Peg’s Posts: Run away from home

Back in Durango, we did a little sidewalk shopping and scoped out a bike shop for rentals on another day. Loved the low-key, friendly feel to this town in southwest Colorado. That night, we had a fabulous dinner at the Cyprus Café with another couple. They tipped us off on where to run the next morning and gave us some other suggestions that only locals would know. Saturday morning was brisk and sunny, so we layered up and drove to the suggested trailhead on the Colorado Trail. We ran/hiked up a couple of breathtaking miles — breathtaking by beauty and elevation — then walked down a bit before picking up a nearby road. My Forerunner 305 not only tracked my distance, pace and heart rate, but also guided us “back to start” when we weren’t sure the road would lead back to the same trailhead. Garmin’s GPS-enabled Forerunners (all but the Forerunner 50) all have this feature, found under “navigation” in the main menu. Extremely helpful when you’re running a new route, even if it’s just a jaunt from your hotel in a new city.

Our next adventure for the day was a walking tour of Indian cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park. This was my kind of tourist attraction. Museums and galleries bore me after a bit, but this was history in action, right up in the crisp, clean mountain air. We took a guided tour of the 100+ room Cliff Palace and then explored another dwelling on our own. I tracked our trek through the park with Forerunner. See it in MotionBased (note in the comments that we didn’t really hike 65 miles in one day). After our action-packed day, we enjoyed another wonderful dinner at the Season’s Grill in Durango. The food was great and the experience was made more interesting when we dined at the bar, elbow-to-elbow with 2 other tourist couples. When one woman introduced herself as a “domestic goddess”, or, more specifically, a retired interior designer, we knew we were in for a fun night. We even got to witness a young man propose to his sweetie over dinner, which drew applause from the entire restaurant crowd.

Sunday morning, I headed out for a 6-mile run along the Animas River near our hotel. Not as challenging as the trail run, but still beautiful. Next, we walked to a bike shop in downtown Durango, rented bikes and spent the next few hours wheeling around town and up to Fort Lewis College. On the campus, we got to watch a cyclo-cross training ride in progress. Then it was back to town for lunch and more riding along the river trail. Bikes and cyclists of all sorts are everywhere in this town. Our trail ride even wound past a BMX course where we watched some young daredevils fling bikes and bodies around the track. Forerunner was with us once again, this time in bike mode, to capture our ride. See it in MotionBased. Enough action for one day. It was time to catch my flight back to KC. Hope to pay another visit to Durango soon.

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