My Mother's Older Sister

Good bye Aunt Betty. I'll miss you.

I remember visiting you as a boy at your work in Denver at the local Selective Service Board, and you giving me as a gag a mock Selective Service letter that started out with "Greetings." I used it a few years later as proof of age to purchase beer on Staten Island when I came home one weekend from boarding school. Those were simpler times. (Below: Aunt Betty bought me dinner in Denver in September. And she bought herself a drink.)

Thanks for helping me out when I went off to college in Boulder by giving me a place to stay in Denver whenever I needed it. Thanks for helping me out with Jimmy when he was a baby. Thanks for coming to visit me in Nantucket, Louisville, and Falls Church.

I loved visiting with you and Uncle Bob in Parachute in August 2001 with my three boys, the last time I ever had my sons all together with me. I loved visiting you last September in Denver, and in February in Parachute where you lived by yourself. Thanks for taking me out to lunch then. I hope you chuckled over the funny birthday card I sent you the next month for your 91st birthday. (Above: The view outside Aunt Betty's door in Parachute. How about you? Got view?)

My life was better for knowing you. We had a lot of fun together. I could always count on you. I loved you. (Right: You wouldn't believe how much fun you can have with a 90-year old. Love Peter.)

Ventura Highway.

Last Friday's six-mile run at Washington Park in Denver with Cew Two was thoroughly enjoyable. Any glance to the west showed off the awesome beauty of nature in the form of a majestic view of the towering Rockies. What a backdrop for any run. A run at mile-high! (Left: Charlie and moi.)

You were a masterful host, Charlie. I owe you a great run on the National Mall. Come get it sometime.

Don't ever pass up a chance to run with a RBF.

Not even an hour later, I was negotiating these road conditions west of Denver. Yay for the Colorado State Patrol, out there in harm's way. (Below: The view around Vail Pass.)

Once I got past the pass, I visited with my 90-y.o. Aunt Betty in Parachute. She took me to lunch. (Below: Aunt Betty and moi.)

Here's the view outside her front door.

So I made it to Montrose on Friday night, and ran 2 miles in the deserted downtown at 3 am on Saturday in 23 degree weather. A real driving adventure awaited me later that day, on a shelf-road in a white-out on a mountain pass at 11,000 feet. My knees were knocking and I feared for my life.

But guess what, I made it. I even made it home eventually to DC. I had a couple of nice runs in the meantime, including Monday's night-time run on Sun Mountain in Santa Fe with my brother-in-law, which I already tole you about. After that, there was one more run before I left the west. Check out the preview of Thursday's run.

The Western Slope

It was a cold, crisp morning in Washington Park in Denver yesterday morning. Crunching along atop the beaten-down pathways through the snow in the park, I ran just under six miles in just under an hour with RBF friend Cew Two and his dog Molly and friend Tom. It was a vacation pleasure. Although overcast, the western sky was deep blue and endless, unlike its eastern counterpart.

Two circuits around the park completed the task. Charlie is an interesting guy, a mountain biker, avid runner and lover of jeeping in the back country. We ran by a lifesize scuplture of Wynken, Blynken and Nod circumnavigating the celestial sphere in their dreamy shoe. It made me think of another time and three little boys from so long ago in my life.

I had many miles to go before I slept, so I bid adieu to my friends and headed west into the mountains. Charlie had already presciently pointed out to me that the towering snow-capped Rockies, ordinarily so easily seen behind the foothills, were invisible in the haze. Not a good sign, this Denver native observed. How true!

Passing by Golden, I drove through my old stomping grounds on I-70 as a State Trooper in Jefferson County from twenty-five years earlier, the Hogback, Evergreen, Chief Hosa, Buffalo Herd Overlook, Buffalo Bill's Grave. Each name conjured up a distant yet distinct memory of a stop, a motorist assist, a call for backup, or a spectacular wreck. At Georgetown the portent of what lay ahead manifested itself in swirling snow, white roadways and long lines of semis lining the shoulders whose drivers were putting chains on them to comply with the chain law in effect at Eisenhower Tunnel and on Vail Pass.

It took two hours of white-knuckle driving to get from there through Glenwood Canyon. The snow drifts piled alongside the guardrails from plowing this winter were the highest I had ever seen them, some almost completely engulfing precautionary signs placed alongside the roadways saying such things as "7% Downhill Grade Next 8 Miles."

I passed one accident scene where two cars had spun off into opposite borrow pits, with a State Trooper already on scene, and another site where a spooked driver was sitting behind the wheel off his vehicle pointing the wrong way on the Interstate, fresh shiny tracks in the icy mix of slush and hardpack that was the roadway showing how his car had gained too much speed, cut loose and swapped ends, and slid to a stop backwards. What a ride!

The heights of the Rockies successfully navigated, I visited my 90-year old Aunt in Parachute for a delightful two hours. She lives up there alone, hooked up to oxygen and reading her mail via an optical enlargement machine due to her macular degenerative condition, which makes her unable to see. She is a spry, remarkable person who is a true representative of the pioneer spirit that once infused most Coloradans. I left with regret because I enjoy seeing her and love listening to her interesting tales that span almost a century. They encompass observing her father, a plains-town dentist, swapping services for chickens during the Depression to listening to her neighbors complain about the current drilling going on for natural gas in the high country during these energy-starved times.

As the sky turned steel-gray in the late afternoon, I pushed on westward through Grand Junction. It was dark and snow flurries were falling by the time I arrived in Montrose on the western slope. I checked into a into a motel with the hope of seeing the Black Canyon of the Gunnison on the morrow if weather conditions permitted.

At 3 am, with my body feeling like it was 5 am because I was still on east-coast time, I arose and clocked off a mile with my car on deserted Main Street. I then ran up one side of this sleeping farm community's business district and back down the other, peering into storefronts and noting the old style western architecture on each block. The 5830-foot altitude made my breathing labored and my legs leaden, but the two-mile run in the 21 degree temperature was peaceful and gave me hope for my further travels. The snow had stopped.

I Been Runnin'

Yeah I been running. I haven't been posting, but I've been commenting on posts. I dispense all sorts of advice to posters, who should always remember what the advice cost them before they follow it.

I've been busy at work. You know, work, the curse of the running class.

Last weekend I went to Colorado on business. After running six miles with my Ten-Mile Training Group last Saturday, which capped off a forty-mile week including a track W.O. and a 6K run home from that, I flew out to Denver and drove about 600 miles around the state that evening and on Sunday, visiting my 88 y.o. uncle (my dad's brother), my 90 y.o. aunt (my mom's sister) and three cousins. I went over Wolf Creek Pass twice and remembered how beautiful the Rockies are. (I used to live in Colorado.) I was glad it wasn't snowing, which sometimes happens in September out there. Monday and Tuesday I was doing work stuff in Denver. Way too busy to run. (Below: My Uncle Harry. He earned the Bronze Star in the war against Japan.)

On Thursday I ran during the noon hour at work. I jogged to the Tidal Basin where I ran a virtual 3K race around it in 13:58 (7:30). You see, from the Tidal Basin you can see the Pentagon, which the terrorists struck with a commercial plane at great loss of life on September 11, 2001. Every year since then I have run a memorial 3K race around the Tidal Basin on September 11th. This year I was two days late because of my travel, but I ran it when I could.

Friday evening I left my office near the Capitol at 6 pm to run the bridges, something I had never done before. I ran into Georgetown via the C&O Canal and went over the Key Bridge into Virginia. Running south on the Mt. Vernon Trail, I ran over the footbridge onto Roosevelt Island and circled it. Hurrying down the trail again in the gathering gloom, I ran back into the District over the Roosevelt Bridge, then re-entered Virginia by the Memorial Bridge. Finally gaining the District one last time by running over the 14th Street Bridge, I ran up Capitol Hill in the dark and got back to my office at a few minutes past 8 pm.

I achieved a 10 minute per mile pace for the thirteen miles that I ran, pretty slow, but my friend Bex tells me that that should be my training goal pace on long runs, because it is 90 seconds slower than my hoped-for marathon race pace of about 8:30 minutes per mile. But my feeling is, if I can't do it now at half the distance, how can I do it later at the full distance? Time will tell. (Left: Bex packing her car like a glove minutes before she drove away from the east coast for good enroute to the left coast.)

Yesterday morning I ran eleven miles in the District with my training group, covering the second through ninth miles of the Army Ten-Mile race course. We were doing 9:30 miles. The members of my group are three weeks out from their goal race and all of them are looking terrific as they get ready for Army. (I will be running Chicago on that day.)

This morning a cool crisp note was in the air, a certain indication that fall is at hand. At 8 am I found myself lining up in my village for the start of a 5K race. Talk about a hilly course! The brand new race course runs up the hill that I use for my hill workout. But the official race clock was off by more than four minutes so I had a killer time. (What, that doesn't count?) More on that in the next post.

Even as I write this, NBTR is running in the Philly Half-Marathon. Good luck, Jeanne! [Added later.] NBTR ran a strong race that placed her in the 48th percentile according to her age-adjusted grade. Congrats! (Right: Not Born To Run finishing eight miles in a recent Ten Mile Training Group run on the W&OD Trail.)