Denver, CO

Sidewalks behind hotel

Run Time: 61:06 + 2-minute kick

I chose this hotel location for its proximity to the airport, but the neighborhood was a strange combination of new construction, open fields, people sleeping in cars, and construction sites. The hotels were all new. Behind the hotels were new houses and houses still being built. A new school sat between those houses and a resort. Some sidewalks ended in the middle of nothing.

The school did not have a track, unfortunately. I didn’t even look at All Trails. It was the end of a long week. I normally fly home Friday afternoon, but I had customer appreciation event to attend at a new distributor branch in Scottsbluff, NE, and I did not want to rush the trip from there to Denver, so I flew home Saturday instead. This allowed me to get four runs in, all at high altitude (well, maybe Alliance, NE, wasn’t that high).

Rain threatened a few times during the run. There were some nasty looking thunderclouds on the periphery. I saw jets taking off with a very low dark cloud on the opposite side of the airport – it looked dicey. And then the sun would come out and it would get hot real quick.

I ran down an access road that I thought might turn into a dirt road heading off into the sage, but it ended at some kind of electrical building, so I turned around. On my way back to the main street, I almost stepped on a very large snake, which either had just crawled out onto the asphalt, or I had somehow not seen it one minute before.

I also saw more of those killer red ant hills near the street, and hordes of grasshoppers, most of them green. On the street behind the hotel, there were more than a half dozen cars, vans, RVs, and truck trailers that were obviously primary domiciles for local residents who can’t afford the housing prices. They looked out of place, but I guess they were in a location where they weren’t bothering anyone, though they were only a half-mile or so from the new houses.

After the run I showered and drove about 5 miles for some takeout, and the traffic was just heavy enough that the monsoon hit before I could get back into the safety of the hotel room. One of those low dark cloud banks came right at me, and I got drenched in about 45 seconds trying to get into the hotel. The winds were scary.

You can see how flash floods happen with weather like that. And why snakes take advantage of the dry periods to get a little asphalt time.