Friday, February 8, 2008

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.

11 comments:

Sunshine said...

Aunt Betty's view! Nice pictures.
A virtual trip is welcome. Thanks.
Interesting for you to see the CO State Patrol out doing their work.
Good that the knee injury didn't affect your spring running back at home. Oh that sounds wonderful.

Rainmaker said...

Looks like a great trip! I love the snow and mountains, I wouldn't mind living in Colorado some day.

Petraruns said...

What a wonderful view your aunt has - that's got to be restorative every day! And what a great trip it was for you - invigorating, I'm sure.

Susan said...

WOW - what scenery!

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

Fun time! Even if you did almost die on a mountain pass :-)

Rich said...

Glad you made it safely back - that looked pretty treacherous.

DawnB said...

you did good Peter thank you for sharing.

Bob A said...

Glad you made it through the white out safely.

Saw your comments on Non-Runner Nancy's blog about your 9.5 miler for the 9 on the 9th Good run -- moving at any pace is better than not moving -- a 9:57 mpm pace is no small feat.

Nancy said...

Hi Peter - Great running on the 9th. Let me know if you post about it so I can link to your report. Thanks so much for participating. Lookd for a full report on my blog sometime on Monday.

Nancy
XOXO

Iron Jayhawk said...

How beautiful...looks like you had a wonderful trip. And an RBF run--the icing on the cake!

CewTwo said...

There is nothing quite like driving in weather in Colorado. I remember driving to Steamboat Springs on Winter evening. We headed toward Rabbit Ears Pass in a ground blizzard. Open the door of the car and stand up and you had great vision. Get back in the car and you couldn't see a thing. The wind was whipping snow and drifting snow at the heighth of the car. Later, of course, I found out that my car was the last car through that night. The state patrol closed US40 a few minutes after I passed the gate. Oh well! It was still fun!