Twelve Hundred Thirty-One

 

January 25, 2021

7.82 Miles in 1:26:09

Mood: Look at these door handles! 

Soundtrack: Phoebe Bridgers "Punisher"

Every time I think I am running out of things to photograph at Southglenn for the blog, I notice something like the doors at the boutique "Carlas" being made out of metallic animal horns. These are excellent door handles, and I am thankful for them because it gives me something interesting to post when my run was good but far from interesting. I ran around in circles to get exercise and Pokeballs, and I managed to get both, so it was a win. I felt like I was running at a decent pace, but that was clearly not true as I couldn't even get under 11 minutes per mile which means that at one point in my run I was passed by a slug. I was so slow, but I regret nothing. 

Twelve Hundred Thirty

 

January 23, 2021

8.00 Miles in 1:20:33

Mood: Lucky
Soundtrack: The Wallflowers "Bringing Down the Horse"

I barely left Wash Park on this run, taking only one small diversion into a neighborhood for a single block, but I got very lucky. Lucky in this situation refers to the giant eyeball sitting on a brick fence post which looked just as weird in real life as it does in this photo. If you know anything about me, it's that I love things such as unexplained giant eyeballs on fence posts. It's definitely my kind of thing, so to barely leave the well trodden path and still get this photo for the blog felt extremely fortunate. 

Twelve Hundred Twenty-Nine

 

January 21, 2021

7.76 Miles in 1:21:40

Mood: Sad
Soundtrack: The Head and The Heart "The Head and The Heart"

My favorite tree in the world has been cut down, and I am sad. I called it the wizard tree and I have taken a LOT of pictures of this tree starting on December 5, 2014.  I have taken pictures of things in it's mouth, last summer I removed about 50 toys that someone had started placing all over it because I didn't like the way it made my favorite tree look trashy. I have pointed the tree out to others whenever I'm with them near it. I loved that tree, probably more than I really realized until today when I ran past it and saw that it was gone. It hit me like a punch to the gut. It's silly to get emotionally devastated by the removal of a tree, but I was. I was legitimately sad. My tree is gone. This photo is it's stump. This stump makes me sad.

I saw the perpetrators of the tree removal. There was a crew that was on the trail with like three trucks and tree cutting equipment. It looks like they are removing a LOT of trees. I'm guessing that thus far they have felled maybe 20, and it looks like more are on the chopping block. I'm sure there is a good reason for this, but since I don't know it I was thinking of them as tree murderers, and I did not like them as I ran past. Honestly, this whole section of trail feels WAY different with so many large trees being removed. It makes me sad, even if it's likely necessary for some reason. 

I will get over this and eventually I may even be okay with losing the wizard tree, but today I am bummed. 

Twelve Hundred Twenty-Eight

 

January 19, 2021

6.89 Miles in 1:13:22

Mood: Splitting my time.
Soundtrack: Phoebe Bridgers "Punisher"

I split this run into two sections. The first half of the run was spent running in circles at Southglenn, and the second half was spent on the Highline Canal. It was pretty chilly this morning, but both halves were enjoyable, and in between I stopped and took a picture of this silly bit of art outside of the Goodson Rec Center. I think that's an "Eye, Love, U" It's more than just a little cheesy.  I also had a thought that this would be my last run during the Trump administration, which felt nice. 

Twelve Hundred Twenty-Seven

 

January 17, 2021

7.87 Miles in 1:20:46

Mood: Wandering all over the place and then appreciating fun architecture
Soundtrack: TV on the Radio "Dear Science"

I didn't have the concentration to just run in circles around Wash Park, so I found myself wandering all over the park and adjacent areas, and then I took a detour through the Bonnie Brae neighborhood. Today's photo is of one of the super cool homes in that neighborhood. I think I could start an Instagram feed that is just cool looking houses found in Bonnie Brae. There are so many really interesting pieces of architecture with people living in them in this neighborhood. It's fun to run through just to see cool and unusual houses. 

Twelve Hundred Twenty-Six

 

January 14, 2021

7.74 Miles in 1:21:49

Mood: Wandering far afield
Soundtrack: Reply All and TBTL and The Mediocre Show

I didn't have a plan on where to go, so I just started migrating west. I went a good long way west, and then decided to head far too far south, and I ended up having run about 6 miles and I was still over 3 miles away from home, and I was pretty tired. So I walked a lot of the last bit home, and ended up a little bit late for work. Oops! I definitely went further than I should have.

Before I went too far out of my way, I found these crazy bushes. (Pictured above) They are very thick, and crazy wavy, and they look like something a Hobbit would nurture. I really liked these massive bushes. 

Twelve Hundred Twenty-Five

 

January 12, 2021

7.15 Miles in 1:16:18

Mood: Let's run around in circles on this beautiful morning. 
Soundtrack: Family and Friends "Felix Culpa"

I often run around Southglenn to avoid ice and snow build up. As you can see by the photo above, that was not the case today. Compare how warm and inviting Tuesday morning was compared to my Wash Park photo from two days ago! The snow is melting and we are experiencing a January warmup. Temps might even break 60 degrees tomorrow! Of course, it's still the dead of winter, so more snow and cold is coming, but I'll take the nice days when they show up.

I spent this nice day running in my snow day spot because I wanted to beef up my Pokemon Go supplies, of course. Running in circles around this shopping center is a surefire way to get a lot of useful stuff very quickly! So it was a successful morning both in that I got some exercise, and I loaded up on my silly video game. Win-win!

Twelve Hundred Twenty-Four

 

January 10, 2021

7.46 Miles in 1:20:27

Mood: Ice is slippery, let's not fall on it.
Soundtrack: The Avett Brothers "Live: Vol 2" and "Live: Vol 3"

It snowed all day Saturday, which was fine, as I spent the whole day watching playoff football, but I'm not sure I was emotionally prepared for how icy and snowpacked Wash Park was. I tried running around the paved street inside the park on my first run, and it was like running on an ice rink. I slipped several times, never dangerously, but that just makes things so much less fun when the whole time you're worrying about falling on your butt. Then I realized that the gravel track on the edge of the park had snow on it, but that it hadn't solidified into ice, and was extremely good for running. I spent my final two laps feeling much more sure footed, even as the snow began to lightly fall on me towards the end of the run. Oddly, it felt MUCH warmer than my Friday run when the sun was out. I felt pretty great once I figured out how to avoid the slippery parts. 

Twelve Hundred Twenty-Three

 

January 8, 2021

7.40 Miles in 1:17:55

Mood: Cold and Happy
Soundtrack: Father John Misty "I Love You, Honeybear"

What a beautiful Friday morning this was! It was a little chilly, but the sun was out and made me feel frozen but happy. I decided to run much further north than I usually do, and ended up on this stretch of Quincy Road as seen above which looked really cool with the fence and the trees and the sun and whatnot. I'm fairly certain I had never run on this path before, which is not something I can say too often when I start a run from home, as much like Johnny Cash, when it comes to the five mile radius circling my home, I've been everywhere, man. So it was nice to see something new, even if I was a block of ice as I saw it.

Twelve Hundred Twenty-Two

 

January 6, 2021

6.62 Miles in 1:11:40

Mood: Oh no! Santa! (Then, Oh no! Democracy!)

Soundtrack: TBTL

This Santa has pretty much lost his head. This might be disturbing to me if it wasn't so funny looking. 

What was disturbing is that just a couple of hours after I took this picture, a bunch of yahoos stormed the Nation's capital building in a bit of light insurrection. This run was definitely the highlight of my day, as I spent the rest of the day pondering just how bonkers our country is right now.

Twelve Hundred Twenty-One

 

January 3, 2021

7.25 Miles in 1:15:31

Mood: Good Omens don't exist.
Soundtrack: Modest Mouse "Strangers to Ourselves"

I did two laps around Wash Park, and broke it up with a detour towards the Bonnie Brae neighborhood to mix things up a bit. That detour led me to this horse decoration, which I took to be a good omen for the final Broncos game of the season. (It wasn't, the Broncos lost.)

Twelve Hundred Twenty

 

January 1, 2021

8.81 Miles in 1:31:36

Mood: New Year and the vibes are feeling good.
Soundtrack: Counting Crows "Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings" and "Films About Ghosts"

2021 couldn't come quick enough after the dumpster fire that was 2020. It's first day was a glorious warm day which I spent hopping from park to park to Downtown and back. Nearly nine miles later I was tired and sweaty, but feeling good about the New Year. Running through cool places is always fun.