onepinkfuzzy

Instead of going to Sabino Canyon this morning, Kiera and I headed to the River Path, to run the gentle 2.25-mile loop I ran earlier this week. She started out at decent clip, which was nice encouragement to get me going. It was warm out, and on the return portion of the loop, I needed to walk twice for a little ways. All in all, a great run. Afterwards, we hit up the nearest Starbucks for frappiccinos and more conversation. I think my favorite of our many topics was the interesting - albeit messy - window art :)

My trail running group's series is in doubt for fall. The floods washed out Sabino Canyon. As in decimated it. As in the road is covered in feet of dirt and gigantic boulders and the Phoneline trail is washed out. Major landslides occured along the canyon wall. I'm bummed because I'm not sure I'll get to do my big goal for the winter: climbing from Sabino Canyon to the top of Mt. Lemmon! Bummer. Although it is pretty darn cool to see geology in action. As Kiera so eloquently put it, "Creation and destruction are fascinating, but more so when they do not interfere with one's carefully orchestrated training plan."

I was getting ready to lay pen to paper regarding my training plans for OP50, but now that my main trail running resource is closed indefinitely, I'm not quite sure how to go about setting up my training plans! I'll at least get the general part down - how many miles per week, which days are running and which are cross training, what strength training and yoga I'll be doing and when, etc. Once I know more about the trails in Sabino opening, I'll be able to write in exactly where I'll get those miles.

Here's a news story on the washout in Sabino, with a quote by one of my favorite running buddies from the group - Ross. And Bruce, who just completed Badwater, is in a photo on the right hand side.

Here's the forest service page with great detail about the flooding and washouts, along with video and pictures - you can really get a feel for where I do, scratch that, did my running.

This is how the top of the road used to look. Note the bathrooms in the foreground, and the fence on the right-hand side.

Here's what it looks like now. This view is down on the road, looking at where the fence and the bathrooms used to be.

Here are more photos of the destruction.