It’s a good thing Colorado is so big. The Denver airport wouldn’t fit in a smaller state.

Just got back today after spending a few days visiting my daughter Rachel and her husband in Denver. They’re fine. Their dog Teddy, well, he managed to outdo the last time I visited, when he ate a bunch of current rugelach,  resulting in multiple trips to the vet and a successful attempt to make him puke it back up.

This time he and his dog buddy chased a squirrel into a pile of sticks, and he somehow managed to break a toe in his left rear foot, resulting in more vet trips and restraints to keep him from chewing the splint (again).

Why you do this to me?

Other than that, it was a very nice trip. My sister Jenn came along, and she stayed with our niece Robin (yep, my partner in ultrarunning crime) while I stayed with Rachel.

My goal in addition to visiting family was to get in some training at altitude, in preparation for the big 200 at Tahoe in June. That race starts around 6,000 feet and tops out at 9,000, so Colorado was a natural choice for some practice.  I asked Robin to pick a good place for a hike with some climb to it. And did she ever step up to that challenge.

A couple of tuneup runs in Denver and a hike in Golden all went well, so Saturday morning we drove to Manitou Springs (home to Pikes Peak). Jenn took a two-hour horseback ride through Garden of the Gods, while Robin and I had a go at the famous (infamous) Incline. This is a 2,744 step climb up the side of a mountain on an old cable car route. It ascends over 2,000 feet in less than a mile, with an average grade of 41 percent.

Ready to take on the incline! Yes, the top of the stairs is the top of yonder mountain.

Staring up from its base is like being in a Looney Tunes cartoon, where the stairs appear to have no top. They just keep going up forever. And yet people were climbing them. So I put the big picture out of mind and concentrated on one step at a time.

We took a water break around a third of the way, and then just kept slogging away. All of a sudden Robin said, “You know we’re almost at the top,” so I dared to look ahead, and she was right! A few minutes later we stood at the top, congratulating each other and taking in the view. The climb took about 45 minutes. Not bad, considering the average climb time is around 1-2 hours, and many climbers use the “bailout” trail connection about 2/3 of the way up.

We done did it!

After a snack break we headed up the Barr Trail, which goes all the way to the summit of Pikes Peak. What a beautiful trail! Literally every step could be a photo moment, whether of interesting rock formations, forest, or stunning mountain views. When we reached the snowpack we decided to turn around, and we took the trail back down to the parking lot.

Manitou Springs reminds me of Mackinaw Island, full of colorful touristy shops. We all refueled with coffee, pastries, and sandwiches at Red Dog Coffee, and then headed back to Denver to rest and chill out the rest of the weekend.

Can’t possibly walk past any coffee shop that has “Beautiful Espresso”, now can I?

I felt remarkably good and strong on that hike, which gives me confidence that my upcoming Ozark Foothills 100 (April 5, coming right up!) will go well.

And I accomplished one more big milestone. I finished my latest novel, World of the Blue Jasmine! Wrote the final scenes at Rachel’s after the hike. First draft complete, so now comes the rewrite and editorial review. Here’s my latest take at the body of my query letter:

When anthropologist Jackie Monroe is given an assignment to study the settlers of a remote, isolated planet, she knows it will be risky. Her predecessor, who died on the planet, warned her of a mysterious threat, but begged her to come anyway. And the science foundation believes the settlers are concealing something big and gives Jackie a secret mission to uncover the truth.

On the planet, Jackie becomes fascinated with the unique culture of the settlers and determines to protect it. And though she believes herself undesirable due to a war injury, she finds herself falling for a handsome settlement leader. But the threat soon manifests, and the entire settlement is in danger. To save their lives, and hers, she must overcome her guilt-ridden past and become once more the hero she desperately does not want to be.

(If you’d like to join my beta readers, or just see a sample chapter, reply to this post or email me (jeff (at) runbikethrow (dot) net, and I’ll hook you up.)