Chaos and Disaster

here is your chance to find your own way. go on your own. be adventuresome. don't forever seek the easiest way. go the way you find. don't demand trail signs and sturdy bridges. don't demand we show you the mountains. see them and find them yourself. here's your chance to get lost, fall in the creek, find a beautiful place. -randy morgenson
This is what we bush whacked through

This week was my last big week of training before Run Rabbit Run and my last long run. After so many months of long run after long run it seems strange that this is the last. Not last for the year, but last of my big training. My legs have been feeling great lately and this week was no exception. I felt like I could power up every climb with little effort. Naturally I began to wonder if this meant I hadn't trained hard enough. In past years by the time tapering came around I was exhausted, completely worn down both physically and mentally. Now here I was feeling great! 

I'm hoping this means I'm really ready. I've logged more miles, more vertical and more long runs than I did last year. Hell I'm less than 300 miles from my yearly total last year! But there's always that nagging feeling that you should have done more. Well at this point if I should have done more all it is is a shoulda coulda woulda. I just have to trust my training, stay focused, healthy, rest and eat. 

After a week of great training my last run was a loop in Lost Creek with Sandra and Laurie. Sandra mapped out the route, we looked up the trail conditions, found water spots, we seriously thought we had covered everything and would have a nice easy 30 mile run. We started on the Colorado Trail at the Meadows campground. Its a pretty easy uphill from there to the Rolling Creek trailhead. When we got to RC Laurie was feeling great and decided to head back. Sandra commented that the mileage was a bit more than we had calculated and the run was looking to be closer to 34 miles. No big deal we thought, with not much vertical it should be fine. We continued to climb up the CT. It's another 6.5 miles of climbing and not an easy climb either. I somehow had put out of my mind how tough that climb can be. We finally crested the top and started heading down across the meadows. 
Brunch with Daddy

We hopped off the CT onto a couple smaller trails here Wigwam and something else. These were the ones I was most worried we would lose. But they turned out to be easy to follow and amazingly beautiful! My favorite part of the day. We cruised quickly along these flat sections and made up time quite nicely. Then we turned to head up Rolling Creek. I knew there would be some climbing, but wow it was reminiscent of climbing up Hope. It was really pretty steep, but we climbed strong and before too long were at the top. Since Laurie had agreed to get the car and come back to get us at the Rolling Creek trailhead we figured we had an easy 4-5 miles downhill. Ha...easy...yeah not so much. The top part of the trail was an old rock slide, which of course made me nervous. Monday would mark 2 years since Rob's accident and it was at the forefront of my mind. We picked our route carefully and were making decent progress when we stood at one carin with no idea where to go next.

We chose a direction and stuck to it...not that we chose the right direction though. Within minutes of making our choice we were scrambling down rocks and over dead fall. We pulled out the map but couldn't see the sign of a trail where there supposedly was one. So we kept going and we kept getting into thicker and thicker vegetation. After nearly 2 hours of going back and forth across the river, our legs shredded to bits and our minds going crazy with possible scenarios we heard a voice. We started calling out and realized we were just below the trail. We quickly popped up over a rock out crop to see an older couple staring at us like we were crazy. They kept asking if we were okay and we said yes, we had just lost the trail. I think we scared them nearly half to death, not sure if it was the surprise of two women lost in the woods or the sight of our bloody legs. 
Fun with sensory activities

It was quite the end to our training and all I can do now is hope I've done enough. I guess only time will tell. James has been doing great with communication lately. I can barely keep up with his list of signs. We still don't have James on a strict sensory diet yet, but the 'heavy work' we're having him do before he has one of his meltdowns or before eating seems to really be helping. I also notice more when he starts to seek out sensory activities and have been trying to turn it into a controlled sensory activity. James is also now full blown boy! He's kind of like a tornado that just blazes through in a glory of chaos and disaster! His favorite game is to throw his entire stack of cups down the stairs and then climb up the baby gate to watch them. He chases the dog non-stop and thankfully Seamus puts up with it pretty well. He usually just rolls his eyes at James knowing if he waits just a bit longer he'll probably get some of James' snack handed to him.The 30 seconds of attention James can give to his snacks is about the only moment of peace he allows before he goes running off hands above his head, mouth wide open screaming in joy! Then there is the occasional moment when in all the excitement of running he forgets to actually look where he's going and bounces straight off the wall. Chaos and disaster...I love life with my boys!

Week August 18 - 24

Miles Running: 64.0
Hours Hiking and Running: 13.5

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