We planned a trip to Arizona during our son's last high school spring break. It started out as a visit to Grand Parents and evolved into a day trip to the Grand Canyon and further to four wheeling in Sedona. We had a busy but fabulous trip. Anyway, here are a few pictures from the trip.
Cheers!
My son and I spent the past week visiting my parents in Yuma Arizona. It's been unseasonably cold this week but still warmer than St. Louis so we haven't done much swimming though we have been in the hot tub each day. Besides going to a dinner/dance with a bunch of retires that are full of life, seeing local tourist attractions, visiting and golfing, we got a chance to hike Telegraph Pass today. It was a very nice hike and I thought I would post a few pictures instead of spamming Instragram with them. Here you go...
Selfie to start the climb :-)
Grandma likes hiking too
Josh waiting for me
View looking back before we got very high
Josh taking a break part way up.
Goof :-)
The other side of the pass
I always hike in a sweater :-)
We had a great time specially for a spur of the moment hike. If you are ever in Yuma and have a couple hours free I recommend it. It's fairly steep so bring appropriate footing, though I hiked it in Sperry boat shoes :-), plenty of water and appropriate clothing.
This is my second year doing the Lil Woods Ultra. It is a "last man standing" format where we all ran 4.1 mile loops with each loop starting at the top of the hour. So the sooner you got in from your loop, the longer you had to recover, but also get cold and tighten up. Definitely some strategy there. The loops were nice in that it let people drop when they were ready.
I didn't train for the race again this year but my mileage for this year is slightly higher than my total mileage last year so I figured I could top last year and hit 50k.
Pretty happy on the first lap :-).
The temps were in the mid forties and we had significant rain the night before making the trails the sloppiest I'd ever seen them. By the second lap, my glutes were barking about all the work they were having to do dodging puddles, and keeping me upright whiled sliding around.
Concentrating on staying vertical.
After lap two, it was obvious I wasn't going to make it eight laps. It was also obvious I have a weak core.
More concentration. :-)
Nice shot of me sighing, yep, I was about done.
I bagged it after four laps. It just wasn't my day but that's ok. It's a very well done, free race with lots a great people. I sat around for an hour afterward cheering on other runners, chatting with other racers that dropped out and eating pierogis that the race director Travis made. They were delicious!
When I got home I was curious if it was just the bad conditions or if I wasn't as well trained even though I ran 100 more miles this year than last year. What I found surprised me. I didn't remember being so much more consistent last year than this year. Check out the weekly mileage from August through December last year vs. this year.
Over 20 miles per week (except for 3 weeks) last year.
100 mile months middle year loaded in 2014
100 mile months were on the back half of the year last year.
Interesting how perception doesn't always match the graphs. The lower mileage the last three months probably explains the couple extra pounds I'm lugging around too. Maybe I'll train for real next year. Maybe...
I think this is my third (maybe fourth) time doing XLMIC's Jingle Bell Hell race (virtual version). I love the idea and love the fact that Marjorie even got to run it this year.
Anyway, I ran it this year and it was hellish :-). Not sure which run I'm actually claiming as my JBH run. I've been running local single track every Saturday and Sunday now that it's winter, hellish I know. Last weekend was so warm I ran in shorts, hellish. This weekend I couldn't find my Santa hat, hellish. It's Christmas and there isn't any snow on the ground, hellish.
Anyway, here are a few recent trail pics.
Lots of drab single track this time of year. Bring on the snow.
My favorite hat...
Back seat of my car. More trail junk is in my trunk :-)
Thanks for the virtual hosting of JBH XL, maybe some day I'll mange to be out your way to run it in person.
I took the week off running after the marathon last weekend. My first run in a week was today and started off with a bit of a scare. I figured I would go out for an easy six miles, but less than a half mile in I had sharp knee pain below my knee cap on my right knee. I figured my six mile run just turned in to a one mile walk but decided I would walk a bit and give it another shot. After a minute, no change. After a couple minutes, I started running again and no pain :-). After about five miles I was feeling strangely fatigued. I guess I'm still healing.
Gorgeous fall day.
I love fall. Pumpkin pie, crisp running weather, football and cooking squash.
For the cookout today, I made some home made veggie burgers, regular cheeseburgers, spaghetti squash and acorn squash.
For the spaghetti squash, I put butter, salt and fresh oregano on them, wrapped in foil and put in the coals on the grill. For the acorn squash, it was butter and brown sugar, wrapped in foil and on the coals.
For the veggie burgers, I followed this recipe and they turned out good.
Veggie burgers
Real burgers
Spaghetti squash
Acorn squash
Oh, and I signed up for an ultra December 27th. This is the same one I did last year. It fills up quick since it's free. Shoot me a note if you want the link.
We took the train from Alton Illinois to Chicago on Friday so we wouldn't have to mess with a car in Chicago. They were doing track maintenance between Alton and Springfield so we had to leave our house at 5 am and they bussed us up to Springfield. I swear the bus driver took every back road imaginable and it took forever. Turns out we could have driven to Springfield and gotten two more hours of sleep. Live and learn :-).
Arrived in Chicago, got some lunch at a pub across the street, went to the expo then we met a college buddy of mine and his girlfriend for some dinner. It was delicious and a great time catching up as always.
Saturday DW and our boy went to the Shed Aquarium while I did a two mile shake out run and met a friend and his family for brunch. Once DW and our boy came back from the aquarium, we did an architectural boat tour. Perfect way to do something cool while staying off my feet.
Lots of cool views on the boat tour
Race day I woke up at 4 am and ate yogurt and a banana, had a cup of coffee, and went back to bed. Woke back up at 5:45 for more coffee and race prep. Waking up early to eat works great for not having to hit the porta potties a bunch of times right before the race. Good thing too since the lines went on forever. Falling back asleep is surprisingly easy too.
The start line was about a mile and a half from the hotel and I didn't know how long it would take to make it through security, so I left the hotel about 6:45 am and walked to the start to make sure I was there in time for the 7:45 corral closure. I was hungry, so I probably didn't eat enough at 4 am, lesson learned. I was well hydrated and the porta potty lines were so long I decided to hold it and stop on the course. It was 50 degrees with a 15 mph wind at the start and I get cold easily. I had a throw away jacket over a short sleeve shirt and under armor plus gloves and a head wrap for my ears plus shorts. I brought two of those chemical hand warmers so I was all set. I also had two of those space blankets as back up and gave those to the first two people I saw that were wearing shorts and tank tops and shivering uncontrollably. They were very grateful to say the least.
Moving toward the starting line
Just a few people behind me in the start corral
Once our wave started, it took almost 15 minutes to cross the start line and we were under way. The first 5k was uneventful. Just warming up, dodging people and keeping my heart rate in check. I drank two cups of Gatorade and two cups of water at the aid station (and every aid station until sometime after mile 15). More of the same on the next 5k except I made the first of three hydration relief stops. I was definitely well hydrated :-). I just focused on keeping my hr under 155, staying hydrated and enjoying the race with lots of high fives. Had my second stop about mile 10 and decided I didn't want to stop every 5 miles or this was going to be a really long race but I wanted to keep hydrating, so I did.
About mile 15 I let my heart rate rise a little to work toward a negative split, but not too high since there was still a long way to go. I ran without tunes and just enjoyed the crowd. I thought the racers would start thinning by mile 18 or so, but they really didn't. I managed to hold off on pit stop number three until mile 21. With five miles left, my feet and calves were starting to hurt, but that's to be expected.
Can't remember what mile this was.
The last few miles, my calves felt like were about to cramp, so I kept drinking Gatorade and focused on keeping moving. I knew that if I started walking, it would be tough to get running again, so I kept running. The crowd support was great all day and really picked up the last two miles. I hadn't seen my family all day so it was nice to hear them cheering for me with about a mile to go. The last mile hurt, but I was happy to be running it in.
Once I crossed the finish line, it was a slow walk through the line for a space blanket, medal, banana, food, water and beer. It was too crowded to meet up with my family, so we met back at the hotel. I walked back to the hotel without too much trouble, showered then we went out for lunch.
The numbers:
Chicago Marathon official numbers:
| Split | Time Of Day | Time | Diff | min/mile | miles/h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 05K | 08:46:05AM | 00:33:05 | 33:05 | 10:39 | 5.64 |
| 10K | 09:22:02AM | 01:09:02 | 35:57 | 11:35 | 5.19 |
| 15K | 09:53:27AM | 01:40:27 | 31:25 | 10:07 | 5.94 |
| 20K | 10:28:27AM | 02:15:27 | 35:00 | 11:16 | 5.33 |
| HALF | 10:35:32AM | 02:22:32 | 07:05 | 10:25 | 5.77 |
| 25K | 11:00:09AM | 02:47:09 | 24:37 | 10:09 | 5.91 |
| 30K | 11:32:47AM | 03:19:47 | 32:38 | 10:31 | 5.71 |
| 35K | 12:06:23PM | 03:53:23 | 33:36 | 10:49 | 5.55 |
| 40K | 12:38:12PM | 04:25:12 | 31:49 | 10:15 | 5.86 |
| Finish | 12:51:59PM | 04:38:59 | 13:47 | 10:07 | 5.94 |
You can see the pits stops at 10k, 20k and 35k affected my time. You can also tell the lines got shorter each time. Having two pit stops in the first half and one I he second helped me negative split by about 4 minutes. My last 5k split was my third fastest of the day and my speed for the last 2.2k matched my fastest split for the day. I'd say I nailed my pacing for my current level of fitness.
My Garmin got confused in a few spots by the tall buildings and said I ran 27 miles. Looking at my Garmin map, it's clear I didn't run that far though I'm sure I ran farther than 26.2 due to dodging people, not always being able to take the best line through corners and veering off to grab fluid. Last time I did an LT test was four years ago.
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