A Lucky Kind of Day

The trail linking Twin Lakes Village to Hope Pass

My old jeep had started to clunk.

It worried me. Worried me enough to bring it to the local auto repair in Frisco after already leaving it at a Leadville shop for a day. The oil was burning fast; the Leadville shop topped me off but couldn’t look further at the Jeep. As I drove it away, every dip in the mountain road elicited a thump and a thud that discouraged me. In Frisco, the prognosis was that my ball joints had play, meaning my steering could become compromised if they gave out. The mechanic, Mark, wasn’t entirely reassuring when he first texted me from the shop to “dump it and get a new car.” Not entirely an option for the next month. Meeting him later, he and I got to a place of understanding: I could keep driving the vehicle as is, but if there was anything new — sounds, feelings, anything — I was to bring it straight back for the couple grand of repairs waiting for the undercarriage.

It made me hypervigilant. Of the car. Not exactly of the keys that came with it.

One morning that same week, I scooted over to Twin Lakes, a 25-minute drive from Leadville, to do my workout for the day. Coach scheduled a 30 minute warmup, 8x3minute hard hiking up the Jeep road out of the small town to replicate race day, and a 20 minute cooldown run. This was a fun opportunity to explore the trail toward the creek crossing (which then carries runners up to Hope Pass). Then I got to experience the press and the chug of ripping up toward Mt Elbert leaving Twin Lakes aid station, 62 miles into the race.

The run started beautifully. It was a crisp morning with a surge of sun on the way to warm everything beneath her. I looked up toward Hope Pass and tears sprung up. I could remember. I remembered the excitement to climb, but the revolt of my stomach — how I had ditched that avocado wrap before the elevation gain, leaving me a little worse for wear and under-fueled. The first time I stood on that trail flashed through me — I was new to the race, there as a volunteer, and was looking at the side of those mountains for the first time. The many shades of green, striking, sparkling, streaked and scattered across the way, alluring runners and hikers to move heroically up within her slopes.

I turned back to town before reaching the creek. As I trotted, keeping my heart rate low, mosquitoes sneaked onto my shoulders, calves, and thighs. Swatting them as I could, I thought: I don’t have to be here long.

Poles in hand, I wrapped my fingers around the familiar coolness of the metal. It had been almost two years since I’ve used them but, like hopping on a bike, my body knew what to do. I tapped the ground and pressed myself forward, marveling how I could remember so quickly. Looking both ways once I reached the road, I crossed toward the Twin Lakes General Store and ran the slight uphill through town.

Again, it all roared back: the thrill of a wall of people cheering, clapping, pressing red solo cups high in the air. This was a race day highlight at Twin Lakes, especially once returning from Hope Pass on tired legs and with a fatigued, narrowing mind. The hope that actually resurfaced as the runner departed the mountain and entered this aid station was crucial.

All that hope swirling in my veins as I approached the steep drop into the town that led toward the Jeep road. Marching up the loose rock and dirt, I mentally prepared for the workout ahead of me: surge up the incline for eight minutes at a strong hiking pace, elevating my heart rate, and then coast back down in recovery. The trail dipped out onto the road, splitting together from another direction. I paused my watch. I took a deep breath. Then, I started my Coros back up and charged up the road.

The mountain smelled of pine and heat, the dryness permeating my nose and caking it’s way into the back of my throat. I had a visor pulled over my eyes and reflective sun glasses on my face, offering additional protection to the scorch of the two mile high rays. Every ten steps or so, I had to push my glasses up and made a mental note to buy some straps in town before race day.

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast, I repeated to myself. The words melted into my muscles like a warm butter in a batter, becoming a part of me. I remembered a piece of advice I read from Deena Kastor in her book, Let Your Mind Run. I began to press into the earth and imagined that with every stride uphill, the ground was pushing me back upward. This gave me momentum and lessened the mental toll of each uphill rep.

After the second eight minute power hike, I was beginning to feel myself. At that point in my training, I had trained for and run the London Marathon, trained for and completed a 12 hour treadmill run for a fundraising event, and had begun acclimating to altitude in time for a hard month of training for Leadville. I was back on trails that I’d traversed two years ago and felt less like a newbie and more like an intermediate headed toward pro. All was working in my favor.

I reached down to pat my pack, a gesture I’ve picked up along the way in trail running, to ensure my gels were still secure in my pocket. Wait, I froze as I stood at the base of the Jeep Road, ready to take my final eight minute surge: Where are my car keys?

Cortisol surged through my veins and I frantically scanned the ground at my feet. Rocks, dirt, pebbles, and bugs, but no keys.

OK, keep your cool, I coached myself, they’re somewhere on this trail. 

Keeping my head pivoted downward, I shot back up the hill for my final rep. Scanning left and right and left and right, I barley registered the timing on my watch. I was more concerned with where on the trail I had zig zagged the reps prior, where I had stopped, where my keys could have possibly dropped out of my pack. I distinctly thought, this is great mental and emotional training for race day.

After an hour of hopeless searching, going back up and down the hill, I headed back into the single track trail past town. This was where I completed my warmup — and this is where keys would be very difficult to locate. Small tufts of brush were sprinkled all along the trail, as well as areas of pressed down high green grass. Using my poles, I swept the trail, left and right, scanning like I did on the Jeep road, making my way slowly toward the creek crossing. Nothing. Along with all the nothing I found, I was swarmed by mosquitoes out for their morning blood draw and eager to see a human ripe with flesh opportunity.

After a molasses trail comb, I was back in town. I knew I couldn’t get out of this pickle alone. I needed to elicit help. The Twin Lakes General Store with its single gas pump and a sign that said, “No Public Bathroom since 1949” awaited me on the other side of the road. I crossed over and walked dejectedly up the stoop steps. Dragging my feet toward the counter, I broke into tears as soon as I started speaking.

“I lost my keys on the trail and I don’t know what to do,” I heaved, trying to keep my cool but losing every little drop of it. It had been a lonesome hour scouring on my own. I’d run into two trail runners heading up the Jeep Road and asked them to keep their eyes out for my lost keys. They had given me widened eyes and assurances that they would stay alert for me. I needed more help, though.

Bob, the owner, sprang into action. He started making calls to determine what a person needs to do if they got locked out of their car and there wasn’t a spare key in the state to get them back in. Another worker started calling local Jeep dealerships to see if a spare key could be made. I signed up immediately for AAA, something I should have done a million miles ago in my car as I traveled into Colorado from Minnesota.

A plan was made: I was to get a tow from AAA to Salida, the closest town with a Jeep dealership. There, I could get a new key programmed to my car. As I was on the phone with AAA, Bob attempted to show me how to get into my car using the break in kit. Jokes were slowly made, easing my worries, the deeper into a solution we got.

The tow truck alerted me that they would be about 90 minutes to reach me. Instead of sitting around and waiting, I decided to go back out onto the trails and keep the look going. I started with the single track toward the creek. I endured the mosquitoes once again. I came up short, again. Heading back toward the Jeep road, I found the two runners who had just returned from their six miles.

Did you find ‘em? One inquired. I shook my head and shared my big tow truck plan before heading up the road. I made two calls — one to my boss, to let her know why I wasn’t going to be able to make my coaching calls for the morning. I got voicemail.

The other call was to my coach. As soon as he answered, I started crying. All the emotion poured out and I gasped the story through the phone to him. As I walked up the hill, scanning and talking, I began to calm down. He helped give me perspective.

“I thought you were bleeding on the side of a trail!” he laughed. “This is actually a much better problem in the grand scheme of things.” I couldn’t help but agree. The tarot card I pulled that morning indicated that I would experience a loss and the way through was gratitude. Uncanny when the cards are so dead on like that.

Just as coach was beginning to tell me a self-deprecating story to connect to the humanity of the moment, one of the trail runners came surging up the hill.

“Someone found your keys!” I almost dropped my phone. Cutting my coach off, I sputtered something mixed with a yelp about good news. Just short of hanging up on him, I charged toward the runner for more information.

“A few hikers saw your key and set them on a rock at the side of the trail a quarter mile up on the right side,” he shared. “I’ll go ahead of you, but let’s find them!”

Every drop of delight my body could squeeze out surfaced. I had a map. Someone had seen my keys, even picked them up and placed them on a rock with care. The word-of-mouth on the trail had slowly made it’s way to the keys’ owner. The trail runner, whose name was Gene, exchanged numbers with me and headed down. I went painfully slowly after him, eyes on every possible rock on the right side of the trail.

Right when I was certain I missed them, my phone buzzed. It was Gene. And he found my keys! I sprinted the rest of the way toward him. As I did, he shouted, “Call the tow truck!” Thank goodness his brain was alert and working. I cancelled the truck within seconds. Once I hung up, Gene pressed my keys into my palm. More tears surfaced.

“Can I hug you?” I barely could get the words out. We embraced tightly, the older runner and I, and I felt so protected and cared for in that moment.

“You going back into town?” He asked. “Could I tempt you with a celebratory beer from the cooler?” Nothing sounded better.

The warm, inviting picnic area of town beckoned us. As the sun rose higher and the birds chirped their well-wishes, I followed Gene to the cooler of beer and his running partner. As we walked over, Gene pointed at the table of three hikers eating burgers nearby.

“They’re the ones who found your keys!”

Gratitude dripping from me, I gushed out a throng of “thank you”s and cracked open a beer to cheers them all. The runners and hikers all chatted merrily to the tune of a passing car, a call from the food truck for another order, and the crunch of people passing by on the gravel dirt road.

Turned out, the hikers were trying to get into Leadville and I had plenty of room in my old Jeep to get them there. Piling in, their massive packs on their laps and shoved into the back with all my running gear, we puttered off down the road the twenty minutes to Leadville. Windows down and not a single guard up, the three hikers and I laughed our way out of Twin Lakes.

Dropping them off at their hotel, the oldest one, a gentleman late in his 50’s or early 60s, handed me a worn, folded twenty dollar bill, “For the ride!” I tried to press it back into his hand, but he refused heartily. I waved goodbye and turned out of the lot back to my AirbnB.

Later that night, I went to BINGO with that twenty at the local Elks club in Leadville and won… three times.

Sometimes a lucky kind of day is one we're going to have.