Category: Slacker

Vacation-Brin Mesa

The next day we were up early for what was supposed to be a short, easy hike and then followed by an afternoon of shopping in downtown Arizona. However, we had some trouble. We had planned on going to Sugarloaf for the trail there.. The parking lot was full and street parking was not allowed. We then planned for Bell tower but the parking lot was full. Planned on going to Vultee Arch- couldn’t find the parking lot so we ended up driving out to Brin Mesa. I tell you a four-wheel-drive will be much better to get you there but we were able to find parking. Hallelujah.

We headed out for what All Trails said was a short 3 1/2 mile out back , it was also supposed to be very easy with very little incline. Lies! Brin Mesa started on this marvelous orange trail with green trees and the awesome rocks to your right. . Everything looked amazing. Then we had a little turn and a little climb that turned out to be a lot steeper than we thought. It’s basically like climbing steps, but I wasn’t prepared for that and I was whining.

Once we got to the top, we took a breather and we could see some people out on a rock. So I let my mother convince me to go to the rock. Once at the rock the view was amazing- 360° view. Let me tell you, Brin Mesa is worth it.

Then instead of turning around like I had planned, we continued forward. Did we have a real plan? No. Was I positive I had looked at the map at the trailhead right? Also no. But, choose your own adventure. So we continued around and eventually Brin Mesa turned into Soldiers Pass Trail, along the way this had one of the best views I’ve ever seen. Pictures don’t do it justice.

We continued down into a little gully and started to realize that we were connecting with Soldiers Pass, which I had hiked a couple years ago and I vaguely remembered the area. I was pretty sure we could pick up the other trail and loop around it to Brin Mesa without turning around, but also wasn’t positive. The catch was that I hadn’t actually looked at the map that closely and I couldn’t remember what the name of the other trail was. I vaguely remembered a man’s name so I figured I would figure it out. It took us past the Seven Sacred Pools and back passed the sinkhole to the Soldiers’ Pass trailhead.. We were able to pick up the Jordan Trail- success! And then we were headed back towards the Brin Mesa trail head.

The Jordan trail was nice and pretty easy. There were no real technical moments, just a few parts where you crossed the rocks and kind of lost the trail, but it was fairly easy to pick it up again. I was melting because once again, I was unprepared for how much sun I was getting. We ended up getting back to the trailhead and getting in around exactly 6 miles. So while it wasn’t long it was a longer route that I had originally planned, but still worth it.

However, I was still concerned about the next day, when we would venture into the Grand Canyon. We then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around downtown Sedona and ate some good pizza before heading back to the hotel to get some rest.

Vacation- Boynton Canyon/ The Subway

I so needed a vacation and some time in the dirt. Cue- Arizona.

First up on my hike list was Boynton Trail and The Subway. This trail gave it all- rocks, red dirt, streams, forested areas, sketch climbs and maybe getting a little lost.

We were able to get a parking spot right near the trailhead which is also right near the bathroom. I still don’t know how we scored. This parking was only five dollars a day and you can pay on your app so it’s perfect.

We headed out from the trailhead looking for the Subway and somebody had said something about a Vortex on Boynton Canyon Trail. The trail took us to the typical red rocks for amazing scenes for the 1st mile before we turned off and headed for the Subway. This is where things get a little weird. So there’s plenty of trails but they don’t always make a whole lot of sense so a lot of us got lost trying to find the subway. Then we figured out we were going the wrong way so we all turned around and eventually figured out where we were going.

The Subway is this amazing rock and cave formation although climbing up can get a little sketchy. There was water coming down it so it was a little slippery but once you’re up to the top, the views are amazing. It was spring break so it was super crowded, which I keep trying to avoid, but I keep failing at that. That being said, the people were really cool. We all were able to help each other take pictures or chat about how coming up the subway was a little sketchy. Or how getting down the Subway was going to be a little sketchy too.

I could see a corner that looked like it went around the rocks and continued on so I decided to go out and Adventure and see if it did. My mother was very not happy with me. It did work so I was able to get around the corner and they opened up a cave formation. The caves were amazing and the views were amazing. I also found some cave art that I surprisingly managed to take a picture of without knowing.

From there, we went down a second way and I found that to be much easier than going down the original rocky way up into the subway and we headed back to the trail. Or so we thought. We were with another family and somehow we all got so lost. Do you know how you think you’re on the trail and you keep going but then the trail ends and you don’t know what to do when you turn around and the trail has completely disappeared. Yeah that happened. It was great so then we’re trying to use GPS to figure out where we were and GPS isn’t working properly. We couldn’t figure it out so we ended up what it felt like bushwhacking through some bushes just heading one direction and then somehow we found ourselves back on the trailer we diverted off for the subway. We still don’t know how I managed to get that lost.

From there, we headed up towards the end of the trail in Boynton Canyon and took us into a more forest area with a river which was great. I however was starting to have some problems with the heat. Oops, I packed for the cold. This was not cold, so I slowed way down as we headed towards the end of the canyon. once into the canyon, they were against amazing views, as I sat and chilled and ate a snack.

From there we turned around and headed back to the car. The car put us around 7 miles. I was feeling pretty done for the day but my mother was like no we have to get over 10 a day so I refueled at the car, changed my pack for my handheld, and we went out to do some more miles.

We thought it was just a short shot. We took the Mescal trail to Canyon of Fools. . Mescal was great and user-friendly while Canyon of Fools Canyon was not. I mean technically it was shorter than going all the way around Mescal but we did not know the condition of the trail. The trail is mostly a wash. It is not the place you want to be in case of a flash flood, and you can tell that it had flooded recently. Because it’s a wash it was very hard to find the trail. It’s also a mountain biking trail so luckily I was looking for wheel patterns but every now and again we’d get a rocky area and I would get a little confused. The wash was pretty cool, although, like I said, you did start to wonder if the flood was going to come and you were in the wrong place. From there, Canyon of Fools dumped us out onto the road and we had a little over a mile walk on the road back to the parking lot. All in all it was a really good day. I might’ve overheated which I probably should’ve taken as a sign of things to come, but my legs felt good, and I was looking forward to looking forward to the next day.

2022-Delayed

It’s on brand for me to post a 2022 review almost 25 29 days into 2023, right?

Honestly, how am I wrapping up 2022? In my head it is still 2019. So let’s see.

January– Started decent, had 1 race planned- Castle to Coast again. Ended the month with a DNS and COVID.

February– I dragged all month still feeling tired. Postponed my planned vacation to Arizona and just tried to get back into things

March– Randomly went on on vacation to Sedona but wasn’t able to do all the hikes I had planned. Soldier’s Pass was awesome and I still owe you a post about Cathedral Rock too. I also ran-er- jogged my first race of the year- Oakland Marathon 10K. I had been registered for the half but knew I was not ready for that.

April– Sure I did something but it didn’t leave an impression. Well other than having to admit that my hair was falling out. Still not sure what caused it but over the next 8 months, I probably lost about 50% of my hair. I cut it shorter because I couldn’t put it up anymore with it pulling out on the hair tie.

May– Yosemite! I finally ran my first Vacation Races race with the Yosemite Half marathon. Also Kate flew out and we ran it together! The trip was fun and the race was great! So great, I am signed up for 2023 too. Then a week later, I was supposed to run my first timed race- 6 hours at Silver Moon Race but knew that was stupid. I still need to get better about looking at a calendar before I jump into things. So I dropped to the 10K. Which proved to be smart as it was over 90 degrees at race start. Yikes. Oh and another skin biopsy right before the races.

June– Nothing huge just a lot or hikes and trail runs.

July– I had a birthday that depressed me and accepted a promotion at work. Still question that, haha. Ran a local race- Rock to Pier 10K. Oops, still owe the race recap on that one. Ate some yummy food and hit some more trails.

August– So funny story. My brother decided to start running. His first race was going to be one with me in October. Then he got a wild hair to run the Santa Rosa half marathon with me. Then that wild hair grew again and he added a trail half up in Santa Cruz. This race was the day before Santa Rosa. Ummm, what? So we did it. I wandered the 10K while he somehow ran a 2 hour half for his first trail race. Then he threw down a 1:41 the next day at Santa Rosa. What?!??!!

September– More trails and some miles for me. Ran a race up in Berkeley- Berkeley Trail Adventure. 10K for me and 30K for the brother. 2022 was the years of trails and 10K’s for me. Also had another skin biopsy.

October– Biopsy came back bad, so I was scheduled for another surgical excision and the more of the waiting game as we waited for the results. Ran Space Rock Trail Race while I still had stitches but I needed the distraction and I think I felt best I had in years at a race. Found out the margins were clear the following week, got my stitches out and headed north for another race. This time, Oakland Hills. And yes, there were hills.

November– Deferred my registration for Joshua Tree half because I just wasn’t feeling it. The past few months had caught up to me. So I hit some more local trails, ran some miles and put my Christmas tree ridiculously early.

December– Took a staycation as my plans for Arizona were snowed out. Hit up the local Christmas light exhibit for the first time. Showed up for Woodside Ramble- 50K for my brother, my mother’s first 10K. I did the 10K too but was having some health issues so I ended up just walking it. Which was actually kind of fun because these trails were awesome. Also, never did the race recap for that one either, oops.

So yeah, 2022 was a mixed bag in all ways. Some good and some not so good. I ran more races than I thought I would and found more awesome trails to explore all over the state. I ran more miles than in 2020 and 2021- granted that wasn’t too hard to do. I thought I would have some quippy thing to say here but I can’t think of anything, ha!

Oh, yeah- I read 100 books! Not sure where how that happened.

Ghosted

Oops. Didn’t mean to disappear. My last post was about Santa Rosa. That was August. Oops.

Running or power hiking has been decent since then. I have three trail races to recap and tell you all about. Those will hopefully be up soon.

I had a great trail day at the beginning of October where I went out with the plan of getting lost. I did pretty well. 😄. And I don’t mean really, rally lost. I didn’t want to follow any sort of plan and just changed course each a time a trail intersection looked interesting. I was in a funk mentally and hoped a choose your own adventure kind of day would knock me out of it. I’m also not completely stupid so my adventure was only around 9 miles when it could have been much longer.🤣 Also I kind loved that it was so foggy for most of the day.

Work has been stressful so let’s just leave it at that.

My quarterly strip search- dermatology appointment- prompted another biopsy. Which came back bad and necessitated another cancer excision. I’m getting pretty good at dealing with stitches. Learned I was allergic to paper tape as well as bandaids though. Seriously? On a gamble I tried KT tape. Success!! Expensive as a tape option but worth not trying to claw my skin off due to the itching.

Good news was they got clean margins. Yay! The excision and stitches did mean I had to cut back on running. I tried to only walk, the stitches were high on my back and every single sports bra I own went right on top. Boo. I ended up deferring Joshua Tree half. I blamed the excision for taking away my training time but truthfully I just wasn’t feeling it.

I’m still kind of in a funk but trying to dig my way out. Think a stupid amount of Hallmark Christmas will help?? Or hurt? Maybe some online shopping?? I’m on staycation at the moment. Maybe I have too much time on my hands.😂

What’s new with you?

Racing to (Santa) Rosa

Disclaimer: I received an entry into the Santa Rosa Marathon as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!

It’s race week, say what???

Not only is it race week, the weekend is upon us! That snuck up on me. Well, let’s be honest, the past few months have snuck up on me. And then dropped me like Kipchoge rounding the corner on Boylston.

At the mid point of the year I realized I was somehow behind on my miles from 2021, which is so not good. However, July and August improved as I attempted to tighten my belt and train for Santa Rosa. I felt like I needed redemption for 2021.

See, I know I am not fast. I know I’ve been walking more than running. But now I know the course- which is scenic and I really like- and my goal is to not cramp. The leg cramps from last year still color my view of the last few miles, ha! I really would like to run across the finish this year instead of hobble.

Also, somehow, Santa Rosa will my brother’s first road race! And the mountain hiker/climber that he is- he is aiming for sub 2 for his very first road half. I specify half because I still need to tell you about Saturday but that’s for another day.

All right, Santa Rosa, let’s do this!!