Summertime in the Old Pueblo
So far the majority of my summertime recreation plans have been foiled, due to the insane dry spell we have had and even more incredible fire danger. My hope of escaping the heat and frolicking about the peaks of the Santa Catalinas have been shutdown, but I've been making the best of it. If nothing else, if I ever decide to run Badwater, I'll have certainly logged some heat training hours. I've got my sights set on the Javelina Jundred, and I refuse to let my training slack. I even made a new training calender...maybe I'll share some pics of that in another post.
Anyways, the primary problems I seem to run into are as follows:
I feel at home on a trail. I love it when I see more animals than people. It's just what I like. So, knowing that I had 18 miles to run yesterday, and a full day of work, and no real option of getting that run done on the trail, I had a bit of a dilemma. What to do? I would already be in town for work, so I could have come up with a run around the neighborhood, including the A-mountain and Tumamoc for an extra challenge...but I had already spent 2 hours working up an incredible sweat loading and unloading straw bales for the garden. I was trying to find a way to get the miles in, but not annihilate my quads. Oh, and my garmin is currently on the fritz, so I was also trying to figure a good way to keep my distance accurately logged.
I don't know if you know this, but many schools have these things called 'tracks'. Apparently, lots of people run on them. Sometimes I use them as a form of torture with speed workouts, but other than that, I often forget that they are there. I realized, a track workout was the perfect answer. I could start around 6, be finished by about 9, I could keep track of my distance, and I could challenge myself to focus and not create excuses of why I had gone far enough before I had met my distance goal.
72 laps
72. That's how many times I would have to run around the track to get 18 miles done. 72. I got to the track, I put on my shoes, no one was there, and I started running. around 5 miles in a family of four showed up. They all walked at their own pace around the track, occasionally jogging for a bit. At about 9 miles, they left. The track was all mine again. Then a couple showed up. Same deal, walking around the track, chatting with each other, doing their own thing. 10 miles, a family of 5 shows up. 3 kids, aged probably 3, 5 and 7, that would be my best guess. The mom walked around the track, part of the time talking on the phone. The dad walked/jogged with the kids, all together, then individually, as the others would rest, then had them race some 100 meter sprints. The sun was starting to go down, and I was excited to be about 2/3 done. After 12 miles I took off my shoes and walked for a mile. Then, the sprinklers came on in the western side of the infield. This was great, because it sprayed just enough onto the track to be really refreshing. I ran 4 more miles on the track barefoot, and the last mile on the infield. 72 times I went around that circle, and I never lost track of my end goal. There wasn't any bargaining, any rationalizing why I could cut things short, just me, in my head, running around in circles.
So far the majority of my summertime recreation plans have been foiled, due to the insane dry spell we have had and even more incredible fire danger. My hope of escaping the heat and frolicking about the peaks of the Santa Catalinas have been shutdown, but I've been making the best of it. If nothing else, if I ever decide to run Badwater, I'll have certainly logged some heat training hours. I've got my sights set on the Javelina Jundred, and I refuse to let my training slack. I even made a new training calender...maybe I'll share some pics of that in another post.
Anyways, the primary problems I seem to run into are as follows:
- It's wicked hot, did I mention that? The lows have been hovering around 78-80 degrees. That doesn't even happen until about 2-3 in the morning. And then, by the time the sun is up for about an hour, it's already pushing mid 80's/low 90s by 6:30 am.
- I really prefer to run on trails, but the trails are very hot, and exposed. If I want to run them at night when it is slightly cooler, I have to worry about the wildlife. Based on all the scat I've seen during my early morning shorter trail runs, the mountain lions are doing really well in my neighborhood. This makes me happy, but it doesn't have me chomping at the bit to go solo, at night, on their turf just to run in weather that is a few degrees cooler.
- I can't just go for a run around my neighborhood on sidewalks and such, because I live in the desert. Literally. Same wildlife issues. Plus, nighttime is when all the critters come out, rattlers, mountain lions, coyotes, etc. I don't really want to get bit/stalked/eaten. Just not on my to-do list.
- I could bike into town to run around a neighborhood, but please refer to #2.
- Managing my shorter runs is not as difficult as my long runs. My short runs are covered largely by my commute to and from work. Its the long ones that are tough. If I wait for it to cool off, its dark.
I feel at home on a trail. I love it when I see more animals than people. It's just what I like. So, knowing that I had 18 miles to run yesterday, and a full day of work, and no real option of getting that run done on the trail, I had a bit of a dilemma. What to do? I would already be in town for work, so I could have come up with a run around the neighborhood, including the A-mountain and Tumamoc for an extra challenge...but I had already spent 2 hours working up an incredible sweat loading and unloading straw bales for the garden. I was trying to find a way to get the miles in, but not annihilate my quads. Oh, and my garmin is currently on the fritz, so I was also trying to figure a good way to keep my distance accurately logged.
I don't know if you know this, but many schools have these things called 'tracks'. Apparently, lots of people run on them. Sometimes I use them as a form of torture with speed workouts, but other than that, I often forget that they are there. I realized, a track workout was the perfect answer. I could start around 6, be finished by about 9, I could keep track of my distance, and I could challenge myself to focus and not create excuses of why I had gone far enough before I had met my distance goal.
72 laps
72. That's how many times I would have to run around the track to get 18 miles done. 72. I got to the track, I put on my shoes, no one was there, and I started running. around 5 miles in a family of four showed up. They all walked at their own pace around the track, occasionally jogging for a bit. At about 9 miles, they left. The track was all mine again. Then a couple showed up. Same deal, walking around the track, chatting with each other, doing their own thing. 10 miles, a family of 5 shows up. 3 kids, aged probably 3, 5 and 7, that would be my best guess. The mom walked around the track, part of the time talking on the phone. The dad walked/jogged with the kids, all together, then individually, as the others would rest, then had them race some 100 meter sprints. The sun was starting to go down, and I was excited to be about 2/3 done. After 12 miles I took off my shoes and walked for a mile. Then, the sprinklers came on in the western side of the infield. This was great, because it sprayed just enough onto the track to be really refreshing. I ran 4 more miles on the track barefoot, and the last mile on the infield. 72 times I went around that circle, and I never lost track of my end goal. There wasn't any bargaining, any rationalizing why I could cut things short, just me, in my head, running around in circles.
Ha Ha! I tend to forget about our local tracks too, but I know I should probably head there for speedwork some day. But 18 miles on a track? Whew!!!! You are definitely tough! Now that you've done that, I guess you could enter one of those 24 hr runs that they do on tracks! By the way...which track did you go to? Is that PCC?
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