A couple months ago we drove from Tennessee to Arizona, with some fun stops along the way to see family and friends... in other words, some random events strung together toward the end of our summer travels. It was October by this point, so I suppose we hung onto summer until it was actually autumn.
First up! The Little Dog backyard race, which I was nostalgic about after missing it for three years. I haven't really been training to just RUN for long distances, despite the UTMB 100-mile finish. All of that training and racing was focused on climbing and descending mountains. Which went so well! No complaints.
But leg speed? Not a chance. So I went to the Little Dog to see some people we haven't seen in a while and mostly to run in the woods that I love so much. I honestly didn't think I would get very far and I set low expectations.
Which made every completed 4.16-mile lap a success. And it made me happy. No pressure, all enjoyment:
The little hills were so easy. Obviously my climbing legs were still intact. Running was great fun! John crewed me again (thank you so much, my sweet husband) and got a few photos. The race was earlier in October than the Big Dog championship, but the leaves were already turning pretty colors:
The low-key version of this backyard was great fun. Especially for the first 4 laps which felt easy and flew by.
Coming in from another lap, woo hoo!
John took a walk in the woods and captured a shot of one of the new (and wonderful!) bridges built by laz and friends to make the course easier. I highly approve.
Eventually my legs began wondering just how long they were expected to run today? This was not something we had trained for. I slowed down closer to my "ultra pace" and that seemed to satisfy them for the moment. That wouldn't leave much time between laps, but no worries, I was used to that concept.
Then one calf started cramping, something I've been dealing with in recent longer races and haven't figured out a solution for. With time, stretching, and short rests, I believe it would work itself out, but I didn't have extra time. So it was that the 8th yard took too long, and that was that. Thank you Sandra, here's my number:
Thank you laz for putting this on, I really enjoyed it!
After that it was time to start driving back west. It was nice having an extra day to play with, and also nice not to need much race or sleep recovery for once.
Somewhere on the journey across Tennessee, we spotted an elephant made from tires!
It was great having the chance to visit John's parents at the Beard Farm for a couple days. While we were there we helped change the angle of the ground-mount solar array (adjusted seasonally for varying sun directions). Well, John helped, I'm not sure I was useful beyond taking a couple pictures:
Well done, team!
And we squeezed in a weekend in Austin - happy to get to see some friends, however briefly. Robyn and Cathy took us on a fun hike in the hills to a spot where we could admire a pole covered in stickers. It was so nice to cap off our travels with our adventure buddies.
We returned to Colorado to pick up our travel trailer and then started south/west to Arizona. On the way we spotted a "crappy purple Scion" which is a rather obscure reference but perhaps one or two of you will get it:
Hey, we got extra lucky! The Phoenix orienteering club puts on an annual event at the Petrified Forest National Park and we have wanted to go ever since we heard about it. This year the weekend fit perfectly into our driving plans with only minor rearranging, so obviously we were in.
The weather forecast wasn't quite as perfect, but at least Saturday was beautiful and sunny. We spent 4 hours running around in all directions, and we're still rather amazed that this is possible within a National Park. Thank you, NPS!
John brought his phone along and took a bunch of pictures, so you get to follow him around for the weekend. It was a hard (but enjoyable) task paring down all his great photos to include here.
One possible way to following a drainage - John actually dropped over this ledge, while I opted to take a slightly longer (and easier) way around:
Gavin and Sue working their way over rocks, with Sharon close behind:
The highlight was the incredible amount of petrified wood of all sizes and colors. It was fantastic getting the chance to see all of this, especially when the course setter took us to some great parts of the park - thank you Ron!
Sometimes it was piles and piles of pieces:
The finish line tent on top of the hill; we had to work for the final mile, but the view from the top was great:
Tree rings now petrified into rock, so cool:
Wood chips - yep, petrified:
Sunday's forecast was for a rainstorm, but we were fortunate that it didn't start as early as we did. So we had a couple hours of entertaining running before we got wet.
Which was good, because there were more things to see!
I suspect we could continue roaming for days and keep coming across new stuff:
Petrified wood, in a wash before the rain started:
Creative placement of the controls, and the skies are getting darker:
The ground was wet from rain the night before, which actually made some of the climbs up the dunes easier:
One of the longer examples of a petrified tree:
The rain started small and slowly built, which is also what happened to the rivulets in all the waterways we were climbing around in. It turned into a truly amazing experience, watching the desert transform into a wet and muddy collection of streams. I got to see a little waterfall where there normally isn't one.
When it became harder and slower to move around because of the slick ground and mud and wet grass, it was clearly time to start back well earlier than we normally would have.
John snapped a picture of the previously-dry riverbed on the way to one his last controls:
So much petrified wood! Still incredible to look at:
John and another orienteer had seen the river (above) and figured they should cross it together. However, when they got there, the water was still working its way around a long, meandering detour and hadn't yet filled up in the spot they needed to cross - wow! Here it comes now:
He even got a short video of the river filling up:
A creek coming down the hill that John is ascending to get to the finish:
And a quick video of the creek flowing:
I came through just a bit later, easily forded the river (calf high and not moving fast), and then joined forces with another woman named Talia. We had a couple interesting creek crossings and it took some effort to slog across the long open field then up the big hill. I only wish I didn't have to pass up several controls along the way, but that was the only way to get back on time.
An incredible experience and totally worth going. Welcome back to Arizona! :)
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