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Running 50 Miles for Fun and Firefighters

Believe it or not, there are people who think a marathon is short. There are people who love to run ridiculously long distances on a regular basis – 20 miles, 30, 50, even 100! I admit, I am not one of them. For me, a four or five mile run is just right. But I know a few crazies who revel in the “ultra” lifestyle.

One of them in our area is Janice O’Grady, a 60-something retired attorney from Conifer who looks 20 years younger. Her cheeks are pink, her eyes are bright, her step is spry, and I attribute it to her active lifestyle. Going out for a 20-mile run in a windstorm is no problem for her, though her porcelain doll beauty doesn’t hint to such inner steel.

“I’ve been running ultras since 1987,” she says. “I’ve done 110 of them now.”

In 2010, Janice pioneered a 50K (30.1 miles) and 50-mile trail run down in Pine to raise money for the North Fork Volunteer Fire Department. She started the race simply because “there was a need. When we moved here from California, I discovered that there weren’t any true Front Range mountain ultras. There was really a need and I knew how to do it so I did it!”

The first North Fork Trail Race attracted 110 ultra-runners. Last year, 150 people ran, and this June 30, she’s adding the Evergreen Chorale as a beneficiary and expecting 175 runners, coming in from all over the United States and even Italy.

“It’s an amazing number that are just local – Conifer and Evergreen,” Janice says. “We also see a bunch from Colorado Springs, Boulder, and all over the Denver metro area.”  Janice says the race is getting close to full, so sign up soon if you want to do it, at northfork50.com.

Volunteers Needed

Don’t want to run 30 or 50 miles? Completely understandable! Volunteers are also needed – to set up the course, give out water, help at the aid station at the halfway point, set up the BBQ, help with parking, register runners and more. Volunteers get a T-shirt with the race logo, all they care to eat at the l barbecue, and a day of fun and inspiration.  Please email northfork50@live.com to volunteer.

The Course

The North Fork Trail Race is run entirely on trails in the beautiful Buffalo Creek Recreation Area in the Pike National Forest. It starts and finishes at Pine Valley Ranch Park.  The course is hilly and it is very challenging for those who are not experienced mountain trail runners, but speedsters who are used to altitude enjoy the course.  The friendly aid stations, beautiful scenery and generous time limits make North Fork an excellent choice for a first trail ultramarathon. Runners get unique finisher awards, a high-quality gender-specific tech shirt, and a fabulous post-race barbecue.

North Fork Volunteer Fire Department

The North Fork Volunteer Fire Department protects the area where the race is run.  These firefighters have valiantly battled a number of fires in recent years that have changed the landscape. Learn more about them at www.northforkfire.org/.

The course winds through some of the burn areas, as well as through pristine forests of ponderosa and lodgepole pines dotted with fields of wildflowers.  It is 100% trails, mostly single track and some double track, with mostly good footing, at altitude ranging from 6,700 to 8,100 feet.  Elevation gain is about  4,500 feet for 50K and 7,200 feet for 50 miles.

Evergreen Chorale

Part of this year’s proceeds will also go to the Evergreen Chorale, members of which will be volunteering on race day.  Janice has appeared in a number of their theatrical and choral productions, most recently in a leading role in the musical Quilters. Learn about the Chorale at www.evergreenchorale.org/.

Contact Janice for more info about how you can get involved in the North Fork ultra race, at (303) 903-3533 or northfork50@live.com.

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Fire in the Back Yard

Yesterday I got an urgent text message in my cellphone through Reverse 911 that 100 homes were being evacuated near Pleasant Park Road in Conifer because of a wildfire.

Fire plume
View of the plume from a Kittredge hilltop

A fire? In CONIFER?? This is the sort of story I’m supposed to watch on 9News, riveted by the orange flames licking the edges of some distant canyon, not a few miles down Rte. 73 near the homes of a number of my friends. My husband and I ran outside and watched, openmouthed, as a giant plume of smoke billowed across the sparkling blue sky.

A few minutes later I discovered there was a second fire along Grapevine Road in Idledale, perhaps two miles away as the crow flies from our Kittredge house. I had driven right past that spot just two days earlier. Suddenly I felt incredibly vulnerable.

Natural Disasters

Everywhere that I have ever lived, there has been some sort of natural disaster to be wary of. Back east, where I lived two blocks from the Long Island Sound, we worried about floods, windstorms, and the torrential downpours that edged hurricanes. When I lived in Puerto Rico, a block from the ocean, we were also afraid of hurricanes, and a volcano erupted on the island of Montserrat. My husband lived in Tornado Alley for a while. I have felt the earth shake under my feet during an earthquake.

When we moved to Colorado, we thought we had found a home that didn’t seem to be a victim of Mother Nature’s irrational outbursts. No tornadoes, no earthquakes, certainly no hurricanes. But how wrong we were. Mother Nature is so erratic here – flooding us one season, parching us the next. (And of course, last year we did have a deviant earthquake.) We are at the mercy of the rain, the snow, the mercury – seesawing between abundance and famine. Those 330 days of sunshine a year that attracted us are also a curse!

As the fire rages in Conifer, a number of my friends have fled their homes, and many others live in the fire’s path. Friends and family from back east, who have seen our fire on the national news, call and email asking if we are OK.

A Fire Plan

Our family spent dinnertime tonight creating a fire plan. We prioritized what needed to be done if the Reverse 911 call came in about a fire in OUR neighborhood. Get US out safely, of course. Also the cats, important papers, hard drives, Grandpa’s violin, Great-Grandfather’s Revolutionary war epaulets, family photos, what else?

Our lovely cedar-and-stone house sits at the edge of 40 acres of beautiful ponderosa pines. There’s some comfort in the fire hydrant that sits at the edge of the front yard, but less comfort in the pine boughs you can reach from the back deck. Forget about “defensible space” — we chose this house because of the woods. We love the smell of the pine in the air, especially on windy days. But today, as I look at those pine trees, I see a threat.

So I’ll call my insurance company tomorrow, make sure I’m covered in case of fire, post the Family Fire Plan on the bulletin board — and pray I never need to use it. And then I’ll go help make sandwiches to help feed the firefighters in Conifer, and pray they get those flames stamped out soon.

Stay safe.

— The Hammster