When I ran The Frescale half- marathon in February I checked out the Expo. There was a booth there for a race called the Durango Double. Durango looked like a beautiful place to check out, but I thought who in their right mind would do two long races back to back. I thought good luck selling this idea guys. That seems like an eternity ago now after over a 1,000 miles of trail.  For some reason I had kept a flyer from the booth so I dug it out and signed up. My thinking was I'd be crazy to pass this up. There were several options to make for the double. The double is a trail run on Saturday and a road run on Sunday. The shortest option was a 25K trail run and a half marathon. The longest was 50K plus the marathon. I choose the 25k and the marathon. The morning of the trail run was absolutely perfect. The temp. at start was around 37 degrees and it didn't get above 60. The trail was varied the whole way, but quite a bit of rock. The trail run begins&nb sp;at the community rec. center. You run a little less then a quarter mile down paved trail and then cross the Animas river on a footbridge. The bridge was slick from the morning frost. I wasn't in Texas anymore. After you cross the bridge the first major climb begins. It is about a three mile climb over the first ridge. I told myself this is going to be a fun finish when we come back down this ridge. The thing about the ridges is that the switchbacks aren't pronounced so you got some pretty severe grades. After the first ridge the course got flatter and we went through this meadow area that was gorgeous. It was here of course that I fell. Nothing more than embarassing,but it led to a funny moment at one of the aid stations. As I came up to the station this kid sees me covered in dirt and he says,"You must of been running really fast to fall like that".  I said thanks and took off af my blazing 11 to 12 minute mile pace. The second ridge was called telegraph hill. It was a lot like H. O. L. just steeper and shorter. The downside of this ridge was the most grueling of the run. When I got back to 1st ridge again I knew I was home free. I knew I had the marathon tomorrow but I was feeling really great so I decided to try and finish really strong. It was the best downhill I have ever run. I actually ran in the last two and a half miles.  I passed four to five people. My pace was still overall really slow but those last miles were a rush. The best part was my son being at the finish handing out the finisher medals   The marathon was awesome except, of course, it was on road. There were aid stations every mile and the volunteers were dressd up like the 50's. I joked with them that I was jogging so slow I had gone back in time. The marathon starts at the college campus. I was worried we were going to have to run in cold rain. It had rained all night,but it never rained during the race. It was a little cold for my liking at the start.  We started up on an exposed ridge,and it was 35 degrees. After abouut a one mile mild climb you run down a preety good grade for about two miles . The course is then flat until mile seventeen. The major part of the marathon is one long streched out oval loop. The bizarre part is you actually run by the finish area at around mile 6. Then you run out to the north of town and back in. My legs felt good but there was no juice after mile 11, it became a slow trot to the finish. I had hoped to maintain an 11 minute mile but ended up averaging a 12:30 pace. At the finish there was micro brew from one of the local brew pubs. Durango has some great brew pubs. There are also lots of outfitter stores. The mountain bike store is really worth checking out. One thing to keep in mind if you are going to eat out get there early or you will wait a LONG time. The finshers award for doublers are hand painted plates. They had put half marathon on mine. Don't know what the mix up wa s but they are sending me a correct version. I really do recommend this weekend race. If you are going to do one road marathon a year this is a good way to combine it with a great trail race. If you want,the 50k trail run and half marathon is one of the options. That would be more time on trail and less on road. That may be what I do next year. For those interested in times 3:27:44 for the 25k and 5:32:18 for the marathon. Yes it is possible to be that slow and still move forward. I had a really great time.