Tuscon Smashfest... Pau!

It's always weird typing on a different keyboard. Anwyay.

I am in Scottsdale at Krista's house this week. Driving in yesterday afternoon I was having all sorts of flashbacks to my days of living here. We are going to go ride our bikes in a few minutes and I can't wait to spin around my old 'hood.

Anyway, the Tucson part of the Arizona Smashfest week is pau (over). It was really awesome in a lot of ways and I came away from it with some super lessons... mostly about how I am capable of more than I thought... which might be the best thing you could learn from a weekend like that.

Sunday we climbed (and descended!) Mt Lemmon and then I ran for an hour and I swear to you that might have been one of my favorite training days of all time. It was kind of cold at the start but I worked fairly hard while climbing so I was okay in just vest and arm warmers and knee warmers...

We had sag with a lot of extra clothes at the top so even though there was snow on the ground up there past 7,000ft I was warm enough and happy enough to not stress it. Jimi's wife was there taking pictures all the way up and she told me she got some good ones so if/when I get those I'll post. I actually didn't take a lot of time to check out the scenery while I was climbing. Pretty much just focused on my power meter and what it was telling me... and tried to ignore the screaming my legs were doing... BUT on the way down I relaxed and cruised and took in all the sights and just had this overwhelming feeling of content.

Oh, the cookies at the top? Ya. They were bigger than my head. I thinik we ate like 6 of them- tried one of every flavor (we shared them community style). I think the butterscotch one may have been my favorite. :) Maik brought out one that was COVERED with a mound of ice cream and whipped cream. I've really never seen anything like it! I stayed away from the ice cream b/c it was not appealing when there was snow on the ground and I was shivering.

Yesterday morning we all met up at a trailhead (Star Pass maybe? I don't really know). It was beautiful (I think? I don't know I didn't really look up... Hillary took pictures so I would think those will go on her blog later?) Super rocky fairly technical trail and we were just jogging but still somehow I managed to catch my foot on a rock and totally face planted into some very rough rocks. Hillary said it was okay because pretty much every time she takes someone new out onto those trails they eat shit so I guess it was like a badge of honor to leave some of my blood in Tucson. After almost 2 hours on those trails we headed out onto the open road where the pace ramped up and before we knew it our long run was turning into a bit of a race and I wanted to try to play... Damie is a rock star and would put in little surges up hills and I would try to match... I was gritting my teeth and was successful for a bit and then at some point the rubber band just snapped and she was gone. Still though, the last 15' or so of that run (straight uphill) were some of the hardest minutes I have ever spent running and I finished and ended up flat on my back in the parking lot next to Dawn who had also pushed herself right through her own glass ceiling.

So there you go. I'm pretty much sold on the concept of training camps at this point... More on overall camp 'lessons' later... :)