Turquoise Lake Run - 5 miles (8.14.11)

Today Callie and I ran.  It was my 2nd trail run ever. It was my first run at high elevation.  It was my first fall running (or 2nd if you count being tripped in 7th grade when they had too many of us starting to run at the same time). It was my second run ever with a dog. There were actually three today.  There was 1 dog in my run on Friday and that was the first time I ran with a dog.

We ran a fairly flat course. There were some ups and downs. The roots and rocks were more trouble than the hills.  But starting at such a high elevation I could tell my breathing was worse. I ran about 2 minutes per mile slower too.

My time today was 56:03 (well 55:57 because I ran and stared at the 5 mile split before stopping the thing).  The dogs slowed us up a bit.  By a bit, I mean a lot. Lots of times I slowed my run and went ahead until they caught up. Quite a few times I was ahead and they were too far behind so I stopped (and stopped the timer).  I don't have excel on this computer and I can't get google documents to load so I'm adding myself!
Mile 1: 10:42
Mile 2: 10:56
Mile 3: 11:32
Mile 4: 10:43
Mile 5: 11:04

I tried to add that all together to double check my math but it's hard work.  It is good enough and I'll copy it all into excel at home and add a table at the end.

Before my run my mom said that it takes a day to realize the elevation is bad for breathing.  Also earlier I read that you should drink a gallon of water a day to help with the elevation. I drank about 8 oz of water. I'm still living.

A view from the trail 

While we were running, Timmy went out and took pictures.  He was on the trail we were on but somehow we didn't pass him.  Then we had to wait for him to return. Callie was starting to get worried he made wrong turns and wouldn't make it back.   During the run I was worried he told my mom I was off dead in a ditch. Then after he got back I learned he did tell my mom that.

With this 5 miles now I'm at 21.25 for the week (probably a little over with how I run 5.01 instead of 5 and such.  Pretty good week. I thought it was a good week ending in 16.25 though.

I asked Callie how far we would run. Her initial plan was to run 2.5 hours because that is what she does but then she knew she wouldn't run that long with me.  Then she thought she'd make me run 8.  I thought I'd run 2 or 3 as a guess just to get a feel for running at elevation.  So then we get there and I ask how we'll know how far to run. She said we'll run until I don't want to run anymore and then we'll turn around and run back.  Now to me that would mean halfway through our run I would hit the point that I don't want to run anymore. I'm not sure how that would go. So after 1 mile I figured going out 2.5 is good and then we'd turn around and come back.   Two miles into it, I told Callie my plan. I said we could even double back out again if we wanted to do more than 5 but then at least we were closer to the car.  The run wasn't so bad but then around mile 3.5, the dogs weren't having any parts of running anymore.  I think it was 3 harnesses together and Huck not actually running with Callie before.  Callie had 1 leash with all 3 dogs connected.  I thought about it after we got there that having 2 leashes would have been good and I could have held one with Huck but I thought of it too late and don't even know if Callie has a 2nd leash or not. 

Note: Apollo and Reef are Callie's dogs and Huck is the bonus dog she had for the day because she was dog sitting.