The Day After...

Yes, another Saguaro National Park Labor Day Run is over.  Kinda sad.  It's my favorite race of the year. 

At the finish line.

Highlights:

*Overcast.  As much as I love seeing the sun come up in all of it's glory over the valley, the cooler temps of the overcast day made for a much more enjoyable run.  Dont' worry, I was still a sweaty mess when it was over.

* The hill didn't kill me.  One of the big draws of this race is the slow and steady hill that comes at mile 3, last for a mile and a half, and has a couple of false summits.  The first year I did it, I didn't know what I was in for.  I couldn't walk right for two days.  This year was the first year that I got done with that hill and felt like I could keep going.  I'm just going to say that 4:45am runs on Tumamoc helped.  Training works people!!

      (*side note - 1/2 mile in, I heard a woman ask her friend if the course was going to flatten out.  Her friend replied, "Well, kinda..."  I'm going to say that this woman was in for a long, hard, run!  I wonder how getting out of bed was for her this morning?)

* I was 22 seconds faster than my cute husband.  While this may not seem like much, or a huge deal to anyone else, he always beats me.  Always.  He has that ability to dig deep and push himself no matter what the circumstance.  Something I really admire.  A lot.  I really thought he must be someplace way ahead of me because I didn't see him after the first couple of miles.  Or hurt on the side of the road was my other thought.  In his defense, he doesn't have a lot of time that it isn't 3pm and 104º out to run.  I know he's looking forward to February like no one else!

For those of you who were asking, Nuun is a sports drink tab that you add to water and it fizzes and gives you back all of those things like sodium and potassium that you have been sweating off.  I like it.  The grape flavor reminds me of soda.  My cute husband does not.  It reminds him of Alka Seltzer.  To each his own.  It also comes in a variety of other flavors in case grape is not your thing.  I recommend strawberry lemonade.