Courtesy of a boring Sunday night.

I am enjoying my time off of school and not having to do homework right now (although I am supposed to be working on my application). I wanted to do something really cool this weekend (temp or otherwise), but it was not meant to be and I spent the weekend embracing the heat locally.

It is probably a good thing anyway because next Saturday I am competing in the second race in the Extreme Heat AR sprint series so heat acclimation is important. Friday night, my ODP teammates Sarah, Angel and I went out to the TA zone (it is at a pool this year) to look for access points to the trails that I am sure we will be riding on. We found some good hidden ones in neighborhoods and alley ways so we may get an advantage on anyone who doesn't check it out. We also rode some of the west side of Trail 100 and I named a portion of it my favorite trail yet. It is a quasi technical rocky loopdy loop section that is super fun either up or down hill. I feel that Sarah and I (two person teams) will be strong on these trails if we get to ride them as they are definitely suited for riding fast and knowing the trail. We finished in the complete dark without lights which I love because it cools down so much once it gets dark that suddenly I get an additional surge of energy. I really need to stop being cheap and get a suitable light for riding singletrack at night.

I am just hoping that the biking is the majority of this race, as the TA is at least 2 miles from any single track and I really don't like the idea of that much road running. Normally the trekking checkpoints are at the top of different mountains, but if we have a couple of mile run to the trail, that really puts me and my bum scrawny leg at a disadvantage. My running is getting better, but even a snail could still put me away on the road. I was hoping for a lot of loose scrambling up steep mountains to equalize the "runners" out there. We'll see.

Saturday, M & J and I hiked the long way up Camelback Mountain. We planned to run it, but we started way too late and it was already near the high of ~108 F so we revised our goals to just making it to the top. We weren't blazingly fast (2 hrs) but we chatted the whole way and really didn't push it since it was high noon when we finished.

Then I came home and spent an hour cleaning up the backyard raking my dirt. There were two huge trashcans full of dry leaves that had fallen that needed picked up. I tried to rake the side yard (which is rocks), but kept getting rocks in my pile and had to pick them out so I didn't throw them away. Welcome to Phoenix Internet. We rake our dirt back yards and our rock front yards.

Sunday, I went to open play for ultimate frisbee just to see how it felt. It felt just how I guessed it would...pretty slow and uncoordinated and not all that fun. I think I will pass on this for awhile longer. I sat on the sideline waiting for Tom to finish playing and wished I was on my bike.

This afternoon, I also booked us our tour to Machu Picchu in Peru this coming November. Tom and his sister and bro-in-law and I are going to do the four day trek to the lost city along the famous Incan Trail. I am really excited as this has been on the list for a long time. I was checking the distances and altitude climbed and it seems pretty tough...one day you go over a couple of passes of over 14K feet. I will be forced to do more "training" hikes I guess :)