1:44:26. Today was a good day to run by time and not distance. It was so hot at 6AM I just couldn't face it ... so I talked Dean into driving up to Mt. Lemmon (9,157 ft). We drove up to about 8,000 ft and tried a 4 mile loop that we had seen on a topo map. OUCH. It was way steep on the front side - the backside portion of the loop wasn't as bad, but lot's of "ankle grabbers". I would say it is sort of like Dry Creek Trail in Salt Lake, but with a lot more tree roots and rocks and a little longer distance-wise on the uphill. It took 50 mins to run 4 miles. I was going to do 3 loops, but I knew that wouldn't be feasible (or smart) - my legs were already super tired with one loop, I would have fallen for sure after doing even one more time. So, after we finished the one loop I ran up the road from the trailhead and found a dirt road that wound up (and I do mean up -- about City Creek Canyon steep but at 8,000 ft) for about 3 miles. It took me 28 mins to get up and at liitle over 20 mins to get back down!
It was still hot up there, but over 20 degrees cooler - and it was nice to see some pine forest. At about 4000 ft it gets hot again and the flora turns back to saguaro again ... it is a fun drive (about 1.5 hours from our house).
The neatest thing was that I ran (not literally) into a local trail runner up there - I have followed her blog for a while so when I saw her, I recognized her right away. The Tucson trail runners were doing a 16 mile run, she had been out for 4 hours already and still had 1.5 miles to go. Trail running is not fast, but it is really good conditioning and man it is hard! My mileage may be a little lower this week, but I got a really good workout in today.
Happy Sunday bloggers!
| 