Cowboy Hazel

I was going to start with the quote, “What a long strange trip it’s been,” but then I realized that that would be a poor decision on two levels: the album name has been so completely over-used as an ironic quote that it has almost become kitschy, and secondly, my trip hasn’t been all that long or strange. Actually, it was just about the perfect length — I had enough time to have a nice, relaxing with my parents and see my old stomping grounds, but now I’m definitely ready to get back to NYC — and as for the strange part, the trip went pretty much exactly as I had imagined it would…

I’ll start with the Bolder Boulder (photos). As I predicted, I came nowhere near my 10K personal record. I finished in 44:53, which was however, my best Bolder Boulder time ever (keep in mind that the only other year I ran it while in decent running shape, 2001, I had a pretty nasty case of the stomach flu and threw up 10 minutes before starting the race — still I only beat that time by about a minute). The elevation was a lot of the problem, or maybe all of it, I’m not sure, but I just had absolutely no energy. I came close to quitting a couple times but didn’t because I figured it would be as much of a hassle to walk to the finish as to just keep running. When I did finish, the temperature was in the low fifties and it had started to rain. Because of the difference in wave start times and my dad’s pace, I ended up waiting for him in the cold (still in running shorts) for almost an hour and a half. I took advantage of the time to go wonder around the campus of my alma mater — It was the first time I had been back since I graduated. It looked pretty much the same as I remembered it except that they were putting up a few new buildings. I had expected some emotion on being back there, but there was none. After my little walking tour of the campus, I headed back over to Folsom Field and found a partially-indoor seat in the stands and waited for my dad to finish. After that we went to my grandma’s house and took her to Chili’s. All in all, it was a good day, even if the race didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.

The night before the Bolder Boulder, I met up with Stoltz and his girlfriend at the Rock Bottom back by my parents’ old house for a couple beers. We had a good visit, discussing a wide range of topics including, but not limited to: his brother’s wedding the previous day, our old shenanigans, how strange Coloradans seem when you’ve been out of the state for a while, literary criticism, plans for the future, and of course, the upcoming election, rising gas prices, and the ailing environment.

Tuesday through Friday I worked 8-9 hour days for Precision. It was good to have something to keep busy on. I think that’s part of why I was able to take such a long trip without going stir crazy; I usually don’t do well with long vacations because I get bored. It was also good to be able to keep working on that while being out here from a financial standpoint; there’s no way that I could have afforded to just take a week-and-a-half off of work.

My sister, who lives in Fort Collins now, came down last weekend, then again for a couple days midweek, and is coming back down for the afternoon today. We played tennis on Wednesday and Thursday and are going to again today. That has been one of the best parts of the trip. It’s crazy how much simpler playing tennis is here than it is back in New York. Here, we decided we wanted to play tennis, got our stuff, drove around until we found a court, then played. In NYC last year, I had to pay $100 for a tennis permit, buy tennis shoes (casual athletic shoes weren’t good enough — they actually checked the soles), register for a time-slot on the Central Park courts, wait until that exact time (when a buzzer would go off), and play for exactly 60 minutes before another buzzer went off signaling that we had to leave the courts.

Sometimes, things like this make me wonder why the hell I’m paying such a ridiculous amount of money to live in my crowded corner of Manhattan. I’ve actually been having quite a few similar thoughts all week. It’s the little things that I’m realizing I miss most — like being able to sit on the back porch and enjoy the evening breeze, only having to go as far as the basement to do laundry, not hearing the neighbors upstairs walking around at weird hours of the night. I mean, sure, there are million great reasons to live in NYC — it is, after all, the greatest city in the world — but I’m beginning to think that I might not belong in a city at all. This trip has re-instated a dormant longing inside of me to move outside the city limits somewhere and begin living life as a country-boy.

So the next question becomes, Where? Back to Colorado? No. I feel like crap every time I’m out here. The elevation has completely kicked my ass. Plus, the air is so dry that my lips are chapped and my hands are peeling despite the fact that I’ve been drinking what seems like gallons of water a day and repeatedly applying chapstick and lotion. And then, there’s the hayfever. My eye was secreting some sort of nastyness so thick and disgusting yesterday after my run that I could hardly see anything out of it. I’ve been using boxes of Kleenex despite taking Claritin everyday. So, no, Colorado is not the place for me.

I’ve been thinking about upstate New York instead. Maybe something in the Catskills. But I really haven’t looked into it in that much detail yet because none of this will be right away, as I just re-signed my lease and will be in Harlem now at least until September 2009. But it is something that I’m definitely going to start thinking about.

In the midst of everything else, I managed to finish the month of May with over 100 miles of running logged (101.6 to be exact). Although I was running only an average 7:09 pace while out here in Colorado, I did manage to get in almost 27 miles which was enough to get me to my monthly goal that I had set back in February. It was good to finally be back to hundred mile months after a seven year hiatus, but the run itself that put me over the top yesterday just hurt — like all the others that I’ve had since I’ve been here. I am so looking forward to being back near sea level and actually being able to enjoy running.