Tomorrow I will be shooting the St. Patrick’s Day 5K in Highlands Ranch.  It is the first event in the Highlands Ranch Race Series and there are 800 runners signed up!  I’m looking forward to catching the action and doing my best to deliver some great photos.

I am also trying something a little bit different in terms of the usual race photography approach.  I will be setting up a booth at the race expo and displaying/selling my landscape and wildlife prints.  This will be an interesting experiment.  I realize the odds are not really in my favor.  Nobody shows up to run a 5K expecting to buy art to hang on their wall.  I do feel like it will be a good exposure opportunity, and hopefully a little bit of traction will come as a result.

Many of my photos have been taken in close proximity to the race, and I have a special series titled “That’s where I live!” with images that were taken within 9 miles of the venue.  I think people will be surprised when they see some of those.

It will also be a good learning opportunity for my kids.  They are very excited to help out, and I am tremendously grateful for that.  I made them special ID badges with our logo to wear on lanyards, so they are legit!

As part of my promo effort, I am giving away this 13×19 framed print of my Roxborough Lightning shot – which was the Grand Prize winner in last year’s calendar contest.  The runners just need to stop by the booth to enter.  No name, email, phone, or any of that junk – we’ll just write their bib number down and drop it into a hat.  I’m pretty excited about doing this, I hope it is well received!

I will also have over 40 other prints for sale.  Some are framed, the rest will be in sheet protectors.  Click on the image below to be taken to a gallery and see what I’ll be displaying.

Well, time to give this thing a go and see what happens!  If you happen to be in the area, stop by Town Center between 8-12 and say hi, we’d love to see you!

President’s Day weekend didn’t quite come together as we had hoped, and we found ourselves ‘stuck’ in Denver on a day off. Last year (link) we hit a home run with a four day trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota. After some fits and starts, bit became apparent that no such road trips were in the cards this time around.

What to do, then?

My weekend long run was checked off the list (a solid 22.5 miler), and the family was anxious to get out of the house for the day. No dog-sitter meant that our travel radius needed to be small enough to keep us to a six hour time away.

We decided to go check out the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. That name is quite a mouthful, most people shorten it to RMA or ‘the Arsenal’. The place has an interesting background. (Link….) Chemical weapons were manufactured there decades ago.

It is within spitting distance of the city and serves as an oasis of sorts for all kinds of animals. I can’t help thinking this is how the whole area must have looked a couple of hundred years ago.

I had been there before, and was excited to show the rest of the family around. It served as the perfect destination for the time we had to work with. There is a very nice visitor’s center on-site, but it was closed for the holiday. Thankfully, the rest of the park was open.

Right off the bat we spotted a juvenile bald eagle hanging out in a prairie dog colony, along with a pretty rough looking coyote.

Next up was the bison enclosure. It is a very large area that you can drive through – as long as you stay in your car…

After seeing the bison it was time to get out for a walk and stretch the legs a bit. There are several miles of hiking trails in the area that lend themselves very well to combinations of longer or shorter duration hikes. It is very easy to find that Goldilocks just-right length.

We saw a few deer, but not much else in the way of wildlife on our walk. We did go over this cool floating walkway that served as an excellent backdrop for some portrait practice with my daughters. They are growing up so fast! It is nice to be able to capture a moment in time like this once in a while.

From there is was on to prairie dog town, where the little guys were actively doing the move we have nicknamed – “popcorn”. They will crouch low to the ground before bursting fully-extended towards the sky. Then repeating the process over and over again.

My daughter caught me in a typical pose when I am photographing animals. I like to get as low to the ground as possible. Often lying still for very long stretches. At first, the animals don’t like it, but eventually they get curious and peek out to see what’s up.

A bit later on, my family discovered this bizarre scene of a dead owl tangled in a tree. First time I have seen anything like that.

After driving a little further, we came upon a frozen lake with a lot of activity. Some hawks swirled far over our heads and took turns diving at each other. Several bald eagles (eight total) congregated on the opposite side of the lake. Someone mentioned they thought some coyotes had made a kill near that spot.

We headed for home after watching the eagles for a while, making it back to our place right at the six hour mark. It was a perfect little getaway.

Photo Credit: My Wife

Since I was working on a deadline when I posted the first round of photos from the USATF Cross Country National Championships I knew I could circle back at a later time and find a few more to post.  After all, I covered almost 7 miles during the day and captured 2,300 images!

I think one word could sum up these competitors.  Intensity.  Look at the faces, and the eyes.  Running at top speed for a long distance on soft and lumpy grass is no joke.  It takes focus and immense physical reserves.

Hopefully some of these images tell that story.

Nuta Olaru takes an early lead and goes on to win the Masters Women 6K

Simon Gutierrez taking charge early in the Masters Men 8K

Elise Cranny finished first in the Junior Women 6K – with a 51 second lead.  A huge gap at this level.

Bailey Roth working for his top ten finish in the Junior Men 8K

Amy Van Alstine breaks away in the Open Women 8K.  I had so many great photos of her, it was hard to pick just one.

Joe Gray breaks from his normal mountain running routine and powers to 4th place on the high altitude flats of a golf course in Boulder, CO

This was just a preview, the remainder of the set can be seen here.