Happy Birthday Josey

NEWS FLASH! Josey is 4 years old today!!!!!

Three years ago today, my dog Josey, entered my life. Josey is hands down my best friend, number one adventure partner, a trusty companion no matter what challenge we are faced with, and quite frankly the love of my life. To celebrate three amazing years with my girl, here is a brief, photo dominated montage history of my dear pup.

This is the first picture I ever took of Josey:

It took forever to name her. A solid week if I remember correctly. Some amazing suggestions like "JAWS" "Nono" "Leaveit" and "Sunday" surfaced via the power of Facebook but finally it was decided that Josey should be her name. The true story of Josey's name is that for about the first year I was adamant that it be spelled Joesy. A phonetic spelling made sense to me. It didn't to pretty everyone else. So eventually I resigned to Joesy being called Josey and often Josie as well. She's also Jawsie, and Dozer, and Josey Bear and so forth... in the long run she doesn't care what the hell her name is so long as she gets food when its called.

The first couple months with Josey were a little rough:

As pictured here, she was a master at making quality messes if left with the proper materials in reach... she could open the door to the bed room, jump the fence, and empty bags of potting soil with grace. Apart from the messes, Josey's finest moment of early stage debauchery came the day she decided to chew open and consume a large portion of a value-sized bottle of ibuprofen. At that moment, Josey appreciated from a $99 pound dog to a $2000 medical marvel. Outside of being massively expensive, those couple days in doggy ER were scary!


But after a while, she settled in...

...and eventually made it to through her first year!

Now Joes is the quite simply the coolest dog in the world!

I kid you not, I wake up everyday and love her more. This mildly feral res dog is top notch: she can run all day, doesn't get cold easily, is super tolerant, patient, a major trooper, and is pretty much open to trying anything within reason. On top of that, she's a well traveled pup at this juncture too! Josey and I hit the trails running most days, we backpack in the summer, are taking up backcountry skiing this winter... she hangs at the crag like a pro and road trips with little complaint... 

Josey, Happy Birthday! 

Love,

Your Crazy Dog Lady Mom

Field Work

A couple months ago I met with a professor at CSU named Stewart Breck after hearing that he had given a presentation on Urban Coyote Conflicts to the student chapter of The Wildlife Society (TWS). I had really wanted to attend the talk but Josey and I had agility classes going on at the time so he agreed to meet with me after the fact to pick his brain about things I could start doing to gain experience while I earn my undergrad in Wildlife Biology.

Stewart pointed me in the direction of a camera study project in Fort Collins' Pineridge Natural Area. A set of 6 wildlife cameras had been set up in this area to help a 6th grade science class at Boltz Middle School here in Fort Collins with their unit on ecology. The project's funding was coming to an end for the professor and undergrad students at CSU and TWS was looking to take on the project, but needed someone to act as a project manager - BAM! Really psyched to have been named the chair of the TWS camera study committee. 

One of the camera boxes in Pineridge

Things are winding down with the study at the moment, but I've had my first exposure sorting the photos from the cameras, helping out teaching the kids at Boltz and best of all, early last week Joes and I got to go into the field on an awesome snowy Colorado day to take down all the cameras for the year - MY FIRST DAY OF FIELD WORK. As Joes and I trudged around the natural area collecting the cameras I had this overwhelming sense of total satisfaction. It was massively fun and I can hardly express how excited I am to have found this path. 

I'll certainly be writing more about the camera study in the future, and will try to remember a camera for the next field work day. In the mean time, check out some of the cool photos we captured!

A family of 4 Bobcats running at the camera

Bobcat caught a Prairie Dog

Coyotes

Trainwreck

Before I talk about the Trainwreck I think I need to rewind to this moment:

This is me right after finishing the Moab Trail Marathon on Nov 2nd in Moab, UT. While in this moment I might look smashed all I could think about was how awesome the race had gone. I got 5th place after pushing and throughly enjoying myself running up and down dessert trails and slick rock. I ate a few quesadilla moments after this photo and immediately started craving the next adventure.

Beers and delicious food were had that evening at the Moab Brewery with my friend and fellow Moab Marathon companion, Claire. We were both on an incredible high from the amazing views and terrain we had covered that day; plans began to hatch. While Claire and I have since decided to tackle the Rim2Rim2Rim, Teton Crest Trail and Wonderland Trail together next year (WAY more to come on Claire and these adventures in the future), I was antsy to get my first 50mile trail run under my belt. 

I had planned on doing the Run Rabbit Run 50 miler in September but floods conspired with exhaustion nixing the possibility. While missing the Run Rabbit Run was a blessing in disguise, I still had the itch and it had only increase after Moab.

While scouring the interweb world of long trail running race calenders, I was absolutely thrilled to find the single coolest and most perfect sounding inaugural 50 miler. I knew instantly that it was going to be my chance to do a 50 this year and signed up on the spot.

Enter the Trainwreck: I was planning on being in Chicago for Thanksgiving with my family so the Trainwreck 50's convenient location in the Northern Unit of Kettle Moraine State Park near Greenbush, WI with a Dec 1st running date was perfect. Furthermore, this laid back race had a free entry (with an option to buy an awesome $13 race shirt if one desired), a potluck post race and nothing but good times promised. BOOM.

The Trainwreck was all I could possibly have hoped for in my first 50 mile race and more. My mom, despite thinking me totally insane, volunteered to drive up to the race with me and provide support on course as it was a primarily self-supported event.  She was so awesome to have around. Every time I saw her on trail I got a burst of energy and immense feeling of gratitude. My mom brought me around all over the place as a kid when I raced bicycles and think at 16yrs old I didn't appreciate her efforts as much as I should have. Having her around was the best feeling and allowed me to let her know how much her support means to me - It would have been very challenging to get enough food and water on course without her support. Plus it was just plain fun having her around!

Me and my Mama

The people I got to meet and run with where also some of the nicest people I've ever met. To start, the event organizers, Dan and Heather, were two of the coolest people I've met. They set this event up out of pure love for running long distances in the woods. The spectacular rolling course led runners up and down moraine ridges on the Ice Age Trial all day long on relatively secluded trails - its was sooooo fun. Dan and Heather arranged a great cabin to be available for the start/finish, an awesome potluck with great chili, beer and apple pie, and even prizes for finishers! Plus long-sleeve t-shirts and cool decals.

Fantastic people: Race Directors Heather and Dan ran 20 miles of course before hustling back to welcome finishers.

Me and fellow runner Matt on course decked out in blaze orange to ward off hunters.

On course I got to run the first 17miles with 50K runners Matt and Jenny - two great people who made the first couple hours of headlamp running in the dark fly by. Matt knew the trails well and was a great help navigating the dark hours. I was really happy to share their company. Additionally, an amazing lady named Amanda and her husband Cory volunteered to set up an aid station at mile 17 complete with nutella/banana sandwiches and words of inspiration. So cool.

So awesome: Amanda and Cory volunteered to set up aid station for Trainwreck runners. 

Words of inspiration from Amanda plastered to my arm mid-run.

In terms of the actual run I was shocked to feel pretty much really good for the duration of the run. I anticipated cracking and slowing tremendously near the end but as luck would have it there was no problem running strong and totally psyched all the way to the finish. In fact I felt almost better at the finish than I did at the start. I could definietly tell I've gotten used to running mostly up and down mountains here in Colorado so the rolling terrain with longer flat sections was a big change and left me sore in new places. All good though and I was happy to finish in about 9:30 including stops and chats with my mom. 

In summary: running rules.

Reason

I guess a little deeper background as to "why?" is in order. There are more reasons than I can express, but I'll address a few points specifically:

1. This summer was a whirl wind. I did a lot. A LOT. Too much in fact. I never thought I'd hear my self say that but it's a fact. Next to doing a lot I spent 5 weeks working the single most exhausting job of my life. The exhaustion of the summer left me destroyed come September and led me to think of quality over quantity; setting my sights on accomplishing the specific things that interest me, not everything in the world that interests me! 

2. I've found the perfect companion that is just excited about - and capable off - attempting 3 big adventures that I'm over the moon excited about: Rim to Rim to Rim of the Grand Canyon, the Teton Crest Trail (inmy favorite place in the world) and the Wonderland trail circumnavigating Mt. Rainier. More about my companion soon...

As for why I am keeping a blog to track the adventures: Mainly, I enjoy writing; Secondly, I also think that the point of sport is to inspire each other to reach now heights, see new things and share the joy of movement and exploration so what better way to do this than words and photos on the interwebs?

Getting Ready for 2014

Thanksgiving and the holidays in general always start to get me antsy and excited for the coming new year. 

While its not over quite yet, 2013 has been an amazing turning point in life. I started back to school in January studying Wildlife Biology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO and could not be more pleased with my decision. School has been challenging and awesome - its great to get the brain ticking over and I'm incredibly happy with my major, my teachers, classes and future.

School has also presented me with the opportunity for boundless exploration and quality time playing in the mountains. I started adventuring further this year running, climbing, backpacking and skiing around Colorado, most of Western USA and a little bit in Scotland and Italy while visiting my family. For 2014 I'm going to fully dedicate my self to on exploration, learning and discovery. 

What better way to do this than creating a bucket list, tracking the adventures and getting after it!