Friends to Get Down and Dirty With

As you may have noticed, we tend to play kind of hard. This can often make finding folks who share your idea of fun rather difficult. But there are always exceptions and Cody "I'm just a pacer!" Zurhellen is one of them. He is a "yes man" in the most positive sense of the phrase. No matter how bad of an idea I may have, he's always game.
Often his exploits are some foolish thing I have talked him into, but it now seems he may share my disease and has gone about seeking torture of his own accord. This past week he decided to take on the local "Trail that can't be Concord" trail race. Perhaps he underestimated the course.

"At first glance this course looks like a groomed greenway with gently rolling hills. That's not the case. What seems like a dinky little ridge can be turned into a monster when the trails are snaked up and down, over and over, like an endless game of chutes and ladders. (With one helluva ladder at mile 6.)"

Cody Zurhellen, Co-captain of The Dutch Oven Nightmares Racing Team

For this torturous 8.5 mile course, Mr. Zurhellen clocked a very respectable 1hr37min time. Not only was this event his first trail race, it was one of his first trail runs period. Not too shabby. 
The overall win went to local speed demon Brian Williams in a time of 1hr13min. This makes for back to back overall wins for Mr. Williams in the local trail racing series.
I'm sorry that I missed this race, but sometimes it's nice to just sit back and let your friends be fools for once. 

Adventures in Locations Beyond: Grand Canyon

I cannot get over how lucky I am. I just returned home from an amazing 2 week trip to the Grand Canyon. I went to "The Big Ditch" to attend National Park Service Fundamentals II, which is probably one of the coolest “corporate” training programs in the entire world. Not only is it staged at the Grand Canyon, but it is lead by amazing park staff and gives you the opportunity to meet 50 some-odd park service employees from all over the country, thereby opening up available couch space in all of the nooks and crannies of America.

Our Group Heading Down South Kaibab Trail

Enough about that...one of the coolest things about this trip was the weekend off between training days. There are a stupid amount of choices for things to do (of course), so it is difficult to pick just a couple things. That being said, I planned my run before I got to the canyon with the hopes that I was doing the right thing... and I will tell you right now, I was. I didn't expect to have any partners on this expedition, but that was a surprise that made this experience one to really cherish.

Myself, April and Elizabeth (L to R) at Mather Point

Many people are familiar with the traditional trails that leave from the Rim and travel into the canyon(that adventure was for another day), we chose to run on the Rim Trail, East towards the fairer side of our great country. It was amazing!!! What an awesome treat to have running buddies, and see more of the canyon simultaneously. We did a 5 mile out and back from Grand Canyon Village to Mather Point and the Grand Canyon Visitor Center. Of course being the self appointed geeks that we are, we stopped for our breathers in the visitor centers along the way. Running at and above 7,000 ft the entire way lead to a difficulty that was not anticipated. The good thing is, there were more than enough excuses to stop and catch your breath.

Sunset on the Canyon