April has been a month of contrasts. I ran my first race in 18+ months at the Desert Rats 21k and the heat destroyed me. It was 75 and sunny by midway through the race and I hadnt run in temps past 55 degrees in 6 months and even though my fitness was good my performance was not. I was basically dead by mile 7 and death marched it in. Back in January I had run the course as an easy effort long run and ran it almost as quickly as I did race day at race day effort.
That is not how this is supposed to work. I ended up with heat exhaustion and went to the med tent where the very nice volunteer EMS person doused me with water, gave me a huge ice pack, some salt tabs, and multiple cups of NAAK sport drink and put a box fan on me. After about 20 minutes I felt like a human being again and was able to go home and make the best of the day. I guess its heat training time again.
On the bright side training has been going well and we finally hiked down Mee Canyon after years of talking about to get to the giant alcove down there. Supposedly its the largest of its kind on the entire Colorado Plateau.
The hike is a mix of easy double track hiking for half of it and a mix of singletrack and Class 3/4 scrambling with one narrow ledge with around 20 feet of exposure. Not our usual jam but it was a lot of fun despite Heidi losing her beloved running hat to a 40mph wind gust.
The alcove was truly impressive. Tough to photograph but
Member discussion: