The invite comes in from the Colorado Columbines: trail run at Green Mountain on 6/15 at 6:15; all levels welcome. Cool, right? Right. I’m in.

Grant gets home at 5:30, when traffic in Denver is, like most cities, not ideal. I run around like a mad woman, gathering my sunglasses and camera, while Amelia, my daughter, works herself up into a lather. She doesn’t want me to go. Why do I have to go? She really, really, really needs me to put her to bed tonight. Why do I never put her to bed?
I try to exit as quickly as possible, so I forget, among other things, my wallet.
Which isn’t that big of a deal—I live on the drivers-license-less edge like that—except that on C-470, a major highway, my gas light goes on.

Even though I live on the edge, I didn’t take this while driving.

I don’t know how much gas I have left in the Odyssey tank when Mr. Yellow comes on, but I’m usually close enough to home to not worry about it. This time, I’m not so good, as I don’t know how much farther I need to go. I only know I haven’t seen a sign for the exit I want yet. I try not to freak, and tell myself I’ll borrow money from my friend Katie when I get there.
So I drive and try not to freak, but I’m kind of freaking. I have visions of calling Grant, and having him load up despondent Amelia and tired Ben and a red gas can and drive 30 minutes to rescue me. I am not looking forward to that conversation. Think, think…
Sweet! I can steal from my kids!

A $9 bounty, courtesy of Amelia. (Note the map: Like I said, I didn’t know where I was going.)

We had hit a toy store with their $5 birthday gift certificate (read: a ploy to get parents to come in and spend $40) the day before, and her “wallet”–that blue box–was still on the floor of the car. Not nagging my kids to pick up their stuff can sometimes come in handy.

Phew.

This is how little gas $9 buys at a random exit on 470.

But I’m late. I took this pic before I fueled up.

Seven minutes late already, and have no idea how much later I’ll be.

I have no cell number for Katie, my contact, so I send her an e-mail. She tracks down my number, calls me, of course, while I’m in pre-paying for the gas. I call her back, tell her to just go, and that I’ll be there before seven, hopefully.
I arrive around 6:45, and head out in search of the group. I forgot to mentally process the “mountain” part of Green Mountain, and am socked with a killer climb from step one. I need a stress-relieving run, not a self-defeating crawl. So after about five minutes of lung-busting climb, I see a fairly flat trail called Box of Rocks jut off the main path. The name isn’t inviting, but the grade is.
Fortunately, the only part of my body that touches the rocks are the soles of my shoes–no wipeouts–and I have no snake sightings. I don’t meet the group, but use the run to get a grip and come back to center. Victory.

Heading home with a smile. (Yes, this was staged.)

I look much faster in that picture than I really went. I ran (painful, dry-mouthed) two miles out in more time than it takes me to run a 5k.

The Garmin never lies. (Dang it.)

But I wouldn’t be dry mouthed for long. Coming back to the parking lot, there was a tailgate going on with watermelon, perfect plums, pizza, beer, homemade granola bars, among other goodies. My kind of tailgate.

Like I said, my kind of tailgate.

Then the best part of the night started: chatting with a bunch of cool women about running and life. The green bucket is a clothing exchange; club members bring running clothes/equipment in good condition that they don’t want anymore, and anybody can take an item or two. On my rush out of the house, I forgot my stash, but a few women got some good stuff, including almost new trail shoes.

Those day-glo yellow shoes are almost new, and now they have a new owner.

All in all, not a bad outing. I wish I could’ve done the seven-mile route that about half the women did, but there’s always next time…when I’ll have a full tank, my clothes to trade, a water bottle to carry and a firm grasp of where I’m going.

Who am I kidding? I’ll settle for one of the four.

Thanks, Columbines! (And moneybags Amelia.)