​Growing up in Huntington Beach California in the 70’s, we had a woodburning fireplace. The logs gave out bright robust flames, and we had a screen for the sparks that sometimes shot out in tiny little explosions. Resting on the brick hearth was a metal mesh basket with a sliding lid on a long handle that my parents used to pop corn over the fire. One long weekend my cousin was with us for a Sunday night sleepover. We all four played Monopoly, drank hot chocolate (made with whole milk and Nestle Quik in a pot on the stove), and ate popped corn in front of the crackling fire. The warmth, the banter, and the joy of no school the next day all make that night one of my favorite memories.

We moved in 1980 to a home whose fireplace sported a tile hearth. We still had cozy fires, but I more clearly remember the smell of woodsmoke in the neighborhood - a smell that I associated with apples, pumpkins, Halloween and piles of raked leaves under our big willow tree. During the summer our fires were at the beach. We’d gather with friends and family around one of the many concrete firepits along the sand for a beach party on a weekend evening. We’d roast hot dogs and marshmallows. In the early days if you ran out of firewood a neighboring party would happily give you a piece of theirs. As the sun set, we’d inevitably end up bundled in a sweatshirt and pants - even thick coats and hoods as the ocean breeze could be chilly. Getting closer to the fire to warm up worked great until the wind shifted and you were enveloped in smoke. 

The nights around those fires were merry celebrations. Wind-whipped hair, bare feet dusty with sand, faces talking, laughing, looking into the fire that made their cheeks glow orange and their eyes sparkle. 

*****
Growing up close to the ocean meant I was oblivious to the other facets of fire. There was a phenomenon that occurred each year called the Santa Ana winds. The hot dry wind would blow, bringing the smell of smoke - but not fireplace smoke. This was wildfire smoke. And sometimes ash would cover the cars in the neighborhood. I was clueless as to what that might mean for the wildlife and people in the vicinity of the actual fire. The Santa Ana winds and the fires they stoked didn’t mean danger or loss - I could still associate the scent brought on the winds with special times. For me, the Santa Anas meant that fall had officially started. 

When I moved to Steamboat in the early 90’s, wildfire in Colorado wasn’t on my radar. It wasn’t until the 2000’s, living in the Front Range, that fire began to mean something very different. We experienced several smokey seasons, but the one I remember most was the High Park Fire in June 2012. We were living in Longmont at the time, and it was hot. Really hot. We didn’t have AC, and keeping the windows closed against the smoke made for a stifling indoors. Our normally exuberant dogs were in slow motion on our walks, as if we were under water, even in the early morning. They’d look at me with a question and expectation in their eyes: “Why in dog’s name were we out here? When would we go home?”

A Longmont neighbor told me about a friend’s home during the Fourmile Canyon Fire above Boulder. A story that stayed with me. The outer structure of the beautiful home survived the fire - it was built of stone. However, the intense heat of the burning flames exploded the windows; thus the fire found its way in. Sadly, the home was destroyed from the inside out. 

When I moved back to Steamboat in 2013, wildfire went off my radar again. Surely it would never threaten Steamboat itself. But things had changed. There were more fires - hotter fires. The top three largest fires in Colorado history (Cameron Peak, East Troublesome, Pine Gulch) occurred in 2020. Last year’s Lee Fire in Meeker is the fifth largest in Colorado history. And then we had the winter of 2025-2026. One of the lowest snowfalls in recorded history. Way too much of the wrong kind of history-making.

I once remember thinking how horrible it would be to live under the possibility of evacuation. And now, we are facing that very thing. We should all have a plan. A go-bag with the essential stuff (clothes, toiletries, meds). A box for the irreplaceable photos and documents. A designated place to meet up with family and/or friends. An alternate route out in case one route is closed. These are grim plans to make. But crucial.

Fire is mesmerizing, brings warmth and pleasure, gives light in the dark, cooks our food, eases us with its subtle crackling. But when it grows quickly, escaping boundaries, it is insatiable. It is an elemental force of nature, and just as wind, water and earth are a vital part of living on this planet, when these elements go unchecked, we see the incredible and awesome power of Mother Nature. Tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, mudslides, wildfires. 

It is fire that is front of mind these days. I walk under a milky sky, feel the irritation in my eyes from Utah - smoke from six hours’ drive away, smoke that first stung the lungs of my daughter. Strong stuff. I look up at the lurid orange ball that is the sun, lending an unnatural glow to the eerily silent evening.  

Resources

• Sign up for Routt County Alerts to be alerted about emergencies, weather events, evacuations, etc.
• Watch Duty app - download to your phone so you can stay on top of current fires and be notified of one in your area.
• Routt County Wildfire Mitigation Council website - mitigation tips, info on how we got here, evacuation planning guide, and a Wildfire Risk Viewer from Colorado State Forest Service. Much of Steamboat is in the red - highest risk.

​I used to think warming up before any athletic endeavor was an optional nicety if time allowed. In my twenties, my boyfriend would stretch his ski legs before hopping in the lift line, and I thought, “how novel!” When I watched other runners warming up at marathon start lines, I thought, “I’m about to run 26.2 miles, surely I will warm up along the way?”  When I ran weekly with my store manager (I worked for a sporting goods store in California before moving to Steamboat), we always had to schedule our start around his hot tub time. He told me he couldn’t head out on a run if he didn’t get everything warmed up before-hand. I thought he was a bit of a princess.

Now at 58, I know that the warm up is not novel, not optional and I am certainly not a princess. 

Moving first thing in the morning by way of a brief but thorough warm-up not only prepares me for exercise, but gives my body and brain the foundation for a good day. The variety of movements that get my legs and upper body moving and encourage circulation help not only warm my muscles in preparation for my run, but specific things like ankle circles, body weight squats and upper body figure-8s help my joints (specifically my ankles, knees, hips, shoulders and spine) move more smoothly. The increased breathing and heart rate prepare my heart and lungs for the work to follow, and the increased oxygen to my head dissipates some of the early-AM brain fog. Even if I’m heading out for a walk, or just getting right into my day, the warm-up is valuable. I’d like my body and brain on-line no matter what.

That ease into the day or exercise warm-up is key. But I’ve recently experienced a next-level warm-up that kicks my bum.

I do a weight work-out at Old Town Hot Springs twice weekly. For the past seven months I’ve sweated my way through lifting heavy (6-8 reps max per set). Results? My glutes are no longer in hiding and I can lift heavier weights than when I started. But my running hasn’t changed an iota. As I’ve written before (Salida Trail Marathon Epilogue: A Run Through Time), despite the lifting, my running is less “moving swiftly” and more concrete legs dragging a heavy load up a steep mountain. It isn’t just strength I need - and strength is defined as the ability to exert force against resistance. I need power too. Power is defined as the ability to exert force quickly, as in explosiveness. My daughter, running circles around my straight line shuffle, has power. I do not. That’s why it feels like I’m dragging an anchor the size of the Queen Mary around. I can drag it (strength) but not quickly (power). 

To that end, I decided to take a class right after my lifting session. PowerFit - the perfect choice. I showed up for my first class, and we started with the “warm-up.” Skipping (forward, backward), high knees, kick bum, side-steps, twisting lunges, etc., etc. By the time we were done I was ready to lie down on the floor for the rest of class. Unfortunately, the instructor wanted us to do more than just warm-up and nap. We did rounds of hamstring curls, lunges, single-arm rows, and a few other things my brain prefers to forget. Then we did broad jumps. I had to check my shoes - why were they stuck to the floor? It seemed I could not actually get my body off the ground. This girl had no hops. The instructor discreetly suggested I do another round of high knees instead. Then, after class, he kindly suggested a dynamic warm-up I could do on my own, incorporating several of the exercises we did in class. If I did this dynamic warm-up consistently, it should help. Several weeks later, this warm-up is still challenging, but I can see incremental improvement. And, last week, I was able to do the broad jumps!

The warm-up has become not just a way to prepare, but a way to improve. According to the instructor, power is one of the first things to go as we age. I wasn’t doing wrong by focusing on strength training, but I needed to add in training for power as well. Dynamic, quick bursts of movement such as what I get with that challenging warm-up will help balance the strength gains with more explosiveness. Although I’m still a ways out from being explosive.

My goal is to be both stronger and more powerful. Will this get me up the hill any faster? Not tomorrow. Not next month. I’m probably looking at a year from now. That might seem like a long time to see results. But think about it. I haven’t been working that dynamic power system consistently for decades. And, especially in the last decade, that system hasn’t just been waiting for me to pick back up and be right where I was in my twenties. That system has been declining. So training for power will begin to stop that decline, and even make some modest gains. Of course I will still have dreams of being able to keep my daughter in sight on a run, though the truth is I may never do that again. More important than realizing that dream is that I can still improve. I can get stronger, and maybe a little quicker. And that improvement, even just the possibility of it, is worth warming up for.