1:57:43. I ran on a new path that is closer to my house than the Rillito trail -- it follows the Santa Cruz wash. It is cool that we now have 23 miles (from one end to the other) of dedicated bike/pedestrian path. I had heard that most of the 23 miles has a dirt path beside the asphalt path so I thought I would check out the portion of this closer to my house. I did notice on the map that there wasn't much water - but there was a park about 4 miles up, and I thought I could run on the Rillito for a while and hit a fountain there (supposedly at about mile 6-7). I also thought, it is fall, water is not really that big of deal. Hurumph. It was 91F when I finished, and hot, it actually was sort-of a big deal. First, I parked near the freeway and started running on the East side of the wash/river, not a great idea, as it went about 1.75 miles and then ended. Whoops. Well, there was my first ~3.5 miles (33 mins out and back). Then I ran on the "right" (West) side of the trail and hit the drinking fountain at about 1:02 into the run (not bad, except it was in the high 80s already -- and hot because wherever the dirt path is, it is not on this section of the trails - so the asphalt sucked up the sun even more, and there is not one iota of shade, not one). Anyway, it wasn't horrible, it just wasn't "comfortable" at all. I wasn't in any fear of heat stroke or dehydration, just wishing I had a little more water, and wishing super hard that it was 70, or even 80, and not 90 degrees ;-). There was a cyclist who I saw going "out" who said, "hey, you are on the wrong side of town" (I guess he had seen me on the other trail a lot). Later, we saw each other again after the turn-around and he said, "so, I guess you are a distance runner," and he slowed down and talked to me for a while. All and all, not bad, but I am not sure how often I will do long runs here -- I am looking forward to some cooling trends so the snakes will go to bed for the winter and I can have "my" trails back! This was pretty much my last "easy" long run anyway, Greg is ratcheting up the marathon training. Not miles, yet, just training. We had a long discussion last weekend in Flag and he has changed some of his training based on how his elite athletes have been training (Brett Gotcher, Stephanie Rothstein, Emily Harrison, Jordon Horn, Nick Arciniaga, and Fasil Bizuneh are all training for the Olympic Trials in the marathon). So, I have fewer weeks of long (20+ mile) runs, but more "faster" longish runs inter-dispersed - it is interesting, because my friend Merry (who is also getting ready for Houston) is coached by a different person, and they have been doing 20-milers for weeks now. Merry is faster than me (I have only beaten her at two races since moving here, and one she was recovering from the flu and one was a cross-country race -- one of my favorites). She has a much faster marathon PR than me (3:17 versus 3:30) -- so we are not really in direct competition, so it is easier for me to just enjoy the "it will be interesting to see how both of us do with respect to our goals at Houston". I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!
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