plans change
Sep. 29th, 2012 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaTo my delight, we were invited to join a raft trip on the Grand Canyon! (They want another proficient oarsman, and Britt is that.) To my dismay, it conflicts with the New York Marathon on November 4th, which I have already shelled out quite a lot of money for. After dithering about whether I should try heroic measures to make it back in time to fly to Flagstaff, hire an expensive shuttle service to take me to the Havasu Falls trailhead and backpack down over two days to join the trip for the last week, I decided that three weeks of rafting beats three and a half hours of running, ditched the marathon, and signed up for the raft trip.
So, no fall marathon for me. Instead I will run the 25K trail race/half marathon road race option of the Durango Double as planned - that's next weekend, yikes - and then run The Other Half in Moab (for the fourth time) two weeks later and try to PR. (I thought about trying to run a full that weekend - the only option, since the river trip starts the following weekend - but that would involve heroic measures, and I really love The Other Half, and the half distance is the only one I haven't PRed in the past 12 months. I also thought about switching to the full marathon instead of the double half, but - I really want to run the double!)
Anyway, the Grand Canyon, yay! I have rafted it twice with Britt in the 1990s, so it's sort-of-familiar, but it's been a while. I've never run it in the fall season, which is non-motorized rafts only - it will be wonderfully quiet. Also, the trip is longer, because the lower levels of Lake Mead mean that the river below the traditional Diamond Creek take-out has recovered, and we'll be going through stuff neither of us have seen before. Should be fun!
So, no fall marathon for me. Instead I will run the 25K trail race/half marathon road race option of the Durango Double as planned - that's next weekend, yikes - and then run The Other Half in Moab (for the fourth time) two weeks later and try to PR. (I thought about trying to run a full that weekend - the only option, since the river trip starts the following weekend - but that would involve heroic measures, and I really love The Other Half, and the half distance is the only one I haven't PRed in the past 12 months. I also thought about switching to the full marathon instead of the double half, but - I really want to run the double!)
Anyway, the Grand Canyon, yay! I have rafted it twice with Britt in the 1990s, so it's sort-of-familiar, but it's been a while. I've never run it in the fall season, which is non-motorized rafts only - it will be wonderfully quiet. Also, the trip is longer, because the lower levels of Lake Mead mean that the river below the traditional Diamond Creek take-out has recovered, and we'll be going through stuff neither of us have seen before. Should be fun!
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-29 11:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-30 12:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-30 03:52 am (UTC)Bummer about the marathon, but I don't blame you for choosing the raft trip instead.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-30 03:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-30 04:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-30 11:45 pm (UTC)Yeah, this local race was a double when I first ran the marathons in 2004 and 2006, and I thought in 2006 I wanted to try the double half, but the race stopped being staged after that. Until just this year!
When I ran it in 2006 I ran for much of it with a guy who was doing the full double - he'd run the 50K the day before and was now running the marathon (I finished in 4:07 so that gives you an idea of his time/fitness). He is an ultrarunner who has run the Hardrock 100 multiple times!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-01 01:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-05 04:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-02 01:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-05 04:36 pm (UTC)