Time is sure flying by now. Lots of things have happened in the last couple months. Most importantly, I met Kim H. I don't want to say too much, as I don't have her permission to talk about her, and she is very modest about herself, but I will say it has been awesome. My friends told me if I didn't slow down, no woman would be able to catch me, well Kim caught me, and now I'm working to keep up with her. 

    In mid October, I was in Tucson with Rick and Jill from Sierra Adventure Sports  for the Tucson Scavenger Dash . Kim came down after she was done with her 4,000 meter swim at Lake Pleasant, nearly breaking an hour with mitigating circumstances even. We had planned to ride to the top of Mt Lemmon on Sunday, but as luck had it, that was the inaugural running of the Mt. Lemmone Marathon, so we pushed it back to Monday morning. It was a warm mid to upper 80's in Tucson when we left on the 26+ mile climb. We both neglected arm warmers or wind breakers it was so warm. Luckily, Kim found a discarded, but nice, fleece jacket left behind from the previous days marathon. As we neared the top, it was becoming noticeably cooler. We stopped and had lunch at the lodge, seeking out little bits of sunshine as we ate to alleviate the goose bumps. It was a good thing we were hungry, as the food wasn't too good, and the service was worse. I logged more trips to the kitchen than our waiter did, but he did acknowledge that as were getting ready to leave. Lunch came to $28.62. Our combined cash came to $29. The good news, was we had enough to cover the bill. The bad news was, it looked like we were stiffing our absent minded waiter. We explained to him, but I was still looking over my shoulder for a spectacled product of the 60's out for payback. We flew down the mountain, in about a third of the time it took to climb it.


    Wednesday night, I signed up for a 10k trail run at Cave Creek Park on the Go John and Overton Trails. I hadn't been running much longer than this because of my calf injury, but I felt good about doing it as long as wore the neoprene support I had for it. I had not run (or hiked) here before, so I really didn't know what to expect as far as hills. There were hills....and 41 racers signed up. I sized up the other runners, and saw a few that looked like they were pretty strong runners. The guy without a shirt looked like the odds on favorite though. I figure anyone that an start a race shirtless can probably back it up, and he did, winning the 10k overall. I tried to stay close to him, but he would leave me behind on the flats and downhills. I think that extra 3 or 4 inches in height may have had something to do with it. I would pull back to him whenever we climbed, but in the end I couldn't hang on, finishing second overall though. My best ever individual finish, and awards were given out for first place in each division, with no age group splits. Oh well, was a great run, and I got to see Kim afterwards (she rode her bike there).

http://www.aravaiparunning.com/results/2010CCTResults10k.htm

    I've been working on my swim some. I am amazed at how easy Kim makes it look. I can tell she has me getting faster already, but I just don't see myself ever really being a strong swimmer. But that's ok, there are more important things in life.