FORT COLLINS, COLORADO MARATHON TRIP - MAY 2-6, 2019

Fort Collins, Colorado: May 1 – May 6^th, 2019 - Marathon Trip!

Thursday, May 2 - Flight to Denver

Thursday morning I left early out of Grand Rapids to fly to Denver.  Landed in Denver, picked up my rental car and headed to downtown Denver to walk around a bit. The plan was to meet up with Tracy, but not until Friday night, so I had a good day and a half to run around before I had to pick her up at the airport.

The first thing I wanted to visit was the Denver Mint.  I parked downtown and walked to the Mint.  The guy at the ticket booth said that the next available tour was at 2pm.  I asked how much tickets were, and he just laughed and said that because it's the government it's free!  Whoo hoo, something actually free!

I had some time to kill, so I went to this 'money museum' for a tour.  It was actually kind of interesting..

Money mistakes

Old money

The banks turn in old money to shred.  At the end of the tour, they have a bin of bagged shredded money.  Each bag has about 150.00-ish dollars in it.  The facts on this picture are pretty interesting.

I wish I had this much money. lol  It was actually fake though...I checked.

I had researched a few landmarks to check out in Denver, so I headed to this old clock tower that was located downtown in this pedestrian walking area.  I thought there would be more to this tower, but you could only walk inside on the first floor and look around.  The upper floors were for offices and tours by appointment only.  The building seemed really cool though.

The Daniels and Fisher Tower - The only bummer is that there used to be more of the building, but they tore it down and only kept the tower.  It was a department store back in the day.

The display on the inside of the first floor

After the tower, I headed to this street called Larimer Square.  I didn't know anything about it, I just saw that it was something to see when you were in Denver.  It was a really cute street with small boutique shops.

Larimer Square - I'm sure it's really pretty at night because they have Christmas lights down the length of the street.

I don't usually shop on trips, but I stopped in at this Mountain Khakis store.  I found a shirt I liked and tried it on. In the changing room, there was a sign that said if you wear the shirt out, you get 10% off.  So I did!  As I'm checking out, the guy says, "Oh, you also get a free shot of whiskey for wearing the shirt out as well." 

Cherry Creek Trail -  After Larimer Square I followed this trail for a bit back towards the Denver Mint for my 2:00pm tour 

Just a pretty church I took a picture of

I had about 30min to quickly take a tour through this museum before my tour of the Mint!

The old fire station museum.

The museum was actually pretty interesting.  Lots of old fire trucks and equipment if you like that sort of thing.

Pretty much the only picture I was allowed to take at the mint. haha.

My tour with the Denver Mint started at 2pm.  They want everyone in line ready to go 30 minutes prior.  The door you enter looks like a random side door, not the main grand entrance to the Mint.  

You are not allowed to bring anything with you.  I had to even drop off my little bag in the car because they would not allow it.  Once we were inside and through security, we watched a little video about the building and the mint itself.

The tour was pretty interesting; however, because of security, you honestly don't get to see too much.  I got scolded for even taking notes on my phone.

The only operation that we could observe was the copper penny blanks being made.  They make the blanks first before stamping the design on them and before adding the ridges on the outside.

Here are my main take aways from asking 10000 questions of our tour guides:

1) The Denver Mint only produces coins, no paper money.

2) The Denver Mint produces coins for states West of the Mississippi River.  Philadelphia produces coins for East of the Mississippi.  If you see a coin with a D on it, it's from Denver.

3) Mistakes do get made. They absolutely do not like mistakes to get out into the public.  I asked why was it such a big deal?  They said a) because it makes the government look bad b) they don't like that the mistake money ends up being falsely inflated and sold.

4) The have full time tool and die makers.  Each stamping die only gets used 4-6 hours before it is destroyed and recycled and a new one put in place.

5) On average, it takes 17 years to implement any kind of money change.  Thanks government for being so quick and efficient!

6) The government will probably never get rid of the penny - see #5 for the reason why.

7) The Denver mint loses money making the penny and the nickel and the dime, but makes money on the quarter.

After my tour at the Mint, I just hopped in the car and headed up towards Fort Collins to check into my hotel for the night.

May 3^nd – Hike in Estes Park
My plan for the day was to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park, do a little hike and get back in time to pick up Tracy at the airport that evening.
First thing in the morning I got up and started by drive up to Beaver Meadows Visitor Center.

Statues at South Shore Parkway on Lake Loveland

It was at this point that the road entered the canyon.  It was very windy and steep and I had to drive super slow.  I pulled off several times to let other people pass me! haha 

The views were amazing!! Driving up through the canyon on Big Thompson Road next to Big Thompson River.

Just entering Estes Park

There is a nice pole that you can put your phone on so you can take pictures.  I set the timer and was able to capture this!

My first stop was Beaver Meadows Visitor Center to get some hiking information.  As soon as I stepped out of the car, I felt like I was drunk.  Fort Collins is around 6000 feet and I didn't feel anything there.  But Estes Park is at almost 8000 feet, so my head was swimming from the altitude!

I went inside and talked to a few of the rangers.  I told them that I wanted to do a 5ish hour hike, I had some food, water and hiking poles with me and what I was currently wearing was what I was going to hike in.  They guy was super nice and pointed to a trail on the map and showed me where I could go.

To my surprise, most of the trails still were not open because of the snow!  The guy said that the trail he suggested was fairly popular and I should have no problem hiking in my boots.  He said that I could probably make it to Fern Falls, but beyond the falls I would probably need snow shoes or crampons.  I was so shocked!  Silly me for not knowing!

Map of my hike

Most of my hike consisted of a trail that looked like this.  I just could not get over all the snow that was still on the ground in May!

In a few spots I had to hike through knee deep snow!

When I made it to Cub Lake, I thought it would be a good time to take a quick break and pee.  I had been hiking for a couple of hours by now and the only person I saw was this woman that I had passed way at the beginning of the hike.  There really wasn't anywhere to hide to pee, but I figured I was safe since I had not seen anyone for hours.

I could not have taken more then 2 minutes to pee, but of course, as my luck would have it, I was just finishing up when this figure came jumping and running along the trail.  Here was this Indian guy wearing a bulky sweatshirt, jeans and tennis shoes.  He had no water, no hiking poles, no food, no anything.  He was in a full on run / jog / bounce going down the trail.  He passed me and I gave him a half-hearted irritated smile and nod as he passed by.  I was in utter astonishment.  Here I was in my hiking boots, nylon performance clothes, Leki hiking poles, camel back water bag, medical kit, food and completely prepared for any emergency situation and this guy is doing the same trail as I am in a sweatshirt and jeans! Ugh.

Cub Lake 

snow snow and more snow

When I reached the area called 'The pool', I decided that I did have time to walk the 0.5 miles up to Fern Falls.  The hike at that point was pretty sketchy.  I was definitely in deep snow for most of the time.  But I made it to the falls with no incident.  Once at the falls, I took a quick snack break and peed.  Luckily this time, I was completely finished before a couple came around the bend along the trail.  How is it that I hike for hours on end, but only see people when I pee???? 

Anyway, I was just getting ready to hike back and I asked them to take a picture of me in front of the falls.

Fern Falls

It was around 5pm when I finally finished my hike and started to head back to the car.  I was kind of bummed because I didn't see one animal during the entire 6 hours of hiking.  However, just as I was almost back to the car, I saw a small herd of deer eating and walking around!

Deer!

5pm must be when all the animals come out for dinner, because on my way out of the park I saw a TON of Elk!

I noticed that some of the Elk have collars on them.  Not sure what kind of data they are tracking though.

It was really cool to see all of the Elk, but I would NOT want to be here in the summer with all the tourists.  There was not much traffic at all at this time of year, but even so people stop and slow down and cause traffic jams everywhere so they can get pictures of the animals.

On my way back down the mountain towards Fort Collins, it dawned on me that the Stanley Hotel was located in Estes Park.  That's the hotel that was inspiration for the book 'The Shining'.  I didn't go inside the hotel, because I am pretty sure none of the movie was actually filmed there, but I did walk around a little bit and take some pictures.

Somewhere on my way down the mountain, I saw people slowing down on the road and pointing.  I looked and there on the cliff was a small herd of mountain sheep!  I quick pulled over to take some pictures.  Some other tourists saw me and they pulled over to take pictures too.  We were both gushing about how we had never seen big horned sheep before!

Big Horned Sheep - These guys had tracking collars on too.

Once I got back to Fort Collins, I had just enough time to grab something to eat before heading back into Denver to pick up Tracy at the airport.  Around 9pm, I got Tracy and we headed back to the hotel for some sleep!

May 4th - Packet pick-up and hike with friends and family

First thing in the morning, Tracy and I got around and walked to the Lincoln Center to pick up our packets for the race.  Not sure how she did it, but she actually convinced TWO of her friends to run this race as well.  We met up with one of the friend's,  LouAnn and her whole family, at the packet pick up.  This was going to be LouAnn's first big run and her husband and 2 kids came to support her.

Tracy and I at packet pick-up - The Lincoln Center

After packet pick-up, Tracy wanted to meet up with her cousin Lorele, who she had not seen in probably 10 years.  We drove to her house and met with her, her fiance Evan and daughter Annabelle.  I thought we were just going to hang out and visit, but Lorele had a whole fun day planned for us!

Our first stop was lunch at the Mishawaka.  We had lunch there and then we were off to hike a trail that was just down the road from the restaurant.

The Mishawaka - This restaurant / concert venue on the canyon road.  We ended up running by here during race day.  Really cool place.  This is basically the only stop along the entire road.

Backside of the Mishawaka - It was early spring so the river was low, but apparently in the summer the water gets really high and tons of people raft down the river and you can watch them from the restaurant.

Lorele and company took us here for a little hike.  It was crazy hot and even though it was a 'dry' heat I was a little concerned that I would be dehydrated for the race the next day.  Thank goodness I brought my Nathan's water bag!

I never did do a lot of research about this trail, but there were quite a few old homestead foundations along the trail

L-R Evan, Lorele, Tracy and Annabelle. 

 After our couple hour long hike, we drove back to Lorele's house, talked for few and then said our goodbyes.  We headed back to Fort Collins to meet up with the other girls for our pre-race dinner and then it was off to bed for a restless sleep before the race!

L-R Tracy and her friends Kelly and LouAnn, and me.  Our final dinner before the big run!

May 5th - Race Day!

I did not sleep much before the race.....too many nerves and LouAnn snored a lot! haha (She stayed with us for the night because our hotel was closer then her hotel)

We got up around 3-3:30AM to get ready, eat and digest some food and catch the bus to the start of the race.

Line of buses to take us up the mountain to our starting point at Stove Prairie Landing

Here we go!!

We had maybe an hour to wait for all the runners to be bused to the start.  It was FREEZING.  Well, freezing when you are just sitting around and not running.  Luckily, I brought one of my emergency blankets to wrap up in and stay kind of warm until the start.

Start of the race!!

First first 13ish miles of the race followed Poudre Canyon Road.  For those 13 miles the view looked like this.  Beautiful scenery. 

Race photographers were taking pictures of the running coming through the tunnel.  How cool right????  Sadly my picture did not look so cool.  See below

Ugly Running Face

Not my picture, but LouAnn and Kelly stopped during their run for a free drink! 

A sign you don't see every day in Michigan

 Pretty much after this point I didn't take any further pictures during the race.  Although the scenery was beautiful and I'm so glad I did it, I was a mess physically.  First of all, for the past few years I have been fighting this pain that radiates from my right butt cheek down the back of my leg to my knee.  Some people say it's my piriformis muscle.  Some people say it's my sciatic nerve.  Whatever it is, when I run I get these intense 'zingers' down the back of my leg. It's like an electric shock.  It's super painful and almost stops me in my tracks. I have been to physical therapy and more recently to a chiropractor.  After seeing my chiropractor for a few months now, it is WAY better.  Not 100% gone, but I can run just fine with no pain.  However, at the time of this race, the pain was really out of control.  From about miles 3 - 15 I had to stop every mile to stretch and 'crack' my hip.  In addition to that pain, my stomach was gurgling and making 'bloopy' noises right out of the gate with every single step.  THEN, somewhere in the teens, my feet felt like I had water balloons in my shoes.  I was forming huge blisters on the arch of my foot.  By mile 26, my feet were burning so badly I was scared I wouldn't be able to finish the race.  Between my feet burning, the zingers in the back of my leg and my bloopy stomach, it was THE most miserable 5 hours of my life.

Update about my feet:  The blister problem has been fixed.  It wasn't my socks, it wasn't my gate...it was my shoes.  I never in all the years of running have had problems with New Balance shoes.  However, I had worn my shoes down so much that there was no more tread and no more support and they were giving me blisters.  Got new shoes, no more problems.!

Just crossed the finish line.  Now it's time to die.

We all made it to the finish!

After we all finished and congratulated each other, we all went our separate ways for the time being to shower and rest for a bit.  Tracy and I hobbled back to our hotel room.  We showered and napped.  We were supposed to meet back up with Kelly and LouAnn for dinner, but they were exhausted and decided to stay in with their families.  Tracy and I decided to head back out to get something to eat and to walk around Fort Collins a little bit.  We walked around Colorado State University, did a little bit of shopping and then headed to the Old Town square area for dinner.  After dinner, we ended up at this brewery called Odell's where we met up with her cousin and fiance for drinks.  By the end of the day, we had reached my NEW all time step record of just over 66,000 steps!

Fort Collins Old Town Square

Thank you ODell for the well earned beers!!

May 6th - Flying home

My flight home was leaving out of Denver super early.  I think I got up around 2-2:30 am to make the drive to Denver, return the rental car, take a shuttle to the airport, and get through security in time for my 6:30am flight to Grand Rapids.  Tracy had a later flight that day, so we said our goodbyes and she went back to bed as I headed out the door for home.  Another great trip in the books.  We already have another marathon trip planned for 2020!!