Still at scout camp up at Scofield Reservoir, I again got up very early, the sixth straight day that I was out running around 3:30 a.m. I’ve never done that before. I’m going to have to catch up on sleep. For today’s adventure, I decided that I would run all the way around Scofield Reservoir. I bet no one has done that before. My route turned out to be 18 miles.
I quietly left camp as the boys and leaders were snoring away after a lively evening that didn’t stop until midnight. So, I was working on only three hours of sleep. I did have a few cat-naps during the previous day. I ran the loop clockwise, first running north out of the camp and state park and onto the pavement, Rt. 96. All was quiet in the early morning and I only had about four cars pass me in either direction. I pushed the pace a bit on the pavement. I was feeling good and my problem ankle was doing well. Yesterday I did some work on my shoe tread and insole to carve off some material to relieve some pressure on the outside of my foot. It seemed to work very well, because my foot was never in much pain on this run.
As I was running along, my thoughts turned to the Colorado Mountains were several friends were running in the Hardrock 100, the toughest 100-mile race in the U.S. Local runner, the best in the world, Karl Meltzer won the race as I was running along, in 24:38.
I reached the far south end of the loop and ran through the little town of Scofield which was still very much asleep. It was now about 5:15 a.m. I was still on the pavement. The loop has about 10 miles of pavement. The sun started to rise and again today cause the clouds to look like they were on fire. It was an amazing scene.
I finally reached dirt road as several fisherman drove by and stopped to fish at Fish Creek. I was now in familiar territory, reaching a point where I had passed by in my yesterday’s run. As I ran along the wide dirt road, I passed by a couple massive cabins. I scratch my head and wonder why people want expensive cabins out here. There are no trees and it tends to be pretty windy. I guess they must have a great love for fishing and ATVs. Sitting under a cool tree in your yard isn’t an option.
To finish my run, I had to zig-zag up some roads and then decided to save a mile by doing a short bushwhack directly toward the scout camp. I descended a steep slope and then quickly connected to a trail the scouts had pounded out with their feet in a grove of trees where they did wilderness survival a couple nights earlier. The downhill run was fun as I bounded through grass and jumped over logs.
I spilled out into the scout camp, ran past the rifle range, and waved at all the camp staff who were all out picking up trash in a wide open field. I’m sure they wondered who this early morning runner was. I made the final climb up to our camp and arrived just as everyone was waking up. Perfect timing.
It was a wonderful early morning run. It was pretty level, most of the way, I probably only climbed about 1,000 feet. My time for the 18 miles was about 3:15
PM
Returned home in the morning. After an afternoon nap, went on an 4 mile run with the dog. I felt no ill-effects from the long morning run. In fact I felt vey strong and fast. After I pooped out the dog, I dropped her off at home and continued on a hill run. The legs felt great. I finished it off with a mile run through the development, running on a strip of grass along the parkway. I pushed it very hard. Neighbors driving by must think I'm weird running on the grass instead of the road and path like everyone else. But the grass is tougher and energizes me, forcing me to lift my legs more and push harder. I did get a few friendly waves from passing cars. It was a very good week of training. I'm so happy to be out training again. It feels like I'm almost back to where I should be after that setback from the injury. | 