Day 249

• 12.3 miles
• 9 min/mile pace
• 0555
• Squaw Peak Area
• First of all let me sing the praises of what I formerly thought to be a somewhat silly idea -- The Staycation.   Turns out that, like almost everthing, life is different with kids...our "staycation" weekend at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort here in town was truly fantastic because it helped us entertain our kids for the entire weekend, while also enjoying ourselves.   Part of that enjoyment was actually this run too...I left the hotel, located just on the other side of Hwy 51 from Squaw Peak, headed for the Squaw Peak hiking area with the thought of running the trails I had heard about around the Peak itself -- I did not have the mental strength to try a pseudo running effort summit attempt.   After reaching the end of the paved road I kept going in that same basic direction (North and slightly east) onto trails circling around Squaw Peak itself.   I soon realized that there are many many miles of trails out there and some gorgeous cholla catcus as well...I was really impressed with the area.  To my surprise I even found a bit of "Trail 100" as made famous by the 2012 LMI...I never pushed the pace, which probably also contributed to the overall enjoyment.  So anyway, I ran for a while before feeling like I needed to return to catch back up with the family since the original "finish before they're fully awake" plan was scraped when Finn woke up around 4:30, resulting in he and I hanging out in the hotel lobby until we felt at least Becca had slept long enough.  

Day 193

• 11.11 miles
• 9:04/minutes per mile
• 1505
• Thunderbird Park
• Legs are tired as a result of this run, they don't hurt anything like they did after the LMI, but I'm hoping that's at least partly due to the fact that I am now more used to running off road hilly terrain, but hard to ever be sure about such things.  I do consider this a good effort though as I made a point of minimizing flat running through the complete run -- starting in the 67th Ave. parking lot I ran up the road side and over to the north mountain within Thunderbird Park, over that, back over it then to the car for hydration, around the south mountain within Thunderbird Park, culminating in a few short steep hills to make sure I was completely worn out.   Still don't feel like the hills were/are as steep as the Trail 100, but again, hopefully they're at least preparing me a bit more for my next try at that devastating route.