My family and I went up to the high country outside of Payson, AZ for our ward camp out. We had a good time. There were 10 of us; me, my wife, my 6 kids, my sister, and my dog. I slept on the hard ground inside the tent. Because I wasn't stinky enough from wearing the same clothes for two days, sweating constantly, and being around smoky campfires, I went on a run. We had everything packed up and went down to the lake. It was 5 and three quarter miles to the main road. When I left I told my wife to wait 30 minutes, then come and get me. That was around 12:30pm. Hot. As I was driving down to the lake I was scoping out the run. It was truly "down" to the lake. I was thinking, "I have to run back up all this?" Garmin told me that I started out at an elevation of 7110. The first two miles was a 300 foot climb (2.84%.) I did it in just over 20 minutes. Not too bad methinks. The next 0.75 miles was a 180 foot climb (4.54%.) That slowed me down considerably. Apart from the hills of the first three miles, I was already sore from sleeping on the ground all night. But after that, the hills weren't as pronounced. I started feeling pretty good. I got up to 600 feet higher than than the 7110, but there were a lot of rolling hills, so the net elevation change was probably closer to 700 feet. A couple of ladies in my ward complimented me on my genetically huge calves as they drove by. That made my day. I really expected my wife to get to me before I reached the main road, but I guess I'm too fast. I turned around to go see if I could borrow a phone from a guy parked in his jeep. But he was talking on it. Then my HPG leader drove by. I asked if I could use his. I guess my wife thought that she would catch up to me sooner, too, so she was freaking out. But she said she was almost there. Time - 59:22 (avg. pace 10:17) Splits - 1 mile - 9:34 - taking it nice and easy. I was worried the altitude might kill me.
2 mile - 10:47 - trying not to eat too much dust from passing cars and ATV's. 3 mile - 11:38 - the steepest portion of the run, but the sun went behind the clouds. 4 mile - 10:13 - I stopped at 3.25, GU'd it up, and drank a large portion of my Gatorade. 5 mile - 10:04 - heard some loud thunder cracks. 0.78 mile - 7:08 (9:10 avg.) - a very enjoyable run.
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