Western Adventures - The Afternoon

After getting a tour of Fort Collins, having some fantastic coffee, and getting adjusted, we headed back South to Waterton Canyon for another scenic run. This place was amazing! The course follows a dirt road along the South Platte river, heading 6.5 miles uphill/upstream to the largest dam I've ever seen at Strontia Springs. The canyon walls are enormous and known for housing Bighorn Sheep (we didn't see any...).


About halfway up (4 miles ish) my stomach started to quit on me...it had been a long day, and I was low on energy and OUT of Gu. Our idle conversations slowly trailed off as we concentrated more and more on putting one foot in front of the other. When we reached the top, I figured our pace had faltered a bit. To my surprise, we were actually averaging 7:45 a mile! Whoa!
At the dam I took some pictures...



Turning around, my spirits were high for a great finish to the run. We had run into the wind the entire 1st half, it was going to be downhill, and my stomach had un-knotted itself. Well, 2 out of 3 isn't bad...
My stomach continued to behave itself, and we were running back downhill, but that canyon sure plays with the wind. We ran into a headwind the entire trip back down. I don't know how that's possible, but it did slow our pace a bit more than I expected, to about 7:55 miles.