Take Me Higher

Upon arrival in Flagstaff on Saturday, I immediately wanted to drive back down to Phoenix. The weather was a rude awakening. Leaving Scottsdale, the temperature was 35/95 degrees and stepping out of the car a mere 2 hours later, it was a chilly 8/46 degrees with gusting winds making it feel just above freezing. I cursed a few times before declaring, “Flagstaff sucks” as Justin laughed at me. I really hate the wind.

The weather has improved significantly over the past few days, but I’ve still been heard declaring “Flagstaff sucks” a few more times, due to things such as the wind, lack of NHL playoffs on T.V. and our horrible internet connection; about the speed of dial up 15-20 years ago. It was a busy few days trying to pack everything up in Scottsdale, cleaning the apartment and moving up here; so it’s good to finally be settled in and getting adjusted to the altitude of 7,000 feet. (my appetite is even bigger than normal up here and I have a difficult time sleeping).

Training is continuing to progress as everything moves steadily in the right direction. I’m holding a somewhat acceptable total for my weekly mileage now and have been doing numerous double days and handling them well. Although there continues to be soreness around the surgery site, it’s responding well and the aches and pains are just part of the process. One of the last workouts I did down in Scottsdale was 2 sets of 400, 800, 400 with 2 minutes recovery. I ran 61, 2:04, 60 – 58, 2:03, 63. It was a solid workout, but I rigged up pretty bad on the last one. I didn’t think I was going to break 70! We did our first workout up at altitude on Wednesday and it went really well. It was 2 sets of 5x300m with 90 sec recovery. Being the first workout up here, we started out conservatively and worked our way down as we went:

46, 46, 45, 44.1, 43.8 – 43.8, 44.1, 43.5, 42.4, 40.7.

I was pretty happy with how easy it felt and closing out the workout fast instead of  tying up like I’ve grown accustomed to was a welcomed change!

Looks like we have a tough one on Saturday down in Sedona, so we’ll see how that goes…

There’s really not much to do up here in Flag, so it’s lucky the resort we’re staying at is pretty nice. It has an “activities center” with a pool, hot tub, basketball court, ping pong, pool tables, and mini-golf to help keep us entertained. With ice water in my veins, I stepped up and fired a hole in one on the final hole yesterday to become the mini golf champ. I’m sure I will be defending my title soon…

I’ll leave you with a view from our condo balcony as I sit outside to eat some lunch:

  - Linc