Snapshots of a summer of running

Fleet footed. Ha!

Woohoo! 5 mph long run pace!

Training of late has been focused on prepping for a September half marathon but not to the exclusion of enjoying the sights of sounds of running in the foothills of Colorado. 

Here's a peek at my running outings of the last few weeks:

One must always be on the lookout for critters. Just last weekend, I had a bovine bonanza. First I found myself on a trail with a mama cow to my left and her bull calf on my right resulting in a standoff that I was not about to force, waiting patiently (well, maybe not patiently, but definitely respectfully) until mama moved away from the trail.  A few miles later a different bull calf found his way under a fence to freedom and I got to try my herding skills. Undoubtedly not as effective as Taz my amazing cattle dog would have been but I did eventually coax the calf back under the fence to his pasture. That was immediately followed by discovering that a full grown bull had meandered onto our trail. We definitely were not going to attempt to sneak past him and ended up waiting until a cow came by and enticed the big fella to move along.  I was too caught up in those moments to pull out my camera - but did snap a few photos of wildlife encounters during earlier runs:

Of course, running in the great outdoors is filled with vistas. Such a beautiful planet we have!

summer sunrise

   

 the Continental Divide from the eastern plains

 

foggy flatirons

Yet running can be so much more than critters and vistas.  I was reminded of this with the always powerful experience of participating in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. This year's Boulder Relay for Life raised over $41,000 for the fight against cancer with my team (me, and Benji & Amie Durden) raising over $4500 of that total! As always, a memorable event.

Luminaria in memory of my mother-in-law, Barbara Miller - a big reason why I Relay.

Me and friend & teammate Amie, relaying with a purpose

Survivors' Lap

And friends. Running has brought me some of my very best of friends...

The current running contingent of the SatBoys gang

Some time in the mid-1990s, one gregarious fellow, by the name of Rick Schaefer, started gathering together various runners to join him on Saturday long runs. Initially an all-male group, Schaef discovered that his son and my son were great buddies (in fourth grade at the time) and that I, too, was a runner. Thus the honorary woman joined the group. We have had many runners join the gang since those days - and some of the original gang have moved on (Schaef himself among them) or retired from running. This summer, for the first time in many years, the gang was back together again for a glorious Saturday morning of running, walking, breakfasting and uproarious conversation (the latter two items being the highlights of this decades-long friendship).

The gang!

Another example of the strength of friendship of running buddies. Connie & I ran together back in the PK days (pre-kids)...early 1980s.  Then came kids and careers and commitments out the wazoo - and not so much time for running in the light of day. Then came retirement! And Connie and I resumed our running partnership - along with Connie's neighbor and good friend Anita. We've logged a lot of delightful miles together over the past few years.






So, o.k., Kendall may not run - but he sure knows how to ham it up for the camera when he crosses a finish line. Here he wraps up the Feel the Heat 5k that we participated in last weekend. I had a very encouraging run, finishing in 28:10 the day after running a 16 miler - then trotted back to meet up with Kendall and actually see the sights of the last mile or so of the course. A good day! A good partner for life!

Speaking of friends, Taz and Jackson got a lot of time together this summer as Jackson's family and ours traded dog sitting duties. Here Taz is showing Jackson that running is really a fun thing to do. He's right!