That's What She Said: Running, randomly

Training and entertaining ourselves - some pictures of what we've been up to recently around southern Arizona.

While poking around on some of the lower Catalina peaks we found another ammo can with a little robot. I wonder how many of these guys are up in the mountains:

We've had fun off-trail exploring this winter (staying out of the Bighorn closure area, of course):

Ooooh, there's snow higher up and especially on the north side, that's good to know!

So it's not a surprise that some of the creeks are flowing, yay! In other areas of the country it would not be news that there is moving water. In Tucson it means that it's time to check out the normally-dry creek beds and waterfalls.

Sometimes (well, a lot of times) I don't realize just how many saguaros there are around here. Until I look at my pictures later:

So many that they are coming out of our ears!

Tanque Verde creek is rushing over rocks right now:

Even the Santa Cruz wash occasionally sees rain runoff - I just happened to catch it slowly moving toward me after a downpour (it was dry again not long later):

Driving out to an orienteering meet west of Phoenix, I captured this pretty sunrise image in the side mirror:

Admiring the sticker-covered dinosaur near our charging station in Gila Bend:

I signed up for the Black Canyon 100k just in case I (again) needed a qualifier for Western States. Good news - Gordy Ainsley pulled my name from the lottery bucket! I get to run after trying for 10 years to get in!

Black Canyon is still an excellent training race. It can be good heat training too, but not this year. With rain and snow in the forecast, we headed north of Phoenix to see what would happen.

The inside of our "Winnebunko" AirBnB travel trailer - just the right size for us and a comfortable pre/post race place to sleep:

The race start was delayed 2 hours, I assume to make sure the roads were cleared off from the previous night precipitation. We hung out in the truck (with heat, kettle, breakfast food, WiFi) until it was time to walk to the starting line. It sure was a pretty - and somewhat chilly - morning!

Finally we're off:

I've decided this race is a combination of an easy half marathon plus a moderately tough 50-miler. Except this year the "easy" part wasn't quite so much. As soon as we reached the trails, we discovered a bunch of mud. Slippery mud. There wasn't anything to do but find a way through. Hey, at least it wasn't still raining.

It was more work than normal for a few miles. Then almost immediately after the first aid station the trails dried up. Phew! Back to running like normal. Thank you desert.

John met me at Bumble Bee aid station after the first section, thanks John! I quickly moved out to get started on the next part of the course:

It helped having seen the course before, although the miles before Black Canyon City were still long and slow. The next big aid station was moved to a new location and John got a photo of all the room available now (plus some dark clouds that threatened but didn't drop anything):

I felt a bit worked over coming into the aid station, but at least this year we weren't overly hot. I'm still wearing long sleeves and tights because I didn't see any reason to take them off:

Plus it will be getting dark and cold soon. It felt like I was running 2 hours late compared to my previous time here. I had to keep reminding myself that the race started that much later.

My main goal was to maintain a consistent, moderate effort. Never let up, never surrender.

The river crossings had plenty of water in them this year. Not so much as to feel challenging, just no way to avoid wet feet. Lower leg cramps started up like usual so I had to be careful with foot placements on the river rocks. I still haven't found a solution for that. And they still eventually go away if I run long enough.

John took a lovely picture of the moon at sunset:

I was really happy to (mostly) know the last miles of the course and to keep a steady pace/effort through all the climbs and runnable sections. It was fun to pass a few people here and there, just for kicks and internal motivation.

Crossing the finish line within 1 minute of my prior finish time (I tried but couldn't quite beat it):

Very happy with the effort! A picture with the finisher awards (that I didn't take home because we live in a small space):

Thank you Aravaipa, y'all put on excellent races!

Here's a random picture - I took our truck to the Rivian service center in Phoenix for some routine maintenance and they got me a rental car for a couple days. I asked Enterprise if they might have an EV option? They told me they had a Nissan Leaf but it wasn't taken out very often. I would like that one please.

Even having owned one before, I still had to refer to the user manual multiple times to figure things out. Not the most intuitive of vehicles (and with more limited charging options). I still prefer the Chevy Bolt when given a choice. That's OK, we made it work, and the range is way better now compared to the 2012 version we had (it was our "starter EV" back in California). Charging and using WiFi at the library for a couple hours:

Back in Tucson (and happily back with our truck), I made it over to Saguaro National Park East one day to run on the fun trail network over there. Wow, there is still a ton of snow up high in the mountains around here: