hilly 12K at 7777 feet elevation!

I was visiting Bryce Canyon yesterday and today with my friend Maryann from Texas. She is an amazing ultrawalker who won FANS last year (24 hour race in Minnesota). Like me, she has lost a lot of weight and kept it off; she lost 70lb by eating "Paleo" and I have lost 100 lb on Weight Watchers. Our dietary preferences are fairly different now, but we both are very conscientious about what we eat, and both consider ourselves recovering food addicts. Anyway, it was great to spend some time with her and do something fun together!

Yesterday we hiked about 5K together in Bryce, doing the Navajo Loop/Queen's Garden trail (the same one I took my coach Jim on last year). It's a great trail, and kid-friendly, which is important because Calvin and Michelle came along with us.





More photos from yesterday (lots more...) here, and a few here from today.

So, now on to today's workout. We stayed at a hotel on highway 20 that was near a summit on the road at 7777 ft (2370m) in elevation - yup, that's pretty high. There's a nice bike path next to it that is well-maintained but hilly. Lots of dips and such where there are gullies, and then a big downhill towards Red Canyon, to the west of Bryce Canyon. I knew between the elevation and hills that I wouldn't be fast, but I did OK I think!

My hips/glutes are still a tad sore from Friday, but mostly recovered. I started off a bit slowly but gained speed and confidence as the workout went on. I stopped for about 5 minutes at 4km to use the porta-potty by the road (a short walk through a parking lot away), but in general I was feeling pretty good. I was to do two 6' bursts of speed, the first of which was NOT speedy at all because I did it on a serious uphill. I was just in the mood to tackle that hill, at 6 km into my workout (the turnaround). My heart rate increased, and I was working it, so that's what matters. I did the next 6' burst at 10km, and did a 2:51 and 2:54 for the 500m splits on gently rolling terrain. I was happy with that.

Total time: 1:15:08 for 6:16/km with average HR 140. I think that's pretty good for hills at almost 8000ft!