Back to RMNP
After a 3 days of mostly mountain biking in Crested Butte, I came back to Boulder for a day to regroup and then back out to Estes Park for the final parent’s weekend for Renee at Camp Cheley. This means more car camping, more Belgium beer at Poppy’s, more running in RMNP with following cold dips in the Thompson or Lily Lake. I brought along my new NB 100s that I got from Zombie Runner, took off my shirt, filled up a bottle and ran Lumpy Ridge (kind of felt a wee bit like a real minimal runner, like Anton). Next day I ran up Twin Sisters summiting in 1:05 from the Lily Lake parking lot. I wore my La Sportivas for that run since it is pretty gnarly and technical. Today I ran up Estes Cone from Fish Creek road, shirtless again and it started spitting ice at the top but not for long. That is a very smooth trail, I highly recommend it. On the way down, just past Mary’s Lodge, I saw a woman running in front of me who had a nice muscular fit look. I ran up besides her and found out surprisingly that like me she was training for Imogene! And she does Crossfit. My type of runner! She added me to a local runner’s group email list of which she is a part.
A quick word on the New Balance MT100. These are great shoes, I feel very fast in them. They don’t have as much rock protection as my Fireblades but they have a very consistent ride, and perform really well on the rock. Mine are a wee bit too big at size 12. They are a very low profile shoe and I felt the best on soft single track where I could really fly with these things.
Living out of my car and mountain running gives me so many good things, it’s kind of my own personal summer camp I realized as I sat today and listened to Renee’s morning chapel service at Camp Cheley. They had 5 kids relate what they got from their Camp Cheley experience and I wholeheartedly agreed with most of them. The mountains make me so much stronger and happier, a deep sort of happiness that resides in the soul and isn’t just a feeling, as one camper put it. Summer in the mountains has so much to offer and there is a lot of it left for all of us.
