Saturday we had to run three hours for our 50K training. We took my friend Kaidree up on her route idea to meet on the north side of Eagle Road which is so far north that it actually turns into a dirt road. I barely believed that it could be possible.
For those of you not from around here, Eagle Road is probably the busiest street in the Boise/Meridian area which probably means it is the busiest street in Idaho. As the population has moved to the burbs, more and more box stores have cropped up along Eagle Road, creating a four-lane, 45 mph, crazy zoo of a road that Andy and I try and avoid like the plague. I actually prefer to order baby stuff online rather than driving out to Babies R Us on Eagle Road and dealing with the crazy traffic, parking, you name it.
So we took Kaidree’s word that Eagle Road could be used for ultra training and planned to meet Kaidree and Jen at the pavement-dirt transition around 8am, if it worked out. It turns out that it did so while we didn’t actually run with Kaidree and Jen the whole way, we saw them from time to time on the run, which was fun. It also gave us a bit of a distraction from the tedium of a three-hour run.
We did an out and back on the road, which apparently goes forever. An hour and a half after starting, we turned around to trudge through the opposite course of the way out. While the course was perfect…soft dirt, beautiful scenery, hills both steep and gradual, a wide road, we did realize that the out-and-back plays tricks on the mind and can make it feel longer than our preferred choose-your-own-adventure-type route.
We saw a few houses, a few cows, a nice stream, some barns, some dogs, two deer, a pasture of llamas, load of birds and the ubiquitous “No Trespassing” / “No Hunting” painted on an old tire and tacked to a fence post. Really people, the fact that you live in the middle of nowhere screams that you love visitors and want everyone to spend time on your land. Is it really necessary to plaster your property with “No Trespassing” signs? Andy tells me it is to keep hunters off the land, which I get…but geez, it is so unwelcoming…I guess that is the point.
Three hours and 17 miles later, we completed our training run and are probably three of very few people (five if you count Kaidree and Jen) who know the dirt side of Eagle Road.
The big news is that we booked our trip to California and signed up for the race. I am really excited and cannot wait to be sipping a foo foo drink overlooking the ocean post-race with my blistered feet soaking in the kiddie pool.
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Sounds like quite the adventure and an amazing run! Thank for sharing.
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