Towers Road. Everyone in Fort Collins that runs, bikes, or hikes in the area, particularly Horsetooth Mountain park or Soderberg Open Space is familiar with Towers Road, and most likely has a love/hate relationship with it. Towers Road is a four wheel drive road that that starts about a half a mile in from the Soderberg Open Space Trail head, and heads west. The road just seems to go up and up until you reach the top of it, at which there are Radio and communication towers. These towers send cell signals to the area (except for my house, because the actual Horsetooth rock stands in-between the towers and my house). The elevation gain is approximately 2,000 feet from the bottom to the very end of the road, in about 3.75 miles. The road is very steep in some places. When you run or bike it enough, you know where every single hill is, and how much you don't like it. You might even rate each hill section, like "this is the worst short hill", and this is the "worst long hill", and the hill right before the first tower section is "long and painful", and "wow, down hill section, but going to hurt going up it on the way back". And if you think getting to the top is awful, going down is not much fun either. It's just so steep either way that it's hard on the body.
However, when you do get to the top, especially if you can "run" (I have seen some super humans that can actually really run up it at a really good pace, but I will never be one of them) the whole way up - it is such a beautiful view, and the feeling is of such great accomplishment, you just want to do it again! A couple of summers ago, Tom and I made it a point to run up this road at least once a week; but since then, we haven't run up it much.
Yesterday I decided that it was time to do some trail running. The weather had been bad the last couple of weeks, but over the last 4 -5 days the snow had melted, and the social media on FB said the trails at Soderberg and Horsetooth were mostly open and dry. We hadn't been on the trails for few week, and the weather was good, so why not take a much needed break from street running (The Monster Hill on Centennial Drive), and the paved "trails" in town. We were going to run the nice valley trail from Soderberg to Nomad to Sawmill, then on the Valley Trail to the south parking lot in Lory State Park and back. It's a little over 6 miles, and rolling hills. Fun, challenging, but the trail is very nice and I love running it. You have to take Towers Road up about .25 miles to get onto Nomad. When we reached the Nomad trail, it was CLOSED! So disappointing. If you know me, after running up a hill, and just hate going down, just to run up another. I call that being lazy. So, why not just keep running up Towers Road, "for a little while". Except, well, I guess time erased all the painful memories from "running up" Towers Road. But, they all quickly came back as we ventured up the hill.
I was having a particularly frustrating time (hip and piriformis pain), and Tom was just getting over the stomach flu. I know, not the best time to make a quick decision to tackle Towers, but that is just how it happened. Then it became even more frustrating when I think about all the time I spend in the gym, my thighs are getting bigger and bigger, and I still just couldn't "run" up this hill. I had to walk in about 3 - 4 places. I didn't call it giving up, just needed a break. It was more frustrating to get passed by a younger girl and her dog, but I cheerfully said "hello", and she commented on how hard it was; but she passed me. Sometimes when I am running, I just want to start crying out of frustration, like this particular instance, but it's too hard to cry and get up this hill - so forget it. When we finally made it about 2 miles up, guess who we saw? The young girl and her dog, they had stopped, we "ran" passed her, and we never saw her again. I was proud of myself for keeping going, when she obviously turned around and went back down (but still kudos to her for going up Towers Road). We went up to where the Westridge Trail comes out onto Towers Road (about 3.25 miles up), and turned around.
If you think going up this road is not so much fun, going down is just as bad. It is so steep, that it's pretty hard on your body to go down as well. After about a mile my back started hurting, I could tell my toes weren't happy (I hadn't taped them like I normally would to run this road, so I was hoping I wasn't going to lose my new nails on my toes - gross, I know), and I couldn't see the road well in the shade because I hadn't switched the dark lenses out of my sunglass to lighter lenses. Along with that, I was sort of just having a bad day, feeling down because I feel like I am really not very good at a long of things that I do, including running. I have gained some weight ( muscle? fat?), and I would like to get some of it off again; I wish I was a faster runner, I wish I wasn't in so much pain all the time, and lastly, it was Valentines Day. For some reason I really don't like many holidays anymore, and because Tom was feeling sick, we wouldn't be doing anything special. Sometimes a girl just wants to feel special. So, I was feeling down.
In the end, I was glad that we had run Towers Road, and decided that maybe, just maybe I would be better at it if I "ran" it more than I have the last couple of years. Later that evening, while I was basically making leftovers for a Valentines dinner, my body got very sore. I did a lot of stretching and isometrics given to me by Shara, the MAT therapist; and rolled my legs. I was feeling sore this morning, but nothing the regular stretching and exercises didn't take care of.
I think about a lot of things while I am running, since I don't listen to music (for safety reasons, and the fact that I want to enjoy the natural sounds around me), so I do a lot of thinking while I am running. What else is there to do? I was thinking how running hills is like life. When we are running up a slow miserable hill, it's like the times we are in low times in our life. They are painful, and the time seems to go by so slowly. When we are at the point where the trail is flat, or down hill on a nice decline; that's like when life is great, and we are loving it. Why do the down times seem to last forever, and the good times just go by so quickly? Maybe it's a reminder that when we are having those good times, it's still OK to stop and look around. When we are having the bad times, you have time to stop and look around at the good things. Just like running. When you are having trouble and it's hard, its OK to walk, and stop and look at the view. Just the same as the fun parts of the trail. Just stop and enjoy it. Life is like that. And in the end, a run, no matter how hard or easy; just makes everything so much better.
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| Towers Road - one of the hills |
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| View of Horsetooth Reservoir from approximately mile 2 |
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| Riley and I at approximately mile 2, unfortunately I wasn't smiling here in the picture. But I was happy I made it to this point, but the hill was certainly not my favorite. Wearing my new MySoxyFeet jacket for the first time, and my compression leggings (thankfully). |
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