Week 51 Wrapup

Fairly uneventful week. The intervals and the tempo run went fine.

I didn't get a chance to do a separate hill run, so I combined the hills and the long run on Saturday. First, I ran from home up to the top of Tumamoc Hill and back. Tumamoc is the hill behind our house, and the road up it rises about 730 feet in about 1.5 miles. It's a very slight grade for the first half, then some steep switchbacks until the top.

The thing about Tumamoc Hill is that it's a haven for "hikers". At any given time that the road is open, there will be dozens of people going up and down. I'm really puzzled, because it's not a good hike. It's paved road the whole way up, so it's not like being on a trail. The desert flora isn't any different than what you see in your backyard. There's way too many people to get anything like the solitude that I would normally enjoy while walking. There's a great view of all of Tucson from the top, so that's nice, and you do get some exercise from the steep part, so that helps. But otherwise, I don't see what the appeal is. I'll run it because it's steep and close, but that's all.

What surprised me is that so many of the people I saw on Saturday were carrying water. Yeah, it's a desert, but it's three miles round trip on a paved road, and it's only 65 degrees out. Someone carrying one jug of water wasn't a big deal, but I saw a few people carrying two. I guess they thought that being loaded up like camels might get someone to mistake them for a serious hiker or something.

After the hill run, I kept going on the Santa Cruz River trail, going north past the trail end on Grant, just on the bank for a couple of more miles. Between the hill and the long run, I got 14 miles for the day, which gets me back over 25 for the week. That's a welcome improvement over the last few weeks where I always had some injury or illness setting me back.