OT: Things we remember

Dateline: Littleton, Colo.

Per usual, the weather changed my plans. Another blizzard coats the high plains in white, so I decided to come down this afternoon. I-80 was closed from Rawlins to the Nebraska border, covering about 200 miles of road in Wyoming, but U.S. 287 was open from Laramie to the Colorado border. It's reportedly one of the deadliest highways in the country on a good day, but today it was whited out. I used the reflective sticks at the side of the road as my guide, it was so hard to figure where the road ended. It took an hour to cover the 26 miles from my house to the Colorado border.

When I crossed into the Centennial State, the sky didn't part but the roads cleared. The snow and ice clinging to the asphalt stopped at the border. Swear. The rest of the drive — the destination was Runners Roost on South Colorado Avenue in Denver — took around two hours, with a potty stop in Fort Collins. And I got close to 50 mpg, thanks to the 30 mph breeze blowing me (and several inches of snow) into Colorado.

I've taken up residence at a Fairfield Inn in Littleton on County Line Road. It's about 15 minutes from the start line, but that's not what stands out to me. As I was driving along County Line, things started looking familiar.

This was where Mun and I shared a few moments in the summer of 2005. She was the D.C.-based triathlete I signed up for Ironman Canada. She was working in Denver for an IT company when we dated for a few months that year. She discovered this bike trail that runs along C-470, a six-lane monstrosity that parallels County Line, and we did a few rides along that trail. And afterward we'd head to Wahoo's Fish Taco in some strip mall nearby. Pretty close to the perfect date, repeated several times... Hey, I'm a gentleman. That's all you're getting.

You could say I spend a lot of time living in the past. I've lived a lot of places and I love retracing my steps on occasion. It's amazing how the littlest thing triggers a flood of memories, and in this case it was taking a right turn and seeing that path. Tonight, I spent some time thinking about one of the best summers of my life (odd given the vicious north wind and horizontal snow), but realizing full well it won't happen again. I'm cool with that. Everything happens for a reason.

On to the race...