ME: I’ve signed up for a 5-mile race through Poudre Canyon!
DAN: Cool! When’s the shuttle?
ME: Huh?
DAN: Are they bussing you up through the canyon? You can’t all park up there.
ME: Oh. Yeah, sure. Well the race is at 7am, and the shuttle comes at [type type type] 5:15am.

Aye yi yi.
Here’s a photo of my friend Hannah and me, looking way fresher than we felt around 6am at the starting line for the Equinox 5-mile.

Photos were difficult in the canyon as the light changed from “hazy void” to “blinding, relentless sunlight,” but below is a glimpse of our view through the Poudre Canyon.

My intention was to half walk, half run the race. Unfortunately I ran into trouble almost immediately, in the form of a shooting pain along the far outside of my right knee. I thought that stopping and stretching would help but it never did, so I ended up walking most of the race. It took around 1hr 12min, which is… fine.

I did finish the dang thing.

So did my friend Hannah, who stuck with me through my entire 5-mile shuffle. We also ran into other members of our gym at the (really quite exceptional) post-race party.