Trail Running Is A Great Workout

After circling the airport and a bumpy landing in windy Palm Springs, Pam and I picked up our bags and rental car and headed straight to Indian Canyons for a pre conference run. After paying our $8 per person entrance fee (what I racket I said at the time) and driving a few miles to the parking lot, we studied a really confusing map of the trail system before heading out on the run.

The road to the parking lot goes right through these amazing rocks.

The original plan called for 3 hours (about 16 miles) of trail running. During our previous trail run, we only ran for about 90 minutes and 7 miles, so this one was going to be a much bigger test of my endurance.

I’m happy to report that I passed the test with flying colors. We started off heading uphill and Pam commented on how much stronger I was compared to our December run. Back then, even the slightest uphill swing in the trail forced me to a walk. But yesterday I ran a lot of the uphills, only walking the extremely steep parts. We climbed 2400 feet over the course of the day, ended back where we started and so descended the same amount.

Yes, this is actually the trail that we ran on. Parts had to be climbed. It was fun.

We ended up running 13.6 miles in 2:33:03. Pam took pity on me when we ended up back at the car at this point. She knew I was spent even though she looked fresh as a daisy. The scenery that we experienced during this run was amazing–my pictures do not do it justice. It was a great way to kick off our stay in Sunny, but cool and windy, Palm Springs.

By the end of the day, my back, quads, and knees were pretty sore. I even developed small blisters on the tops of my thirds and fourth toes on both feet–that must have been from the downhill section at the end. Through it all, though, we managed an 11:15 minute per mile pace over some pretty rough terrain. It was really fun, and a great workout.

We even got to do a little spelunking and walk behind a waterfall.

Yesterday morning, my hamstrings and calves were really sore so I headed off to the free yoga class offered by our resort. It was awesome as well. Only four people showed up so each of us got some pretty hands on (literally) attention from the instructor. She immediately recognized my flexibility deficiencies and helped me get into poses that I’d never been in before. She even helped me into a headstand up against the wall. It was pretty cool.

In the afternoon, I took a golf lesson and got even more frustrated with my game. I decided not to waste the money on a round of golf when I can go hit balls on the range for free because I paid for a lesson. Who knows, maybe that will be a good thing as well.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. This post actually had a relevant fitness point as well! During our run, Pam taught me a lot about race strategy, especially for a long races. Even though our splits at the end weren’t that much slower than they were at the beginning, I was dying! I had to work a lot harder to maintain that pace while Pam was just cruising along. Here’s what she taught me:

At the beginning of a long run (race, training run, trail run, it doesn’t matter) your pace should feel excruciatingly slow so that as the day progresses, you can maintain that pace by increasing the effort only slightly. If on the other hand, you start out by pushing it on the uphills and bombing the downhills (as I did Monday), you will struggle mightily to maintain that same pace (or even a slower pace) at the end of the day because you’ve spent so much energy early. It pays to know the course and your abilities to help plan a proper race strategy.

I think that’s why Pam does so well in her races. She’s an amazingly smart woman who comes up with a game plan and executes it perfectly almost every time. Others may be faster, but she can make up for it with her attention to detail. I could learn a lot from that. Maybe she’ll comment on it later, or even write a guest post for the runners of Get Fit Slowly.