I had the great luxury of
spending the weekend with some old friends;
Watching the Rockies Win!
Playing a round at the Vail Golf
Club!
Eating at Yama Sushi!
And hiking in West Vail!
It has been a very good summer
for the Mather clan and we treated ourselves to a vacation at the swanky Phoenician in Scottsdale, AZ. Not surprising, it was really hot there –
like Badwater hot. The temperature hit a
high of 109 degrees. When I left the
hotel at 4:30 AM to go for a run it was 88 degrees.
On Thursday I ran a 10 mile
out-and-back route along the Arizona Canal. At the turnaround I stopped to remove a
pebble from my shoe. To my surprise,
when I bent to untie my shoe I saw several small shells. I put a few in my pocket before shuffling
back to the hotel. Those shells were Quagga Mussels which
cause hundreds of millions of dollars in maintenance and damage repairs to
public works around the country.
It was nice to have a little
diversion from hard training. I still
ran and swam, but my mileage / yardage for the week was much lower, as was the
intensity of the workouts. I swam with
the Sun Devil Masters team two of the days.
On Saturday I joined the Mummy Mountain Runners for a 10 mile loop
around their namesake peak. It was a
spectacular tour past the mansions of Paradise Valley. Adding the distance to, and from, the meet-up
place gave me 16 miles for the day.
Lounging by, and in, the Phoenician’s
mother of pearl pool gave me time to cast my eyes to the future. My next race is the Highlands Ranch Half Marathon
on Labor Day. Beyond that I’m not really
sure what my running future holds. No
one sees around life’s corners and that is a blessing. Whether we saunter, shuffle or sprint we
greet events in stride. Savor the
surprise.
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