I have been in New Mexico for one week now. It is hot and beautiful. I just came back from checking out some second hand stores in Espanola, “Lowrider Capital of the World,” where it was 95 degrees at 7:00pm.
My number of running days slacked off, but the intensity is there. As I said in my last post I had a super fun mountain trail run Sunday and last night I met the Striders for a Thursday night tempo run. So this is always interesting. It is the same 5.9 mile course that runs through the center of Santa Fe with the first four miles graduating going up and the last two miles gradually going down. About half the run is on dirt roads. It is a great course, but brutally hard in the 4th mile. It only goes up 350 feet. We start at 6,939 feet and go to 7,226 feet. I wrote about this year. A normal tempo run for me would be about 7:40ish on dirt in Central Park and last year the fastest in New Mexico, meaning it was more like race pace because it was the fastest I could run this was 8:45. So I am either more fit and or faster to adapt to the altitude. My average pace yesterday was 8:38, but it was honestly all I could do. My heart rate averaged 166 with a high of 172 which is closer to my 5k cross country at altitude or 15k cross country at sea level. Hum, wait that does not make a lot of sense. Next week I will start the tempo slower and run it as a real tempo and not worry about the time.
Besides running I spent 12 hours weeding my 2 acres of sand and thankfully hired a terrific guy to help me. I I brushed on three layers of lineed oil on to the 675 sq ft adobe studio floor. I off-loaded two printing presses, which is a story unto itself. The mover made it 100% more difficult than it needed to be. I took the dogs swimming twice, got a new roof on the house, bought some new studio furniture, drafting table, chair, desk, and assorted stuff second hand shopping. Ran the trails behind my house. Had dinner with my best Santa Fe friend and hiking buddy and finished my end of a three year outcome assessment on teaching report for the university and several other assorted household chores. I would say that is a pretty good week.
Sunday I am meeting the Striders for a 10 mile run on the Rio Medio trail. There is a beautiful water fall along the way. This is a lower elevation run because there is too much snow higher up. We will go from 7200 to 10,000 feet. I will report back after the run.
Adventure Artist 
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