The Highs and Lows

Very often, as I lay awake in the twilight, my mind reverts to those by gone days of my youth and I recall the simple pleasures of being a kid.  I was able to relive some of those moments two weeks ago as I went back to Montclair, NJ to visit my father, brother and one of my sisters.  It was a fun little reunion.

I took a rest day on Friday due to the 6:00 am flight.  That was the first rest day I’d taken in 54 days.  The last day I rested was May 18^th, the day before the Colfax Marathon.

I brought my running gear, of course, and found time for two eleven mile runs.  I weighed my shirt before and after one of the runs and found that it had absorbed about ¾ of a pound of sweat.  That is about a cup and a half of sweat.  Sweat poured from me in rivers.  The air there was so dense and there was little wind.  I remember hot summer nights when my brother and I would ride our bikes up long hills and coast down just to enjoy a cooling breeze. 

One week later I was in Vail for the annual golf-sushi outing with my old friends.  We walked 18 holes at the Vail Golf Club.  That burned about 1,000 calories, justifying the gluttony that followed at Yama Sushi in heart of Vail Village.  Afterwards it was a mall-crawl that ended at The Red Lion. 

As compelled by inertia, I awoke at 5:00 and ran 11.5 miles along the recreation path that runs east and west through Vail.  One thing became obvious after comparing my efforts in the runs in Montclair and Vail.  My body prefers cool, dry conditions, even at elevation, and I have statistics to prove it. 

City	Elevation	Temperature	Humidity	Pace / mile
Montclair	300 ft	88	90 %	8:04
Vail	8,100 ft.	50	34 %	7:47

And the last mile in Vail I was carrying a bunch of bananas and a pint of non-dairy creamer.  My mates and I capped off the weekend with a hike up the West Vail Trail.  Man, we’re getting old!