City Running Tour of Denver

As I mentioned last week, I went to Denver for a work conference. I wanted to see the city and run but I had very little time.

So I decided to do a personalized running tour:

You choose how far you want to run, which areas and sights you would like to see, and then we customize a run specifically for you…We run at your pace, provide water, and even bring along a camera in case you’d like to capture the moment or the sights.
At the end of the run, our running guide will …provide you with a souvenir goody bag with other keepsakes to help your remember your run through the city.

These runs are perfect if you are a tourist looking to explore a new city, training for a race and interested in a running partner, or a business traveler eager to fit in a run and looking to avoid the hotel treadmill. We work with you to recommend specific routes that cater to exactly the kind of run and experience you are looking for.

So my original plan was to get to my hotel in Greenwood Village, south of Denver and then check into the conference. They were giving us 10 tickets for the light rail so I planned to use one to get to Union Station in downtown Denver to meet Melissa and start my Denver “running tour.”

My flight was scheduled to arrive at 12:40 pm and the tour at 4:00 pm. Plenty of time, right?

And as with many best laid plans, things could go wrong.

Remember how my flight to Palm Springs in March was cancelled and I missed my 5k race. Well, this time, I was stuck in the Baltimore airport for 7 hours. Instead of arriving in Denver at 12:40 pm, I arrived around 6:30 pm.

Yep, I missed my running tour!!!

Luckily City Running Tours was very accommodating and offered to let me re-schedule. The problem was WHEN?? I was in Denver to go to a law technology conference, not to go running.

So I looked at Saturday’s sessions and decided that I could miss them and they re-scheduled my running tour for 9am on Saturday with Marty, instead of Melissa.

I was very disappointed not to run on Wednesday. I hadn’t run since Saturday and all I did at the conference was eat breakfast, go to a workshop, eat, go to a workshop, eat lunch, go to a workshop, eat, go to a workshop, eat, go to a workshop, eat, go to a workshop, eat dinner. Yes, they fed us a lot and mostly sugar and carbs.

After 2 days of that, I searched out a place to walk on Friday evening. I found a park with some walking paths not far from the hotel. It was very isolated and many coyote warnings so I didn’t stay long. It was very pretty and just what I needed in terms of exercise.

The next morning, I was very anxious for my run. I had breakfast in the hotel and then walked to the nearby light rail station. The ride took about 30 minutes. I arrived about 15 minutes early and Marty wasn’t there yet.

It turned out that he was waiting at the train station not the light rail station but we eventually found each other.

I was a little nervous about the pace. It was very hot and I wasn’t used to this altitude. But my young tour guide said he was getting over PF and was glad to go at my pace.

So for the next hour and 1/2 or so, we ran, chatted about running, stopped for water at each Starbucks and for many photo ops. Marty talked about all the important sights in Denver as we passed by them. It was so fascinating.

Here are some of the sites:

And I loved the city of Denver. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to visit it while there for a conference. It was kinda good that I was leaving later that day or I may have been tempted to return instead of attending my conference workshops.

We ended the tour near where we began. Marty told me to get something to eat and drink because it was included. So we went to a coffee shop in the train station and I had a iced decaf vanilla latte and a chocolate croissant.

Since I still had an hour before I had to catch my train back to the hotel, I decided to retrace some of my steps and run some more.

So my trip to Denver started off on a bad foot but certainly ended on a high note.

A 4 mile run to see the highlights of Downtown Denver was definitely worth it to me. If you have the opportunity to take a City Running Tour, I would highly recommend it.

The only negative was that there was no souvenir goody bag but that’s ok. I have enough tee shirts!

I’m linking this post up with Tara at Running n’ Reading for her Weekend Update!

Happy Running! Anyone take a “City Running Tour?”