May 1st- May 7th

“There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself.” - Louis XIV

This week Paula and I are crewing and pacing the Cocodona 250 while trying to work as well will make it  more of a photo dump than anything for the blog post this week.  

Monday:  

6:45 AM:  5 miles w/ 500ft of vert averaging 10min pace.  From the house up the trail with Joe after sending Don off on the start to Cocodona 250. Going to be a busy exciting week!!!!

Tuesday:  

 

Midnight: 22 miles w/ 2000ft of vert in 6:23.  Pacing Cocodona mile 71 to mile 93.  Rough night tonight for Don but he did get through it.  Sleep monster kept coming out to play.  The hot sun all day up to mile 70 wiped him out overnight.  Hopefully tomorrow night will go better.  Here are a few shots around mile 85-87 I took after the sun came up.  I am wiped after this, I have been up since 3am on Monday morning so went on almost 30 hours before I could take a 2 hour nap this afternoon.

Wednesday:

-NOTE:  No weight check this morning 

11 AM: 17.2 miles w/ 4000ft of vert in 7:10.  Pacing from Sedona (mile 163) to S. Hill (mile 180). Little slow moving but to be expected having that many miles on the legs with that much climbing. Most of the gain came in a 3 mile section from mile 7 to mile 10 of this section where it was like climbing the backside of Hope. Such a pretty section though, glad I got to see it in the daylight.  More photos today since it wasn't during the night.

Thursday:    

2 PM:  22 miles w/ 4200ft of vert in 9:30.  Pacing Cocodona 250 from mile 228 to the finish over Mount Elden.... little slow going but that is expected at this point in the race.  The climb to the top of Mount Elden was similar to doing Shadow Canyon in Boulder, about 2 miles and 2200ft of vert.  Hard way to end a 250 mile run.  Coming down the backside to the finish, a bunch of miles were bush wacking with no trail markers so we had to follow the GPS watch which made things even slower.  Such a great week helping Don finish this thing!!

Friday:

5 PM:  Just a short walk around the rental house in Flagstaff.  No run today.  Was supposed to race a 50K this morning but was midnight when I finished pacing last night and 3am by the time I went to bed.  No way I made the race start.  We spent the day exploring Flagstaff.  I could live here.  Did see this guy at the pizza joint we went to this evening, do you know who it is?  Yes, I am a fan boy..... 

Saturday: 

---- Drove the 13 plus hours straight through to get home. Did not stop to jog like I should have. Just wanted to return the van to JT and get home.

Sunday:  

9 AM:  5.6 miles w/ 1300ft of vert averaging 9:50 miles.  Easy trail jog from NCAR on the Mesa trail along with some connector trails.  Just out jogging and stretching out the legs.  Actually was a very good run, legs had some pop in them which I was not expecting.

Total Weekly Numbers

What a hell of a week of travel....  Thanks again JT for loaning us the van, it was perfect and really made me want to get one.  Thanks for having us along Don, it was a week of memories that I will never forget.  Overall not a bad volume week, if I would have ran the race on Friday and done my run on Saturday it would have been a 110 mile week but this is good enough considering how tired I was by Sunday afternoon.  Next up: Jemez 50 miler in 2 weeks......