Sustainability

There was a series of articles in the Arizona Republic this week about sustainability (conserving water, recycling, and stuff like that). This week's long run with Bill was at D.C. Ranch. I got off to a bit of a rough start-- the alarm didn't go off at 3:45AM (I guess I didn't slide the button all the way over), and I didn't wake up until 4:10. I was supposed to be at Bill's house at 4:30AM, so my plan to enjoy a leisurely pre-run breakfast was out the door. I got to his house at about 4:50, and we made it to the starting line at about 5:15. Not TOO bad. The first mile or so of our run was slower than we typically run-- about a 10:00 pace. There didn't seem to be any reason for that, and it was pretty enjoyable. And then we turned on the jets. At one point (albeit a steep downhill), we were cruising at a 7:15 pace. That's BLAZING for me. I turned to Bill and said, "We should run the whole run at this pace!" Heh heh. We did the out portion of our run at a pretty brisk (for me) sub-8:30 pace. Would I have enough juice left in the tank for the return trip? Did I expend too much energy in my exuberance to run as fast as I could downhill? Would I have to pay the piper for our foolhardiness? Would we be able to SUSTAIN? What goes down, must come up. When I lived in Boston, my friend Dave and I called the stretch of Commonwealth Avenue between Warren and Washington Streets "F**kyou Hill." It's a fairly steep hill, and we would ride our bikes up it and try to go as fast as we could. When our lungs and calves and quads were burning, one of us would yell, "F**k you, hill!" There's a new F**kyou Hill now. At about mile 5, the uphill starts. It's about a 200ft. elevation gain over 2 miles. Yikes. But I stared toward the top of the hill as we started to climb, gritted my teeth and thought, "F**k you, hill!" Luckily, I had plenty of energy left, and I attacked the hill. It's fairly challenging, because just when you think it can't get any steeper, it does. When we crested the hill at about mile 7, I thought "YES!" We brought home the last mile at a respectable 9:30 pace. This was a fantastic run. Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 1753 ft Location: Carefree, AZ Elev. Gain: -4 ft Date: 06/28/08 Up/Downhill: [+360/-364] Time: 06:20 AM Difficulty: 3.0 / 5.0 Performance Distance: 7.89 miles Time: 1:14:35 Speed: 6.3 mph Pace: 9' 27 /mi Calories: 1369 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 52 +0' 25 6.1 -0.3 +49 ft 2 8' 46 -0' 41 6.8 +0.5 -79 ft 3 8' 37 -0' 50 7.0 +0.6 -105 ft 4 8' 56 -0' 31 6.7 +0.4 -56 ft 5 13' 04 +3' 37 4.6 -1.8 +46 ft 6 10' 42 +1' 15 5.6 -0.7 +95 ft 7 10' 44 +1' 17 5.6 -0.8 +95 ft 8 9' 29 +0' 02 6.3 -0.0 -36 ft end 7' 38 -1' 49 7.8 +1.5 -13 ft Versus average of 9' 27 min/mile

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