Training Archive: szurcher

running 5:20:49 27.0 km (11:53 / km) +1800m 8:55 / km
ahr:143 max:180

Grand Canyon

Wow, this was yet again amazing, but this time amazing for another reason. The Grand Canyon had the 3rd largest snow storm in history two days ago and the whole area is covered in about 1.5 meters of snow. There was snow going down into the canyon hip deep for about the first mile and the snow continued down as far as 3 miles down. We went down the South Kaibab trail even though our bus driver tried to warn us that there was a lot of snow and that we may have to break trail. It turned out that the trail was really good, it was only a foot path with half a meter banks on both sides, but totally do-able. Down at the bottom the warm sun warmed us up, after freezing at the top with -10°C when we started (and -18°C during the night).

Annette and I did the way up together on the Bright Angel trail, running for the most of all the way up past Indian Garden to where it gets really pretty steep and the snow started again and then hiking after that. We made it up in under 3 hours, which is certainly a record for me. The trail was tough going though because of the snow. Your feet slipped a little bit with every step. It was still very cold on top and we had to keep putting more and more clothes on.

Fun day! Beautiful blue skies all day. A much deserved break from the constant rain and snow we have experienced the last week.

C • Oh wonderful!! 1

C • So much fun.... 7

Mt. Biking 59:19
ahr:136 max:161

Mt. biking in the Hoover Damm park. Nice to be out in nature again after 24 hours of Las Vegas. Las Vegas was fun though :-)

running 20:35 3.55 km (5:48 / km)
ahr:153 max:166

Warm-up jog for core strength training.

strength 22:00 [1]

Core strength in our Chateau:-)

feet and ankle strength 10:00 [1]

running 1:06:16 9.91 km (6:41 / km)
ahr:163 max:189

Running in the Red Rocks Canyon outside of Las Vegas in the snow! I wanted to run intervals, but I felt dead. Did 2 x 1min and 2 x 5 minutes but my tempo was not much faster than jogging :-( Red Rocks canyon is beautiful though!

running 1:31:00 15.3 km (5:57 / km)
ahr:160 max:175

Running with Marc from our RV park in Las Vegas to the strip. We ran to the Tropicana, MGM, New York New York, and Excallibur hotel corner. Very cool. But it was a long way from our Chateau. I got a side ache on our way back and kind of had to suffer a bit, but otherwise it was cool!

C • The Strip 4

running 20:38 3.64 km (5:40 / km)
ahr:157 max:170

Running on the beach in L.A. in the pouring pouring rain. We are really unlucky to have such bad weather on this trip in an area that is *most* often beautiful. Tomorrow in Death Valley it's even supposed to rain... who would have thought we would see rain in the lowest point in the USA.

I only ran a little because of various reasons, such as, my foot hurting, having a head ache and not sleeping well the last two nights.

Note
(rest day)

Well needed rest day. L.A. in the rain though...

hiking 4:44:25 13.3 km (21:23 / km) +500m 18:00 / km
ahr:133 max:173

Hiking in Joshua Tree National Park with Annette. This hike started out to be really fun and interesting. There was a lot of scrambling on boulders up a hill side. At first it was fun, but after a while things started to turn for the worst. Our first mistake is that we didn't find exactly with right way up this valley we were supposed to take. This meant that some of the scrambling became pretty iffy and probably not safe. I just kept thinking to myself, at least we don't have to come down this was, this was because once on top we were taking a trail around the hills back down. Well, we never really ended up in the right valley and at one point we made a 90° error and climbed an additional valley unnecessarily (again scrambling). Once up on the plateau I couldn't figure anything out and at this point we had been hiking for 3 hours. Both of us got pretty freaked out, its really unnerving when you can't figure out where you are and you've climbed up stuff that really scared you to get there. Annette was a little disoriented (bonking at this point) and I needed to make some decisions. So, I decided that we *had* to go back down the way we came up, even though I was terrified of this option, but otherwise we would have ended up lost in the dark. Annette was great on the way down though. She really helped me, since she knew I was scared out of my wits and always found spots that were somewhat reasonable to climb back down (but again, probably not all that safe). To add salt to my wounds it started pouring rain, which made the rocks slippery. Fun, not! But we made it down despite a rip down my tights on the butt and very sore shoulders the next day. Honestly, this was one of the most terrifying experiences I have ever had. When we were lost up on top I really was worried that something awful would happen to us. We were really only one more mistake or one accident away from really having a problem.

I was really happy to see Marc again.

C • Scary 3