Trenton Half Marathon November 7th 2015 (4 for 4)

Yes, Heather and I have now done all four of the Trenton Half Marathons, 26 to go (in about 26 years you will figure out what that means). This years race was our slowest and fastest race to date.

How can that be, keep reading and you will find out. Since 2012 Heather and I have been running the Trenton Half Marathon. I know most of you are avid readers of LifeOfDUG, but if you happen to be a new reader, you might enjoy reading about our past Trenton Half Marathon races.

2012  2013  2014

How could we run our fastest and slowest race in the same race? First a recap of past years. Here are

our times.

2012 - 1:45:33 2013 - 1:52:44 2014 - 1:58:29

As you can see we had slowed by over 6 minutes each year. If we were going to keep this trend up we would be walking rather then running the Trenton Half Marathon. It was decided after the 2014 Trenton Half Marathon we would run 5 minutes faster each year until we got back to our 2012 time.

I know I still have not answered the question, Fastest and Slowest in the same race?

This year we ran on the A Love for Life Team. We had over 30 runners on our team many placing in

their age groups. One of the runners Tyler, who happens to be the son of Shriek and Elle had a goal of running at a pace of under 8:00 minute miles. Being 17 and on the cross country team, some might think that time was very doable, but remember Tyler had only run ten miles once (in his life) and that was the furthest he ever ran. 13.1 miles is another 30% further.

I know, I know, what about the fastest and slowest race? I am getting to that.

Heather has a lot on her plate and was not able to train as she had planned, as we got closer to race day she felt like she was going to hold us back. While the best part of running Trenton for me, is running with Heather, she said I was taking some of the enjoyment out of the race with the pressure to run faster without the time to train, so she pawned me off on Tyler. OK, OK, I am getting to that answer.

I asked Tyler if I could run with him and he reluctantly agreed, what 17 year old speedster, wants to run with some old man.

Mile 1 - 7:43
Mile 2 - 7:48
Mile 3 - 7:41
We were both felling fine, but I could tell, Tyler had plenty of gas left and I was close to max as far as speed was concerned
Mile 4 - 7:48
Mile 5 - 7:46
Mile 6 - 7:52
I was slowing Tyler down, so I pushed him to go ahead, which he did, but he stayed in eye sight. Mile 7 - 7:54
Mile 8 - 7:57
Slowly slowing down
Mile 9 - 8:13

The HILL - went for my last GU, as I pulled it out of my pocket I see Tyler and he says, "Can I have one of your GU's?" Of course I give him my last GU. That was the last I saw of my GU and of Tyler. Mile 10 - 8:01
Mile 11 - 7:59
Mile 12 - 8:00
Mile 13 - 8:02
Last .1 - 7:31 Pace
Total time 1:44:08 Almost a minute and 30 seconds faster then my fastest Trenton Half Marathon 4 years ago. Oh, and Tyler, he finished a good 4 minutes ahead of me. Making up all that time in the last 3 miles, like I said I was holding him back.

That is half the answer to the fastest slowest race.

Heather? She did great considering her training with a time of 2:00:10 about a minute and a half
slower then last year. Our slowest time. Thus the slowest and fastest race yet!

The good news we wanted to each take 5 minutes off last years time for a total of 10 minutes faster.

Last year we both did 1:58:29 x 2 = 3:56:58 This year I did 1:44:06 and Heather did 2:00:10 = 3:44:16, which means we took 12 minutes and 42 seconds off our 2014 time. Much better than our goal of 10 minutes.

Enjoy the Pictures and video.

It is getting cold around here so I think I will head south.

Cheers,

DUG


Video

 

Pictures

Two Ranches in One Trip (Tucson and Greer AZ) October 2015

Our last trip to Canyon Ranch back in March was a little short, lucky for us Chephart Yosh invited us

for another visit. This time not only did Chephart Yosh invite us to Canyon Ranch she also invited us to her cabin in the Mountains at Hidden Meadow Ranch. Yep double the fun with two ranches in one.

Canyon Ranch was as great as ever, we had three full days or working out and beating the you know what our of ourselves. For whatever reason I will never know. They had a new piece of equipment called move strong it was like a jungle gym for adults. I had a blast playing around on it.

On Saturday we started our trek to the mountains. Or should I say our drive. Hidden Meadow Ranch is 5 hours out side Tucson at an elevation of 8,600 feet, I love altitude. Friends of Chephart Yosh that were visiting from Germany will be joining us. Gudon who is a world famous explorer and Reinhart who is a world famous physicist, in fact Reinhart worked on the Manhattan project. We drove in separate cars as Gudon and Reinhart had to return early.

Hidden Meadow Ranch is located in Geer, AZ not to far from the New Mexico boarder. The drive is breath taking, most of it is on windy state road crossing through the Salt Canyon. You climb

from 3,000 feet to over 8,500 feet during the drive.

Chephart Yosh had describe her place as a cabin, not so much, more like a beautiful log cabin home. Everything was just perfect. Hidden Meadow Ranch is staffed by world renowned chef John. He made us a beautiful dinner, which was perfect after the long drive.

After a great nights sleep we decided to just vegg out and relax after a few days of working out. We did go for a 5 mile run, while Gudon and Reinhart went on a short hike that turned into a long hike, they planed on an hour and were gone

closer to three. We never got the real story on what these two love birds were up to.

In the afternoon we all took a short hike to get the lay of the land and enjoy a beautiful sunset. Chephart Yosh made us a fantastic dinner and then off to bed. Tomorrow we had a fun adventure planned.

Hidden Meadow Ranch offers horse back riding and Mountain Bike riding. We opted for the mountain bikes. Our plan was to do a nice easy Mountain Bike ride. What is the saying, best laid plans. On our run we really did not feel the effect of the altitude except on uphill sections. This was a

happy surprise.

The goal today, was a nice easy ride without many hills. As we left the ranch we took a dirt road that I thought would hit the state road and then we could double back to the main road we arrived in on, which was relatively flat.

Our ride started out flat and quickly turned into a steep down hill. I think I went close to 5 miles without having to peddle, gravity can be a great thing. After about 12 miles we reached the state road, I went right and Margarite went left. Not good! We each had a different thought on how to get back to the cabin. We decided to go left, which
worked out great until we saw that we were heading into New Mexico and the road was going straight up hill. We made a quick U turn past our dirt road and on our way back to the cabin. Second thoughts kicked in when we started heading up another steep hill. With no certain idea how to get back except going back the way we came, we made another U turn and retraced our steps back to the dirt road.

Once on the dirt road we realized not only was the ride out downhill we had the wind to our backs. As we made the right turn onto the dirt road the wind hit us like a ton of bricks. My guess 20 miles per hour with gusts even stronger. We did not know it, but would later find out we had descended over 2,000 feet, from over 8,500 feet to just under 6,500 feet. The ride out about 30 minutes, the ride back 2 hours (gravity sucks). So much for an easy ride.

Shower, Nap, Dinner, and a day we called it.

Today we will be heading back to Tucson as we have an early flight out the next day. The ride back
was as beautiful as the ride out, except a few torrential rain showers. Another great dinner prepared for by Chephart Yosh and off to bed for our 4:00 AM wake up call.

What a great trip, until next time.

Cheers,

DUG

Pictures