Dispatches From The Field 1-21-11

What an amazing day for a run. The weather was great, with the temperature comfortable and the skies clear. I had a 9 mile run scheduled for today. The instructions were for rolling hills and a moderate pace. Increase the pace in the last 2 miles. That sounded like a great excuse to get off road.

There is a small group of hills on the west side of town where a series of test holes were blasted for mining. Not sure what they were looking for, but its not far from my daughter's school and it's a fun little run. The blast line is only three miles long, so I did that out and back for the first six miles and then circled up the wash behind the hill for the other three.



Top of the hill on the way out.

If you haven't seen ultra runner Anton Krupicka's blog, Riding the Wind, you owe it to yourself to take a look. He regularly posts his weekly workouts which are just this side of superhuman. One of his regular runs is to the top of Green Mountain in the Boulder area and the pictures he takes of the mountain are amazing. There is a video of Tony running on Green at the bottom of this blog if you want to see him in action.

I bring up Tony's blog because I have a real envy of the trees. With the exception of a couple years, I have lived in the Las Vegas area for the majority of my life since 1986 and I have to say that if there is one thing that really bums me from time to time, it's the lack of big trees.

There is a beauty to the high desert too though. The open space, the quality of the sky when it's clear and you get away from the valley floor. It's very peaceful. Running today, it was just a sense of open space.


Looking out toward the Strip. The pyramid is the Luxor Hotel with
Mandalay Bay being the gold buildings to the right of the Luxor.

 I was reflecting today on what a wonderful place this is to train in for triathlon. There are some really good facilities here for swimming and Lake Mead is close enough that you can get out there and get some swim time in without it becoming an all-day adventure.

The bike riding here in the city can be a full-contact sport, but if you plan it out, you can ride away from traffic with some reasonable success and there are definitely places where you can get out and go for a while.

Finally, it is deceptively hilly here. As Frank Shorter once said, "hills are speed work in disguise". There is just not a whole lot that is flat here and I think (I hope) that fact lends to the creation of stronger, more fit athletes. After all, the full Silverman event here is supposed to be one of the toughest Ironman length events anywhere.

End of the road. The last test drill is behind me as I look back.

I'm rambling. The day was beautiful today and it just felt great to go run with the sun on my face. I hope you had fun today too.

1:44:23 - 9.02 miles