Spring Sunday: Trail Running the Jud Wiebe

10 May Spring Sunday: Trail Running the Jud Wiebe

Waiting for spring in the Rockies is like waiting for a child to emerge out of puberty. An adult one day; a child the next. Sun one day; snow the next. If you wait for things to even out, you’ll go crazy. It can take years for children to find themselves, and weather in the Rockies is notoriously unpredictable. Snow falls every month in mountains as grand as these.

So what’s an eager trail runner to do? Where I grew up, in Baltimore, flowers bloomed in early March and hot, sticky weather routinely adhered your shirt to your back by May. I expect warm weather in spring, not snow. Yet it was also Baltimore. We had one trail, and it was flat, railroad flat (it was actually made out of an old railroad bed) and only stretched for a mile in either direction. I’m not planning on moving back there anytime soon.

Where the Dirt Begins

The best thing I can do therefore is to quit my belly aching and get running. I start with the Jud Wiebe at the end of April, knowing that with its south-facing slopes, at least the western portion of the trail will be snow-free. And let me be clear. After a winter of casually skiing and not running, and a two-week spring break, where I mostly lounged on the beaches in Hawaii, I am not “running” up-hill. I am doing my best to speed-hike up the hill rising out of Aspen Street and not puke. There are two dudes far below me on the trail, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let them pass me. Out of curiosity, I put a clock on my total dirt time. 55 minutes. Ouch. I think I could hike up and run down in about 45 minutes after I just had Quincy.

I climb up the next day, determined to do better. 54 minutes. Two days later: 53. Still abysmal. All week, it hammers snow. I take the weekend off. Swear off beer for 4 days, a huge feat for me. Monday morning, I’m practically growling by the time I reach dirt. I will conquer this trail. But a funny thing happens as I start up hill. I’m so focused on my watch that I don’t even notice the herd of deer off to my left. It’s not until I’m right on top of them that they startle and take off downhill. I pause. My heart is racing so quickly, I can actually feel the blood hitting the sides of my heart. I wonder what else I’ve been missing in my quest to “beat the clock”. I take off my watch and shove it in my shorts, and start back up the hill, determined to absorb the world around me, rather than the time it takes me to move through it. I stop at the bridge where the trail crosses over the upper section of Cornet Creek. The sound of the water moving below ice is low and raspy, close to the sound, I imagine, that my own blood makes as it moves through my heart.

When I hit Oak Street, though, I can’t resist. I take a peek at my watch. 47 minutes. Faster by a whole 6 minutes. Damn. The day I thought least about moving quickly was my fastest time. Isn’t that the way the world always works? Does this mean I’m going to swear off beer? Most definitely not. Does this mean I’m going to leave my watch at home? No, it’s too much fun to race it. But it does mean that I’m going to try and take a look around every once in while. After all, isn’t that the reason that I trail run? To be in nature? And isn’t this the reason why I live in Telluride, rather than Baltimore? I love these fickle snow-filled mountains, where the weather flips back and forth within the hour, where it take months for spring to arrive. I just need to remember to see them.