Week 10

September 1 - September 6

Tuesday: 4-mile run with Craig
Start Time: 7:00 pm
Starting Temperature: 90 degrees
Post-run fuel: water
Notes: Not much noteworthy.

Wednesday: A 3-mile Papago trail run sandwiched between 5 miles before the run and 1 mile after.
Start Time: 5:00 pm
Starting Temperature: 100 degrees
Post-run fuel: mozzarella sticks and strawberry beer
Notes: Brought some of my West Valley buddies down to Tempe for a trail run. Sadly, we are not established enough in this area to get buy-one-get-one free pitchers, but we made do. I was feeling, to put it mildly, quite crappy after this run. Luckily the company made up for it.

Thursday: 4-mile run
Start Time: 6 pm
Starting Temperature: 100 degrees
Post-run fuel: water
Notes: nothing noteworthy

Saturday: 9-mile run around the lake
Start Time: 6 pm
Starting Temperature: 98 degrees
Post-run fuel: I do not recall
Notes: Second attempt at running a full loop around the lake. I did a little better this time, but arrived at a metal fence. I had already come so far and did not want to backtrack. So, of course, I attempted to climb the fence. As I scaled the thing and reached the top, my hand hit wire, cutting my poor hand open. So I went back down the fence. Then I noticed if I walked an extra 15 feet, the fence ended and I could go around it. Oops.

Sunday: 19 miles up the cross-cut, back down the greenbelt, and finishing at Lizbeth's
Start Time: 5 am
Starting Temperature: 81 degrees
Post-run fuel: Pure deliciousness - Belgian waffles, fruit, and bacon
Notes: A few years ago, Craig and I went on a hike. I wrote a poem about it.
If you decide not to read the poem, just know that it was a rough hike and the places that were supposed to have water, didn't. So we purified some stagnant water (aka pond scum) just in case we didn't come across any better water. By the end of the hike, we were drinking the purified pond scum. We survived.

Why do I share this story? So that the following story seems a little less disgusting.
First of all, running 19 miles in the heat is tough. It's just really hard to carry that much water. So I wear a camelbak and put a gatorade bottle in the backpack. This is not enough. I passed one place at around the halfway point to fill up water. Still, this was not enough. You might think finding water at the halfway point would be perfect. Except the second half of a 19 mile run is not as easy as the first half, especially when the sun is now baking my body with every step. So when I got to a park about 3 miles from Lizbeth's, I expected to see a water fountain. I'm sure there was one somewhere, but I didn't see anything after a quick run through and didn't feel like going on a hunt for a water fountain. So I trucked onward. I wasn't far. By mile 17, I had no water left. My mouth was feeling sticky from dryness. I COULD have made it the last 2 miles without water. But then I passed a plastic disposable water bottle on the sidewalk. It was opened, but full. I stopped. I thought about the worst case scenario (poison water?) and decided it was unlikely. I sniffed the water - it didn't smell like poison, or vodka, for that matter - and took a sip. I swallowed the water with mixed feelings of guilt and relief. Then I finished my run.

Still alive Laura and her blistered toes.