Wednesday 8/6/14 - Rocky Mountain National Park
We woke up early in order to get to Denver for Hogan's flight to get in: Ragnar Colorado Adventure commence!
We spent the morning driving down to Denver... the only activity of note being lunch at Chick-fil-A. We pulled into the Denver airport after some weird tolls; apparently I'll get the bills sent to my previous house in Cambridge? Anyway, we got to the airport and drove around the loop four fucking times because the rent-a-cops there suck, but THEN picked up Hogan. Yes!
The drive north to Rocky Mountain National Park was full of anticipation: it is a gorgeous park in which you are entirely surrounded by beautiful mountains. We were going to meet up with Katie and Sterling, but they were on the other side of the park and would take a few hours. Luckily we had a take a huge detour through the mountains to get there. Super gorgeous. Once inside the park, we saw a moose! Well, we saw a bunch of people standing over a ravine and then a moose very far away. But we decided to drive around a bend and then walk through the woods to see if we could catch it. And did we ever. It came right up to us from the bottom of a hill and got SO CLOSE. It was an incredible experience. My legs were shaking from the adrenaline like an hour later.
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| Just a couple of mooses moosing around |
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| Hello there |
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| Um... I'm over here |
We also had time to dunk our heads in the freezing cold creek near our campsite, which was refreshing indeed.
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| It is a lot colder than it looks. I actually can't tell what temperature it looks like. |
We finally met up with Katie and Sterling at the campsite, which had an amazing view of the Rockies. Possibly one of the best views from a campsite that I've been at.
Our plan was to try to hike Chasm Lake along the Longs Peak trail, which branches to the highest mountain in the park, Longs Peak, a 14,000 footer. So pretty. But halfway up we learned it was a much longer hike than we anticipated. So we turned back, which is probably good because that altitude was getting to us. But not before seeing some astounding views of the surrounding mountains.
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| Ragnar fiesta engage |
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| Happy trees |
On the drive back to the campsite, we stopped at a big meadow to watch a colorful sunset over the mountains. So nice. Although, I'm not pumped about the animal-centric attitude of the tourists here. A car stopped on the road as we were watching the Sun set and asked if we saw any animals in the field. Nope, sorry bro. Just a gorgeous sunset.
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| No cool animals, nothing to see here |
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| Adventure team is go |
We got back and cooked sausages over a fire and had some Colorado beers and watched the stars. The moon was intensely bright and drowned out some of the stars, but they were still pretty amazing.
Thursday 8/7/14 - Rocky Mountain National Park
We woke up early to catch sunrise from a nice overlook. WORTH IT. We drove toward the northwest part of the park and found a cool secluded place and saw a dramatic display of colors play out on the mountains. It really is difficult to describe in words to incredible it is to see these enormous mountains lit up with colors, creating harsh, beautiful shadows in every crevice. So I'll make a word up for it: mountairiffic. Truly mountairiffic.
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| Dinos at Dawn |
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| Those are some colors |
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| It's not the Sun if there's no solar flare |
We kept the morning going by driving along the northern road, stopping at various alpine overlooks. We went on a short walk in the alpine region, along the highest continuous road (apparently), seeing elk herds, marmots, and Pikas. And of course more fantastic views. Blah blah blah everything is pretty.
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| That mountain range is exquisite |
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| There are more than a handful of trees down there |
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| This is a Marmot, they are feisty critters |
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| Team Colorado Rockies |
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| "Ok guys now act natural" |
We then packed our site up and drove to Bear Lake for a nice 9 mile hike along the lake area. It would end at another location, allowing us to use the convenient shuttle service back to the trailhead. The hike was nice and of course included a dip in one of the lakes. The weather in the Rockies (and indeed in most of Colorado) is weird. Not very humid, but short, sporadic thunderstorms all afternoon. So it was on/off, nice/rainy... still a nice hike.
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| Sometimes the endless natural beauty gets boring but then I remember that no it doesn't |
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| shut up |
The next phase of our day was to leave the park (yay more detours!) and for us to grocery shop for Ragnar and find a place to park my car while Katie and Sterling picked up the rental van. It took a while, and we got caught in a thrilling, crazy thunderstorm, but success! Now we have a van. This Ragnar is kind of different: normally it is two vans, 12 people relay racing for 200 miles(ish). This would be all at high altitude, which is now for all of us, and ALSO we were just one van of 6 people (me, Hogan, Katie, Sterling, and soon to be joined by Maria and Steve), and we were paired with another van of 6. We were Van 2, which means we finish the race. But the race isn't until tomorrow; tonight we are staying at Maria's cousin's place.
We drove up to Boulder to stay with our gracious hosts, who provided us with a home cooked meal of carbs and my first shower since Monday morning, which was pretty damn great. And they were so nice: giving us all kinds of ammenities for a good night's rest.
Friday 8/8/14 - Colorado Ragnar
Race day! Our team (World's Greatest Dads: it's ironic because... you know... none of us are Dads) started at 7am. Which actually isn't the earliest start - other teams started at 4am! But since we weren't the first van, we didn't have to join at the start. So we had time to pick Steve up at Golden (home of a nice little microbrewery) and grab a breakfast sandwich.
We then drove up to Copper Mountain: the start of the race AND exchange 6; it was a few hours drive, but we still had time to hang out and have some lunch before our other van finished their first legs. This race is no joke: the altitude is REAL. So it wasn't until 2:30ish when they came in for the exchange. And I was the first runner in our van. Decked out in my World's Greatest Dads costume: "Best. Dad. Ever." t-shirt, tucked into my shorts, with knee socks, USA sweatband, American flag sunglasses, and American flag fanny pack. I was ready. Or so I thought.
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| Another Ragnar, this one at 10,000 feet |
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| Small Dads, big chair |
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| We Dads are ready to do some running |
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| I felt great for the first tenth of a mile, the other forty-four tenths of a mile were more difficult |
The exchange went smoothly, but my leg was 4.5 miles, continuously up a mountain. An elevation gain of 1300 ft, up to Vail Pass at over 10,000 ft altitude. There was so little oxygen. And my hamstrings were killing me from all that uphill running. And my lungs were killing me from TRYING TO BREATHE. I started growing lung capacity in places I didn't know I could have lungs. It seems like they were pushing my organs out of the way just to get air. But it was such a beautiful run. Through a field and stream amidst awesome mountains. I had to make sure I logged that memory for later, because the only fucking feeling I had time for at the moment was pain.
I have never been in such pain in my life. Probably the most physical, full-body pain that I've ever experienced. And NO van support. It was just me out there (and the two runners I passed and the one bike that passed me). Near what ended up being my last mile (but I'll be damned if I had any warning!) a woman on a bike passed me as she was going down the path and said "you're really close." This was the closest thing to heroin that I've ever experienced. I had no idea how much I'd run, or for how long; I only knew that it HAD to end. Just a few more twists and turns (all uphill of course), and then I saw the exchange. Right at Vail Pass. Such a horrific run, but finishing it felt so good, especially amidst this incredible scenery.
After finishing, I immediately started coughing, what we later dubbed the Vail Pass Cough, and this stayed with me for many, many days. A harsh, abrasive cough coming from some primal location of my body.
The next several transitions were fine for me, since my leg was over, but everyone else had a downhill run. They still felt the altitude though. You can't not. We finished right at sunset, passing off to Van 1 and resting up with some great sunset pictures.
We earned a nice, shitty Wendy's meal before heading to our first place to sleep a bit. We would have a couple hours to nap before it was our turn again, and being first runner, I did not intend to waste them.
Caturday 8/9/14 - Colorado Ragnar (Todaysterday)
The Todaysterday continued, waking up at about midnight for our second set of legs. I was tired, but ready... I suppose. This was my long leg: 7.6 miles. But all flat or downhill, so I wasn't worried. Well, I was. Still high altitude. But I was decked out in my night gear: glowing lights and neon laces and shit. Time to rock this.
It turns out this leg was WAAAAY easier than the first. Still difficult, but not as bad. I ran a reasonable pace and passed 8 people. I felt good about it. But even though it was night, I could still see a bit and could tell that it was a really pretty landscape. Still no van support though. What is with that? This Ragnar is really strange in that only 2 of our 18 legs had any van support. You don't realize how much you really need the verbal support and cheering until you don't have it.
The next set of legs continued a lot easier. We were lower in altitude and were somewhat used to the low oxygen. Plus they were all downhill. We did well for our second set of legs. We earned another few hours of some good sleep.
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| Katie is currently running a billion miles in the hot hot Sun |
My last leg started at 8am. It was only 2.3 miles, but all uphill again. Ugh. Whatever, not as bad as my first leg, but still more difficult than my 7.6 miler. Katie and Hogan both had some really rough legs to run. Hogan, our anchor, had several extreme hills to conquer. In the meantime, the rest of the team met up at the finish and waited for Hogan to beast his run, which he did. So good to finish.
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| Hogan crossed the finish line first, but he was too fast for the instantaneous photograph to catch him |
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| Mile Thigh Rubbing Club and World's Greatest Dads finish another great Ragnar |
This Ragnar was a tough race, and that first leg I had was definitely my hardest run... ever.
After our celebration beer and lunch, we started on our way to our campground for the night, somewhat nearby. We got to frolic by the river (couldn't go in though; it was super muddy) and take a SHOWER! Holy shit! This entire road trip is just a bunch of amazing showers, several days apart, with a lot of cool stuff between each one.
We got a fire going (finally, after dealing with the wettest wood and paper ever and finally making a torch with Vaseline) and made some dinner while having more celebratory beer.
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| We are ready for our campfires |
And tonight was a "Golden Moon," the closest perigee of the moon in centuries and a very full moon at that. So incredibly bright - it nearly burned my optics.
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