Running with Tonks

The Valkyrie Trail Race offered lots of different distances utilizing various loops in Cheyenne Mountain State Park.  It has been on my Race Bucket List for years but the elevation gain always intimidated me.  Well after I finished the Rattler 50k in April, I thought why not?! So, I signed up for the Valkyrie 50k on May 20th.  I also signed up because there was a chance I would get a puppy after school got out and I would be off of distance running for a while.  Why not squeeze in one more challenge before summer vacation? The 50k course was big loop, little loop (soon to be known as the mud loop), big loop, little loop and little loop again.  They were very smart with their aide station placements because where they put the aide station in the big loop actually allowed runners to see it twice while out there.  Runners then ran to the aide station near the start/finish line and headed out on the little loop.                  The race trailhead is only 10 minutes from my sister's ho