Sunnier Trails

 Major monsoon action last night, providing the first cool-down in a month. I ran for 5.5 miles in Civano starting at 7AM.

 A repeat of Wednesday's run, only clockwise. It was mostly cloudy, so even though temps were in the mid-90's, I went out around 10am, slowly jogging the Cactus Forest trail to the road, then back on the Shantz trail.

Joined a group ride, out the door at 6:05AM, down to Le Buzz by 6:25 to meet up with a small group doing 1 hour up Mt Lemmon (from MP 0). There was a considerable amount of cloud cover, but it was in the upper 80's. I made it 7 miles, taking a few brief stops. Sweated like crazy and had to extensively re-hydrate throughout the rest of the day. 

Significant cloud cover brought some slightly cooler temps. At 11AM, I ran 3.7 miles in Saguaro East National Park, starting from the Broadway Trailhead, going south on the Shantz Trail to the road. The temperature was in the upper 90's but I was slowly jogging, so it took a while before the sweat really started pouring. About half a mile on the road, then back to the car on trail (taking a short break when the sun came out). Then at 5pm, I rode for about an hour on the bike, doing Freeman Hill. The sun came out a little but thankfully I didn't get too fried.

 Monday and Tuesday with a similar pattern: getting about 7 hours of sleep, waking up around 7:30AM, getting out for a short 3.3 mile run at 8:30AM in the Civano/Sierra Morado neighborhood area (which provides a lot more shade than around my house). Slow E-Z pace, lots of heat, definite increase in humidity (there were clouds, wind, and lightning last night).

Finally a change in the weather pattern that has been in place for about two weeks; the heat dome moved a bit allowing some moisture to creep in, bringing some morning clouds and, as.a result, a much-needed cool down. Got up around 7:30, walked the dogs around 8:30, and went for a ~90minute bike ride at 9:30AM. First ride after getting tubeless installed. When I got this bike three years ago the rims were tubeless-ready, but it was sold with clinchers (inner tubes). I've gotten two flats on this bike, so it is not a frequent thing, but if I can get it to five or ten times less frequent, then that would be really nice. Plus, you can run lower pressures and have less rolling resistance on typical road surfaces. So now I'm going from 80 psi on 26's to 60psi on 28's. It felt really smooth.

 Actually made it out early; up by sunrise (5:30AM) and felt reasonably good... or so I thought. Some kind of muscle tightness was inhibiting my right knee, and even after stopping to stretch a few times, I couldn't really get good motion going, so stopped after 2 miles. Went for a quick swim afterward to try and loosen things up.

Switched off Alarm number 1 at 5. Switched off Alarm number 2 at 5:30. Managed to get up around 6:30 or so and get out for a run around 7:00. It actually wasn't too hot—still in the 80's—but I had an 8AM telecon so I cut it short at just 2 miles. 

 Day 9 was the Fourth of July. I wanted to go run early (before 7AM) at Sabino but was unable to get up in time. Same on Day 10. Just probably sleeping poorly due to the heat etc; not in a morning routine, maybe staying up too late and so on.

 Super groggy Monday, crawled out of bed at 7, took a couple of cups of coffee before I felt alive. Already hot—and smoky—I just got a couple of miles in, but felt fairly good, muscles not tight, no heel pain.

 Friday I did no workout, as my heel was hurting a little bit again. Saturday morning I felt quite tired so slept in, getting up at around 7:30AM (which is more-or-less typical for the half the year in which I'm not trying to "beat the heat"). So I drove up to Mt. Bigelow to run in the shade on Bear Wallow Road, doing four repeats of the climb (2 kilometers/1.25 miles one way with a little over 110 meters/360 ft of climbing). That was a really good workout for me—almost two hours of running at altitude, on a really hard, rocky, gravel road and I definitely felt the fatigue Sunday morning, so took that as a rest day as well. And my heel feels fine today, which is really good news. For the week: 4 running workouts totaling 25 miles and 2 bike rides totaling 43 miles; two quality workouts: the hill repeats and the Sabino ride. That's a good start. I hope to do a four-week block in July to build up my fitness again.