My final race of the year was the Gilbert 12Ks of Christmas, an annual tradition that goes back to 2012. I ran the 6K that year, and every year since then I have run the 12K. 2013 was my fastest 12K there, and every year since then has seen me go progressively slower. This year, I really wanted to reverse that trend, so I made beating last year’s time my one and only race goal. And I did it!
More races!
The first one was Ragnar Trail AZ, which—if you’ve read much of this blog (haha, nobody has)—you know is an event with a lot of history for me, and I love it. I fell out of love with paying the registration fees for it, though. For the last couple of years, I’ve told my Ragnar-running friends that I’m on their permanent reserve list. Happy to come out and help if someone on their teams isn’t able to make it and they need a substitute. I didn’t get that call until pretty late this year, and I thought it was going to be my first year missing it since 2014.
October was a lot of fun. I did a long, hot, grindy 50k training run out at San Tan and then it was special events of some kind or other for the rest of the month.
We started off September with a Labor Day hike up Mount Ord. Kris had never seen this place I was going to run at all the time during the summer, and she wanted to get a look at it.
August’s big event was a backpacking trip up the Arizona Trail along the Stagecoach course out to the Coconino Rim. During the race, I had gone through a lot of this area in the dark, and when sunrise came toward the end of it, it was so beautiful to me that I wanted to come back out to see a sunrise there again.
So I got some friends together for the trip, and they came along to check it out with me.
In July, I officially started my training block for this year’s big running project (as well as next year), the Southern Arizona Triple 50. As everyone who lives here knows, there is no better time of the year to start a big training block than the middle of summer.
In June, I went back to the Prescott Circle Trail with the intent of doing a through hike of it over three days and two nights. I have fallen in love with both backpacking and the Arizona Trail, and one of my long term goals is to eventually hike the whole distance via section hikes, in whatever way I can make that work. The Prescott Circle Trail seemed like a good place for me to give both me and Kris a little sample of what that would be like.
Kris and I went to New York City for our anniversary. The main reason for the trip was to see Wagner’s Ring Cycle performed in its entirety (that is a four-night event if you’re not familiar with it), which is something we’ve wanted to do since, basically, before we got married. Our first date was the first opera in the series, Das Rhinegold. I’m pretty sure that one of the reasons she stuck with me was because I liked it. It was a super cool experience, and we enjoyed the trip a lot.
April was mostly coasting. Mostly.
With no big races coming up soon, a lot of the month was just taking it easy, but Kris and I went out one Saturday and did something at the other end of the spectrum from “easy,” and hiked/climbed Picketpost Mountain.
It’s one of those things that is cool to say that you have done once it’s over, but that you don’t particularly enjoy while you’re doing it. Classic Type Two Fun.
The Monument Valley 50k was the race I was training for. Kris and I made a weekend trip of it, going to stay at The View Hotel in Monument Valley itself, and it was amazing. Just staggeringly beautiful.
One of the awesome things about the race is that runners get to go through some areas that normally either require a guide to access, or they are completely off-limits to non-tribe members altogether.