I brought two pairs of shoes, in case my new trail shoes gave me trouble, they didn’t =). I am not a light traveler, I tend to throw in anything I think I might need, plus at least two magazines, heaven forbid I don’t have something to entertain me for two minutes.

I threw on my compression capris, long sleeve shirt and jacket thinking I would be good for a mid 40-50 degree run. As soon as I stepped outside I was cold so I ran back in to throw on my full tights. I should have grabbed gloves and ear warmers too since the wind was very cold.

We got the the trail head easily and got ready to go.

We started off with a nice gentle uphill, the trail gains 1550 ft in the first four miles so it was runnable but I was feeling the incline and feeling grateful that the Colorado marathon is mostly downhill.
If you look closely you can see the trail winding down the hill. We had some prairie dogs visitors along the way, before heading back down to the parking lot. The path back down was much steeper the way up.
We ran into a heard of deer with lots of juveniles in tow, such a cool sight, they were still fluffy with their winter coats.
When we got back to the parking lot we wanted to add a few miles so we did a quick out and back for a total of 14 miles. Over all it was a good run, but the trails kicked my butt, so much harder than roads! On our way home we stopped in Boulder at Whole Foods to grab sandwiches. We then took ice baths showered and relaxed at home.

Today is a rest day and I need to figure out what to do with our training plan since our gym canceled our normal spin class. And rethink summer race plans since two family weddings are on the same day as two races we were planning on, at least we hadn’t signed up yet.

Happy Monday Everyone!