Having a chid later in life can be an isolating experience. Having a child with special needs complicates matters even further. Friends drop off the radar, especially the ones without kids. You suddenly find yourself in another peer group, but there is a tendency of the younger parents to view you as some sort of freak, probably because their own parents are about your age. Social interaction had never been anything I thought much about before Harrison. Much of it had naturally centered on athletic activities, and a few friends in the neighborhood.
For so many of his early years, keeping Harrison busy in the summertime was a part-time job and a full-time focus. When he was young there were trips to town for day care, “Kids Club,” preschool, swim lessons, speech therapy, the county fair, rodeo and other activities. This helped him maintain social connections while school was on break. However, as Mary commuted to Pueblo for work every day, I too needed some time to myself for work and also just to breathe. As Harrison grew into a teenager many opportunities for social engagement fell by the wayside and age-appropriate activities, like a summer job, sadly were limited for him. Aside from school, running on the middle school and high school cross-country and track teams became his gateway to social connection and inclusion.
He probably never would have had a job as a teenager if a young business owner, Carla Brooks, hadn’t seen this void in his life. She offered him a part-time job at White Bird Emporium, a coffee and ice cream shop in Westcliffe. I would work on my laptop there while he scooped ice cream, made coffee drinks, ran the cash register and did basic cleaning. It was an invaluable opportunity for him, and many people came into the shop just to get an ice cream scooped by Harrison. When he wasn’t at work, I would keep Harrison active with running, bike rides, hiking, archery and chores around the ranch.
Fast forward, and now Harrison was a college runner in a summer training program. There was still very little opportunity in Westcliffe for him to work or socialize over summer break. The day’s workout was priority No. 1, and took up a considerable part of the day. This seemed justified since his scholarship was helping pay for his education.
Often we would go to the high-school track for interval workouts, or I would pace him with my bike on faster workouts in the Wet Mountain Valley. We did strength-training with the odd collection of weights and other equipment I’d accumulated in the yard. For a diversion we used Harrison’s new metalworking stills to build a fence to keep deer out of the flower garden. Day after day, he and I were basically living in our own little training camp, planning the day’s workout around the vagaries of the weather, chores and meals.
Since he’d also caught the burro-racing bug after his run at Creede, we worked some burro training into his schedule on recovery or long-run days. This worked out pretty well. I knew from experience this type of training would not necessarily make Harrison faster, but it would make him stronger and tougher, which would equate to better performances in college cross-country meets.
Oliver was running solidly again so I had Harrison focus on training with him, with sights set on the short-course races at Fairplay and Leadville, as well as Buena Vista. The last two races were a little tricky because his reporting date to CMC was the week between the two, and the Buena Vista race was also during a weekend of team activities.
Also complicating matters, a finish in the long course at Leadville would add to my consecutive string of races there. The long course is about 20 miles total and goes to the summit of Mosquito Pass at over 13,000 feet. I did not want Harrison to run the long course. While I knew Harrison could go the distance, the route seemed simply too rocky and treacherous right before his cross-country season. This meant he would have to run the short course on his own with Oliver. The short course is about 14 miles and makes a loop above timberline around Ball Mountain, also very steep and rocky. Both courses utilize the same routes up 5th Street and down through California Gulch to get to and from the higher sections.
After the camping weekend at CMC Harrison was looking for any reason to get back to Leadville to visit with friends. We decided to make a trip up there for some social interaction and also to take Oliver for a practice run on the upper part of the short course. Accompanying us on the run was fellow burro racer Bob Sweeney. We parked Bob’s truck and trailer along California Gulch near the Mineral Belt Trail. Then we drove my rig up to the top of 5th Street. This would give Harrison and Oliver a chance to preview the middle section of the course around Ball Mountain, including Alps Pass at around 11,000 feet.
Early on, Bob, Harrison and Oliver started to pull away from me. I could see them up ahead until we hit the downhill. They picked up speed and were gone. When I finally caught up to them at Bob’s trailer they had run through a brief thunderstorm and Harrison had recorded a very fast time for that section of trail. I began to wonder if he and Oliver might someday challenge the course record, but I was getting way ahead of myself.
First up was Fairplay, and the 15-miles of mostly gently rolling terrain. Harrison and Oliver quickly ran out of town ahead with the leaders. I found myself trying to get my breathing under control and followed not far back in fourth place. A couple miles out on the two-track along the South Platte River, there’s a sharp turn to the left. It was marked with a green flag but the lead runner didn’t see it, and Harrison and a third racer followed him off course. I’d run the race so many times I didn’t need a flag to know the turn. When I saw them miss the turn I yelled but they could not hear me. I stopped and yelled some more, but they continued onward up the hill. I stood there weighing the situation, wondering if they would hit the end of that road and turn around. They were soon out of earshot.
Right about then, along came Smokey Burgess, who had not been far behind us. When he saw the situation he said what I was already thinking: “I think you have to go after Harrison.” So I started after them. They eventually stopped at the end of the road. I caught up and explained that we needed to turn around and go back to the course. By the time we got back to the missed turn we’d run an extra mile, and about 20 racers had made the correct turn and now were ahead of us. Over the course of the next five miles we gradually caught and passed most of these teams. Shortly after the turnaround we were back in the thick of things, and finished the race by outrunning two other teams in an exciting sprint to the finish line, placing 4th and 5th overall — not a bad salvage operation after the wrong-turn fiasco.
Leadville was the next weekend. I was nervous about Harrison running on his own. The long course race starts first and I would likely be a couple of miles up the road by the time the short race began. I was hoping Oliver would sense Boogie up ahead and run fast up 5th Street to the Ball Mountain loop. Apparently this was how it initially went until about two miles out when Oliver started acting confused and slowed down. Harrison lost several places but continued onward, struggling to keep Oliver running. He ended up finishing 11th. Meanwhile I notched my 44th consecutive Leadville long course finish with a third place.
That week, the Leadville Herald Democrat published a front-page photo of Harrison leading the short course racers out of town. Also that week Harrison returned to CMC, reporting with the rest of the cross-country team on move-in day.
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OMG… iconic fr(om) the GOAT Burros & Beyond… honored to share this Plane(t) with you both!!! Wow!