Casper Rail Trail
Run Time 61:02 + 2-minute kick
Dry, windy, high-altitude, hot, dusty – felt like I was running in a Sergio Leone film. I should have played just Morricone soundtrack music in my headphones. Plus I was on an old railroad grade between I-25 and Hwy 20/26, so it was the antithesis of picturesque and sublime.
But, I run. It doesn’t have to be idyllic. It doesn’t have to be pleasant. It can be uncomfortable and unsettling and unfun. I had to weave through tall weeds and thistles and through a hail of grasshoppers, but I will tell you this – there was no one else on the trail, and that is the way I like it. In fact, no one might have ever run on this trail, and people driving by might have seen me and said to themselves, “No one in their right mind would be running on that trail right now,” and that, also, is the way I like it.
I do not want to call Casper the Unfriendly Ghost-Town, but it is not the garden spot of Wyoming. I had driven through some beautiful, unseasonably green mountainous country all day, from Rock Springs to Riverton to Casper, and now my outside-the-car time was running back-and-forth through terrain reminiscent of a vacant lot next to the truck stop.
You can tell Casper is a harsh environment, because the primary wildlife are red ants that look like they were stunt-ants in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I sped up a little each time I passed one of their giant anthill knolls, which are easy to spot due to the absence of vegetation and the piles of bones around them.
After the run I picked thorns out of my socks, dumped sharp mineral bits out of my shoes, took a cool shower, and drove to the local Panda Express for a plate with fried rice, orange chicken, and kung pao chicken. The orange was all the sweeter, the kung pao all the spicier, and the rice all the frieder because I had got my run in, in conditions less than ideal, and I felt great.
Don't Make It a Habit. Make It a Ritual. 