Day 5 and 6: Colorado to Wyoming, Grand Tarhee Wildflower Run
Well, one of my goals was to update this blog daily, and I’ve already fallen behind on that. But, I can quickly cover yesterday and explain why I missed writing here and then get into how things went in the race today!
Yesterday: Yesterday was a travel day from Colorado to Wyoming (technically I’m staying in Idaho right now, but I’m just barely over the state line, my activities have been in Wyoming, and I’ll be spending a lot more time in Idaho at the end of the trip, so for simplicity’s sake we are calling this the Wyoming portion of the trip). This was one of the longest single day drives of the trip— about 8 hours. And for 7 of those hours, I was confronting the vast emptiness of Wyoming. We drove all the way across the Southern part of the state and then turned North for an hour or two. No one lives there. It’s like Kansas, but more brown than green and without the evidence of largescale agricultural operations. Huge rolling swathes of emptiness. Then, in the last hour of the drive, we hit Jackson and the Tetons, which are quite literally the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in my life, and super crowded with tourists. Everything is lush and green, filled with trees and rivers, and you are surrounded by snowcapped mountain peaks. It rules. Then I drove up the mountain to pick up my packet for the race and immediately had a five alarm allergy attack. My face swelled up, my eyes were red and watering constantly— it sucked. I don’t know what it was the I reacted to so badly since I didn’t have any similar reactions today, but it pretty much put the kibosh on the rest of the day, including writing in this blog. I laid down in a dark room until it was time to go to bed, and then I went to bed.
Today: Today was the second race of my trip! I can’t say for sure yet, but I think this was the most demanding part of the trip, at least in terms of the running. I had barely 48 hours between races, and the one I ran today was all on mountain trail at an altitude of over 7,000 feet. And I did it! The race itself was gorgeous and well managed, with just the right number of people competing and a well marked and supported route through breathtaking countryside, including some staggering views of the Tetons. The first mile had me worried that I wasn’t going to be able to do it— there was a lot of short steep up and down sections, and the race had just started and we were on single-track trails, which was pretty crowded. I tried to start in the middle of the pack, but there were a lot of people behind me who were interested in running much faster than me, so I spent a lot of time getting out of people’s way, which was discouraging. But, after that first mile, things improved. The course basically went up and down two mountains, each one taking about three miles to go up and three miles to go down. My game plan was to stick to a slow and steady pace, not getting locked in trying to run with a specific pack or frustrated by the folks who wanted to run faster than me. This is basic old man running a race strategy, and it worked out great— I was able to maintain a pretty constant pace on both the up and down sections and I spent the last 9 miles or so catching and pacing people who didn’t manage their reserves quite as well as I did. Overall a great race. My only complaint is with the swag— no tshirts, instead they gave everyone a complimentary pair of socks. Not even branded socks for the race, just some nice socks. Weird.
Anyway I’ve got a gnarly blister on the end of one of my toes and my legs are very dead, but I’ve got nothing to worry about for the rest of the day, so I’m cashed out on the couch right now. I did go grocery shopping because I’m moving into the next phase of the trip tomorrow. We are heading into Grand Teton National Park and, after a few days there, will head into Yellowstone. This is going to be a very different vibe from the past few nights of AirBnB. We are looking forward to it though— onward!
