By Harrison Walter
Thursday after the Leadville burro race was move-in day for the CMC cross-country team. We got to move in a few days before the regular students Also, we were again hosting camping on campus for the Leadville 100 MTB race. In addition to my teammates who were at the Silver Rush weekend, two new runners were Adaline Fulmer from Kansas and Miles Fischer from Minnesota. The first day we ran, measured and marked the camping spots, then moved into our rooms. My new room was on the second floor at the southwest corner of the residence hall overlooking the snowboard terrain park.
Friday morning we got up early and went for a team run on Hagerman Pass Road. This road starts out by Turquoise Lake west of Leadville and climbs steadily up the mountain pass. The workout was tough but I was thrilled to do very well. All my hard work over the summer had paid off. Then it was back to campus to manage the race series camping for the afternoon and evening.
On Saturday the team left early to set up the Pipeline Aid Station for the bike race. Soon the cyclists were riding through. I helped out by handing out sports gel pouches and pouring drink mixes and water into people’s cups and backpack bladders. Darren positioned me in this one spot to hand out gels to passing cyclists, but one of the volunteers scolded me to move farther back from the trail, and even physically moved me back. Of course, I didn’t react very well to this. I screamed and ran off into the trees throwing gel packets. Darren had to talk with him and asked him not to bother me, and then got me calmed back down and back to work.
Anyway, I tried not to eat too much junk food at the aid station since I didn’t want to mess up my burro race in Buena Vista the next day. Also, my dad planned for us to leave a little early to get home and rest before the race.
The team took breaks from the aid station to run. I went with the guys and the women’s team was right behind us. Adaline carried a speaker and played music while they ran. One of the songs she played was “Drift Away” by Dobie Gray. When we got back, I helped out until it was time to leave. I said bye to everyone and Nate and Brooklyn gave me their bracelets as good luck for the burro race. Then, we left for home.
However, shortly after we got onto the highway, I realized that I had lost my AirPods. This resulted in me getting mad and screaming, which annoyed my dad while he was trying to drive. He eventually stopped along the highway and looked for the AirPods in the truck, but he couldn’t find them. When he turned around and drove back to the aid station it made me even more upset. When we got there, I covered my face with my jacket because I didn’t want to see my dad come back without the AirPods. I sat in the truck and waited while he went back to the aid station to look for them. Sure enough, my dad came back with the AirPods. Then we left for real this time. On the drive home, my dad had a talk with me about how to better manage my belongings so problems like that were less likely to happen again.
We got up early that next morning and headed to Buena Vista for the burro race. Once again, I was excited as we saddled our burros and prepared for the start. The course started on Main Street and headed north of town on a road along the river. Out there a few miles it made a right turn onto a loop that eventually led back around to the road. After that, it turned right toward some tunnels. After going through the tunnels, it made a U-turn back straight back to town.
When the burros lined up, Oliver started to turn around the other direction. I tried my best to keep him facing forward, although he still turned at times. When the gun finally went off, I led Oliver down the street and made the left turn. There were times I was successful in switching from leading to driving Oliver, mainly when there were uphills. We got through the trails with no problems and made it back to the start of the loop. We turned right to go through the tunnels. Everything was good until we turned around and went back through the tunnels towards town. That’s when we ran into my dad running with Boogie. When Oliver saw Boogie going the other way, he became distracted, stopped and walked, just like in Leadville. He would not follow the burros out ahead of him. He walked when I tried leading him and then stopped when I tried to drive him. This continued until Boogie caught up with us. After that, we ran together to the finish.
After the race, we got lunch from the Buena Viking food truck and sat in the outdoor seating area. Ben met us there. He seemed a little anxious and like he had something he needed to talk about. Eventually he broke the news that he had made the decision to not go back to college due to issues with money, injury and academic life. This was total shock because he had just moved in to the dorm a couple days before this, and we’d run together in practices the past few days. Also I had been looking forward to Ben helping me as my work study aide. This news was particularly disappointing for me and my dad, and would be for my other teammates too. Although my dad told me to not talk about any of this until Ben had a chance to tell everybody himself and things were sorted out with the team.
And just like that, summer break and my first season of burro racing came to an end and I was on to cross-country season. I felt like I had a pretty good first season but with some bumps in the road. I learned a lot and in the future I hope to manage the burros better and to anticipate their cues so they don’t cause problems. I also hope to know when to switch to lead or drive depending on the terrain. I would like to continue burro racing as long as I can.
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Reading this chapter makes me think that our brains are sometimes as stubborn as burros. .