The Journey of a thousand steps begins...

Update 6/1/09
Inspiration for all posts See The Peak Performance Monkey

First run in Sedona. First run of LD Era II-second year. Bernice and I have rented a condo located off HW 89 A in west Sedona. Our home for the summer, and the launch point for most of my training runs, is nestled into a condo complex called Nepenthe. Nepenthe historically refers to an elixir or a place where one can escape negative thoughts, feelings or experiences. I’m hoping Nepenthe will work on me too. Make me quickly forget stressful workouts so that I can remain positive about my training.

Today’s run is a three miler on the paved road and cement walkways of the two streets that border Nepenthe, Shelby and Sunset. These two streets run parallel for about 0.6 mile and then Shelby wraps around a brief commercial area and becomes Sunset after a steep, arduous (from my point of view) climb. Considering the strategic placement and the challenging incline, I will henceforward refer to this stretch as the Shelby Shuffle. Today, I approached the Shuffle initially from Sunset which meant that I had to run down hill in the dark (I’ve decided to start my runs between 4 and 4:30 am). After completing the downhill run I curve around to head up Shelby toward HW 89 A. This is a gradual uphill with sufficient length to allow for some good pace work.

My turn-around point is HW 89 A. I tap the traffic light pole for luck and head back down Shelby to the Shelby Shuffle. From this direction the Shuffle runs uphill and shows its true colors: steep at the beginning, steeper in the middle, and even steeper as one approaches the top. As I chugged up the Shuffle today I was beset by Ragnar Relay (last February) flashbacks. My first Ragnar Relay leg had started in Prescott (6,000 ft. elevation) and nearly three miles of my 3.6 mile leg were uphill in similar fashion to this Sedona climb. The Prescott climb was longer; I don’t know how many times I thought ‘surely the hill will crest around the next corner’. Of course it never did. The Shelby Shuffle was steeper, but thankfully much shorter.