Colorado Springs with Charlie 🦮



We started our first full day in the Springs with a stop at Dunkin Donuts where we were able sit on the patio with the dogs. It was a cool morning but a beautiful Colorado morning. From there we drove to Garden of the Gods. I knew the inner loop was mostly flat and that I would be fine just taking it easy and taking breaks. It was fine because we stopped often to take pictures, to talk with an Olympic hopeful from India and to watch rock climbers. 











It turns out Charlie is a real people magnet. So many people stopped to compliment. He showed only a passing interest in all the other dogs there. It was such a great feeling being out among people again and you could sense the optimistic mood of others. As always the Garden’s beauty didn’t disappoint. 











After the Garden we went to A Taste of Philly on Academy and Carefree so I could get a green chili Philly that I’ve been craving. The bonus is that one of the owners, Fabian Orozco, is one of my former athletes and I enjoy visiting with him and catching up on his family and teammates. 



We drove to Palmer Park to eat and the sandwich didn’t disappoint. Neither did the drive through the park. When we got to the motel Charlie crashed and other than getting up to go out once before bed he mostly slept for 17 hours. 



My O2 levels were the lowest they’ve ever been when we got back to the motel so I decided that I was going to leave Wednesday instead of staying until Friday. If I had specific plans I might have tried to stay but I wasn’t going to try to arrange things at that point. 

We got up to snow the next morning and the plan was to catch up with friends before heading out the next day. Fortunately the roads weren’t to bad so Joe and I were able to drive up to Green Mountain Falls to have breakfast at The Pantry with Ron Payton, Jim Brady and Chris Erickson. Chris pointed out that the four of us represented over 120 years of coaching experience. 





That night Joe had Spell, Walter and I over for burgers and dogs. It was fun catching up but in no way replaces a reunion run. Don’t know if there will be any of those in the future. 🤷‍♂️  



The next morning it was off to St. Louis. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wrapping Up the Year

Image
I ordered this book from Amazon and really enjoyed it. I related to a lot of what the author wrote. The next to last entry, a poem, reflects how I feel about still wanting to reach my goal of racing in all 50 states. The PNH is making it more unlikely that I will but I refuse to give up! Ode to One Last Race Farther down the trail, My leg strength fading, Lung Capacity diminished, And heart losing muscle.  It will be time, For a time, One last time.  How will I choose, A final finish line,  That ends more than the race? To embrace, To relish,  To seat upon my mind. For a time,  One last time.  With nary a chance to lose, For completion brings a win, I’ll sift through years of memories.  Of trials and trails, Of tears and smiles, Of fondness for my friends, To select a special day.  For a time,  One last time.  My recall will, undoubtedly, Bring to mind my favorite, Places, Races, And faces.  I’ll struggle like all distance runners,...
Read more

Olympic Trials!

Image
The Trials were worth waiting for. The competition was amazing over the ten days with world, national, meet and Hayward Field records. Incredible. I took a lot of pictures because I had a great seat. Obviously I won’t even try to put them all in this post but I did put some of them together in collages.  I was fortunate to get a picture with Canadian 400 meter Olympic hurdler, Sage Watson as well as American Steeple Chaser Emma Coburn. They were both so gracious.  This is a picture that showed up online. It’s a perfect view of my seat. I’m the one with the red shirt and gray head with my hat on my knee. 😂 I was really fortunate that Smitty’s friends, Pete and Lori who live close to the stadium let me park in their driveway every day. I don’t think I could have handled standing in the heat for shuttles coming and going every day. Speaking of heat I didn’t see the events on the last day because when I got there they had just postponed everything because of the heat. It got to ...
Read more

Heading Home Early!

Image
When I was sitting in the River Dog with Don in Bullhead City I got a call from Dr. Lonergan’s scheduler wanting me to come in for blood work. I told her I couldn’t make it and she said no problem since I was coming in the next week anyway. That was Friday. Then on Tuesday I got a call from his nurse with the same request so I decided to head back in time to get back Monday for labs. I got the labs and when I saw the doctor two days later he explained that he was just trying to collect more lab data so he could go to the insurance company to possibly get my treatments moved closer together. We’ll see what happens.  We stayed at Spell’s in Denver on Wednesday night and had a nice visit. I had hoped to spend another day in Colorado but 🤷‍♂️ IIWII! The nice thing going home the way we did was it was cooler so we were able to stop more. We stopped in Green River, Wyoming and even got to see a bald eagle on her nest watching one of her babies hang out by the river. It was a good stop. ...
Read more