These Things Don't Go Together

These words don't go together:

1) "Michael Bolton" and "Enjoyable"

2) "Cauliflower" and "Delicious"

3) "Kids" and "Clean House"

4) "Cory" and "Boston Marathon Running Partner"

Well, on Saturday the words "Cory" and "Boston Marathon Running Partner" DID go together. Yeah, they went together like oil and water.

Here's how things went down.

I'm a member of this cool running group called Wasatch Mountain Wranglers. Most of the peeps are in northern Utah. Sometimes I like to post pictures of my sunny southern Utah runs to contrast their miserable trudge-through-snow pictures. So this northern Utah runner, Matt Clark, emailed me and said something like "Hey, me and my wife are going to be in St. George over the weekend. Want to run?" 

Me: Something like "Well, sure! My Kermit the Frog legs are still recovering from the Zion 100 last week but I think I could eek out some miles." I'd never met Matt or his wife Wendy before, and what he failed to tell me was:

1) Matt has run the Wasatch 100. (That automatically means you're seriously hardcore.)

2) Wendy is running the Boston Marathon next week. (That automatically makes means you're smoking fast.)

It's fun to show people around new trails. The Prospector Trail is one of my faves so I figured that would be a good one to show them around. I'm kind of a photography nerd so I look at things like the amount and size of clouds as the first sliver of light appears in the morning. As I was driving to the trail I knew from the clouds that we'd be in for a sweet sunrise. Within a few miles I saw that my hunch was right.

This is a great trail to hit at sunrise because as the sun starts to come up it makes these red mountains explode with light.

Now let's get back to the point of the story. I'm out on this little trail jaunt with 1) a hardcore runner who has done the Wasatch 100, and 2) a smoking fast runner who is doing Boston next week. The closest accomplishment I have to theirs is that I once at three packs of Twinkies without throwing up. So while they're looking fresh as spring tulips, I feel like I'm breathing through a straw and I'm sweating like a politician at a town hall meeting. As we were talking, my words resembled more like gasps than sentences.

At the turnaround point we took the obligatory out of focus selfie and I repressed my urge to say "Would you guys mind if I just lay here on the trail and take a nap for 20 minutes?" Of course some of this was just residual fatigue from running 100 miles a week earlier. But some of it was that they are just really good runners.

Our route back was when the true magic happened. We enjoyed the type of lighting that doesn't come around too often when the sky, the mountains, and everything around us was glowing. It was stunningly beautiful.

This story has a happy ending: I didn't die. I didn't nap or cry. It was totally fun. It's great for me to be pushed a little. It's awesome to meet new people. And it's sweet showing people around some new trails. Here are some words that DO go together: "Saturday morning trail run" and "awesome"!