Ascent

The cobblestones on Ruxton Avenue seemed to move beneath me like the flat escalators in airports. The crowds cheered enthusiastically for us, and I appreciated the fact that none of them said anything about being almost done or a simplifed countdown of only so many miles to go. I paced myself, beaming at the people, alternating between glances at their supportive faces and the summit I was racing towards. We passed the Cog depot and when we started up the gravel trail to that linked with Barr Trail, people had already started walking.

Already!? We weren't even a mile up the mountain yet!

I settled in between a slender man with a balding head and a woman in a neon running top, bottles of water bouncing on her hips in those water carrying contraptions the serious runners wore. After winding through the shaded forest which paralleled the real trail at a less steep incline, we finally joined with Barr Trail and I felt the same joy bubble inside of me that comes when I run into an old friend in the grocery store.

"Hey there, Barr Trail," I thought as my breath remained steady in beat with my footsteps. "How you been? You ready for this?"

I remembered the first time I got to this part of the trail in my training. That was two pairs of shoes ago, but today I knew I would outlast the gravel beneath my feet.

We trudged up the switchbacks, one long caravan of crazy runners hardly believing they had talked themselves into this, or, for the veterans, that they had kept coming back for more. The sun was already up and we were already up, a mile or two, and I turned to look at Manitou Springs. It was there, as I always saw it from this view in my training runs, but this time it was better than when I saw it in the evening after work and it was better than the sunrise climbs I had made with my Peak co-workers or cross country teammates.

The switchbacks were ruthless as ever. I focused on breathing slowly, savoring the oxygen I knew would leave as I climbed. I watched the heels of the woman in front of me, and around a wider switchback, I passed them to gain on an old, old man with a tattered Ascent hat covering his gray hair. Forty minutes passed and I had already made it to the top of the famous "W's," or switchbacks of the first three miles of Barr Trail. Right on pace.

I couldn't see the city anymore. It was veiled by the first part of the mountain I had just climbed, and I was in the cooler part of the trail now. Large aspens and poky shrubs lined the trail, and I smiled as we sidled past the entrance of the trail to the top of the Incline. Been there, done that.

The forest was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. Maybe it was because I was running where I had only ever hiked before, but the whispering aspens seemed to hold some mystical nature as they chortled with the short pines and hummed in harmony with the trickle of the small brook alongside the trail. No one spoke in our line of runners, but it was more fitting as our patterned breath and concentrated strides contributed the descante of an already orchestrated display of God's handiwork.

I was still running up, and I passed the place where I peed when I hiked this with Mom and Char for the first time. The line became more spread, and I focused on the woman in the red shorts up ahead. She was listening to her music, and I used the pitiful fact to justify my ability pass her. Anyone listening to music in this secret sanctuary deserved to be passed.

If this was apparently the "easy" three miles, I needed to take adavantage of it. Running around a slender pine tree in the middle of the trail, I looked ahead and calculated who was ahead of me. Barr Camp lay nestled just two miles from that point, and I saw a blond head bopping down the trail in front me.

I will get that blond before we get to Barr Camp. I will get her."

Barr Trail was lovelier than it had ever been, and I thanked it as I skipped around Red Shorts girl to close the next gap.