River Running

Happy June! I spent last my Memorial Day weekend in Blythe, CA at the Wiseman's Colorado River House. Aside from the river shenanigans, I did manage to squeeze in two runs before the sun completely baked the desert. Saturday morning I woke up at 8 after a 4 a.m. bedtime (we arrived late and were up for a bit). Somehow, I managed to hydrate myself to the point that I thought it would be a good idea to go for an out-and-back up some hills. The River run has become somewhat of a tradition for me the last three years. It gives me a chance to sweat out whatever I put in my body the previous night and it's usually some scenic running. Lastly, running in 100 degree heat takes some testicular fortitude that I usually don't get to exercise in Newport Beach, where it's constantly 70 and sunny with an ocean breeze. You really have to listen to your body in a dry heat, and pay extra attention to your internal water supply, heart rate, breathing, and core temperature.

I left the house around 9 a.m. (about 75 degrees) and ran up the Blythe Intaglios dirt path. It rolls up about 300 feet over 3.5 miles out, and fortunately for my legs, it's all dirt. By the time I hit my turnaround point, the weather had jumped into the 80's, I had stopped sweating (never a good sign), and the sweat that was coming out smelt like Coors Light. Fortunately the second half of the run was all downhill, and I managed to make it back to the house without too much difficulty, and before most of our group was up. Unfortunately, I didn't have any ice or foam roller to take care of my IT bands, but made an effort to get some extra stretching in, and took a nice cold swim in the river to cap it off, followed by a heart eggs and bacon breakfast to cap it off. 7 miles, 47 minutes.

After more river shenanigans on Saturday (failed attempts at wakeboarding, swimming, a drink or two) I passed out really early, since I was running on 4 hours of sleep and decided to forgo a nap after my run. I stayed up long enough to watch the Lakers win, then passed out at 9, with the goal to get one more run in during the weekend.

Blake joined me on Sunday for the first part of my run. I took him up toward the Intaglios on the dirt trail, but the weather was already in the 90's by the time we left, and he wasn't doing so great with the heat and climb. We cut the out-and-back to 4 miles round trip, and I dropped him at the house before adding on a couple more miles. I ran my last couple miles of the run on the side of a 2-lane highway (with minimal traffic). The mile 16 marker is right near the house so I ran down up to mile 17 and flipped back, picking up the pace from the 7-8 minute race to 6:10s for the last two. I love running on the high way because you can see miles in each direction with no end in sight, kind of like the "Against the Wind" montage in Forest Gump. Despite two consecutive nights of imbibing, I somehow managed to hydrate myself sufficiently to cruise through two runs, with minimal discomfort to my IT bands. I ended up logging just over 40 minutes for the day, 6 miles, and repeated the food and warm-down routine from the previous day. Total for the week: 36 miles

I took Monday off to recouperate and also because Sunday ended up being a pretty late night (and my body was pretty beat up from water-related activities). My IT bands stiffened up a bit on a cramped car ride home, but fortunately I hit PT at 7 a.m. this morning and most issues were worked out (I was actually surprisingly loose). I took the night off from Cal Coast so as to make sure I kept the tempo down, and ran another easy 6 after work, 41 minutes (no pain or discomfort!). Looking forward to pushing the mileage a bit this week, and getting in a few runs at Yale this weekend!