day to kick off the Teamski season.
I launched my personal opening day of the ski season Friday with a trip to Copper Mountain and a lesson from my favorite racing coach, Ron Emery.
In this 'tweener season, I've been bouncing back and forth between running and skiing - doing a little of the former and planning for the latter. Now that some real snow has fallen in the high country, I'll soon reverse that formula.
Fall is a great time for winding down. The road and trail races are done and skiing hasn't really started yet. Except for the diehards, of course: For runners there's the Winter Distance Series or some other event to train for, and the skiers and boarders are already carving tracks on artificial snow.
But I prefer to wait for more of nature's flakes to pile up and to give my body a chance to heal from the micro muscle tears and other stresses of marathon running.
Just a few hours before an eagerly watching nation and world would learn Tuesday night that Barack Obama had been elected the next president of the United States, another milestone was reached much more quietly. Idaho Springs resident Marshall Ulrich, 57, completed his run across America.
I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for running two marathons in two weeks, but then I checked on Marshall Ulrich and his Running America 08 quest. Ulrich has been running the equivalent of two-plus marathons a day, and doing it day after day after day.
On most levels I have nothing in common with Kenyan Jynocel Basweti. He's an elite runner who won the Denver Marathon on Sunday in 2 hours, 22 minutes, 13 seconds. I'm a plodder who finished the same race in 4:29:15. Basweti's pace of 5 minutes, 25 seconds per mile was nearly twice the speed of my 10:16 pace. He's 21; I'm 60.
But we do have this in common: We both ran marathons close together - three weeks apart for Basweti and just two weeks apart for me.
Rain was falling as I stepped off the bus into predawn darkness stabbed by generator-driven floodlights. I hadn't brought a rain jacket, so I quickly groped through the crowd to the volunteer handing out black garbage bags. After tearing out holes for my arms and head and wriggling into the makeshift poncho, I surveyed the scene.
