Week 5

Okay, so I have some great pictures this week. Our week started off great with a couple of light days on the trail at sunrise.

This pictures sums up all the reasons why I love running. Out on the trail, with the sun coming over the mountains (hills) everything seems so full of possibility, life, and hope. It feels great to be alive.

Light days usually consist of 5-7 miles at a pretty light pace. (Okay... so everything I run these days is at a "light" pace. No speed demons here.) We solved our running partner dilemna and roped my brother David into running with us. We are much too slow for him but he doesn't seem to mind too much, (or doesn't let on that he does.) He is just trying to get a good base under him because he wants to do an Ironman in the Spring, so it works out well.

So at the beginning of the week, all of us were feeling pretty good. How could you not with views like these?

This is the view at the top of some of the hills we run. I don't care what you say, the desert does have certain momemts of charm.

So then we got to Saturday where the fun began...and by "fun" I mean anything but.

The plan was to meet at the trail head at 4:15. We were going to do about a 4 mile loop on the road and then do another 10 on the trail when it got light enough. David was suppose to be at my house at 4:00, but slept through his alarm. I finally left my house about the time we were suppose to meet. And then we waited around the trail head for a while.

It did give us some time to shoot a couple of early morning glamor shots though.

At about 4:40 we decided David probably wasn't comin and so we started down the road. There are definitely ups and downs to street running. The upside is that their are a lot less ups. For the most part, it's pretty flat running which means you can get more miles logged in less time. And those miles can be logged before it gets light which is always a plus during the AZ summer.

The downside is that it does a number on my shins, (and my whole legs for that matter.) Plus, because the heat radiates from the asphalt... even in the wee hours of the morning, it is much hotter.

So once we finish our road loop, we refill water bottles at the car and swallow some food. At this point I had a total of 48 oz of water between my 2 water bottles. I figure this should be enough to get me through the next 10 miles, but I am a little bit worried. Melissa also has 2 water bottles although I think the are slightly smaller. About a mile in though, she stashes one of hers because she hates carrying two.

The next couple of miles pass pretty uneventfully. We even have enough energy to take some action shots.

I have decided that the camera just doesn't do justice to some of these hills. They seem so much steeper in person.


About 3 or 4 miles on the trail and we we run into David. Apparently one of the messages I left woke him up and he decide to try to catch us on the trail. That was great! But he came without WATER. So to make a long story short... we were out on the trail without enough water, way later in the morning then we wanted to be, and then Melissa lost her key (To get an account of that you can go to her blog). The combination of the 3 was less than desirable. I was still able to get in my 14+ but the last three miles were done without water and I was completely dehydrated. It was 92 degrees when I pulled out of the parking lot to go home.

We have since made some definite changes. Our first is that our loops are going to be no more than 6 miles. The second is that everyone has to carry 2 water bottles. (David may resist and only carry one. If he can survive on that..more power to him. )

I am sure this will be only one of the many adjustments we will have to make as our runs get longer and the days get hotter. So much for the desert charm.