Although M went for her first run yesterday, it was short and just up the main road from the apartment. Today’s run qualified as our first true adventure.
Since we were tired from the travel, the crack of 8 am seemed a good time to get up. We got going on the trail shortly thereafter. No matter how many times we have been over here and run on the trails, each time back we have to reset what we think of as a “normal trail.” We stopped to take a picture after about 15 minutes of running/hiking up the trail. We had only gone about a half mile. In 15 minutes. During some parts of the run, I felt like 1 mile per hour was a pretty good speed.
After 3 miles and about 3,000 feet of gain in 1:20 or so, we were starting to get the hang of things. Not quite like some of the goats we saw however! The goats make everything look easy. We missed the turn off that we were looking for because it was covered in snow, but in this case ignorance was bliss. Our missed turn allowed us to see more beauty and work on our technical descending skills. We got to cross several snow fields that the French hikers we saw thought were too dangerous for people in running shoes. Ha! Obviously they didn’t know we were from Colorado and being in snow is our normal state of affairs.
Around mile 4.5 on the way down finally, I was a little intimidated by the technicality of the descent. At least until we saw a 60ish woman hiking up like it was something she did everyday, which she probably does. We have certainly learned not to be surprised by the type of people we see on the trails here. Young, old, in shape, out of shape, doesn’t matter. The people here like to hike and they get out no matter what.
With all of our stops for pictures and trying to be sure of our direction, our “easy,” run of 7 miles took just shy of 3 hours! Luckily we had gone prepared with plenty of food and water. It was a bit more adventuring than we had expected, but now we know what to expect and can not wait for more!