On Monday, I ran 6x400 at 7:15 pace. I did okay with only 200 meters of recovery between each rep, except I needed a full 400 between rep 3 & 4 to catch my breath. Wednesday was a tempo run at 8:45. That pace felt fairly easy, so I'll bump it up by 5 seconds next week. Thursday was a nice easy run, although I almost stepped on a snake on the path. I didn't stick around to see what kind it was, but I'm going to assume it was a rattlesnake, or possibly a cobra. I'm going to think a little bit about whether or not it's a good idea to take wilderness paths in the middle of the night versus sticking to roads or the track.
Saturday, I was up at 4:00 to meet up with a couple of guys from the ward to run Mt. Wrightson, which is the tallest peak in southern Arizona. We got to the trailhead about 5:30, then waited until there was a a little more light at 6:00 before heading up the trail. There are a few trails up the mountain, but we took the steepest route, a trail that goes from 5400' to 9400' over 6.2 miles. It's a really rocky trail, too, so it's a difficult hike, much less a run.
I was doing okay for the first couple of miles, but then I needed to walk a bit to catch my breath. I ran some more, walked some more, and by the last 2 miles I was spent. I was already resigned to hiking the last 2 miles, but there were some stretches where I felt like I didn't even have the strength to lift my legs up anymore. Carlos, who is 12 years my senior but is like half my weight and is also a machine, beat me to the top by about half an hour. Jon, who's probably 12 years younger than I am but is also half my weight, beat me by only a few minutes. Even though I hiked the last two miles, it was so rocky and so steep that I wasn't really going any slower than if I had been running. All I was doing was moving my legs up and down less.
It was very clear from the trip up that I'm sorely lacking in a couple of things, one being hill running ability and the other being lung ability. I definitely need to get better at those. The view from the top was really something, although I couldn't hang around and enjoy it since Jon and Carlos were already heading back down. You can see every mountain range in southern Arizona from there and well into Mexico, too.
The 6.2 miles back down was exhilarating but challenging. Because the trail was so rocky, you've got to have perfect concentration to keep from biting it. The fatigue in my legs made it that much harder, too, because my legs weren't lifting as high off the ground as I thought they were. I caught my foot on a rock a couple of times and thought I was going down for sure, but miraculously got my foot under me in time.
Now that it's over, I'm really sore and stiff. When I first started doing long runs, I felt sore like this, but it hasn't been like this for a long time. I'm more sore today than I was after running the marathon, and in more places. My quads are sore, of course, but I'm also really sore in my glutes and my lower back. I also rolled my left foot a few times on the rocks, so that's kind of hurting too. My schedule has me doing intervals tomorrow, but I'm going to have to see if I'm even capable of moving tomorrow.
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4 comments:
This sounds all too familiar. You'll probably be really sore for at least a couple days, if not all week.
Hey, do you know of any good Thanksgiving weekend runs in AZ, besides the Mesa Turkey Trot, which is no longer good?
My stake has a 5k on November 15th. That's not quite Thanksgiving, but promises to be a real barnburner, I'm sure.
From what I can find, it appears that there are 4 races on Thanksgiving.
Mesa: link
ARR 10 mile/5k in Peoria: link
5k cross country in Tucson: link
Or, a 10k and 5k in Anthem: link
The Tucson 5k is in a park, but made into cross-country with the addition of hay bales and water jumps and things. Fun for some, but not a real cross country race like a trail race or anything. They do give away turkeys and pies to the winners
There's also a 5k in Tucson on Saturday: link
I don't know anything about any of those races, but I want to do one of them. I want to get in a few 5ks as time trials before the end of the year, and the stake one will be a bust for that if it's not a properly measured course. I don't particularly want to do the cross-country one in Tucson either since it's not a "straight" 5k, so I'll either wait until Saturday to do the other one in Tucson, or drive to Phoenix for one of the others.
So, if you end up signing up for any of these, let me know, because I might drive up for one.
Shane,
What's the story with the Mesa Turkey Trot? I've never done it, but some of my cousins are doing it this year. Is it not good in a "if you never went before, you won't know the difference and won't care" kind of way, or in a "no self-respecting runner should be there" kind of way?
It's so big now, that it's lost all the personal touches that made it fun in the beginning. The certificates you get for beating the turkey are lame. The crowds are massive, and the course is hot and boring. You run along traffic on asphalt. It was in the 80's last year, and I nearly died of heat stroke. Tons of people who didn't make it to the starting line just "joined in" further down the course.
The appeal is gone for me. I'd find a smaller race with a more scenic course if you can.
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