A great day on the greenbelt and the Hill of Life. I met Tom at 6:00 AM at the Barton Springs Pool after we had each positioned our coolers at the top of the HOL. We ran the greenbelt 7 miles up to the base of the HOL and on the way about mile 5 I tripped on a root and went down on the palms of my hands which was frustrating because I had earlier complimented us on all this training and neither of experiencing an injury (later). The temperature at the start was moderate in the low 80's or high 70's but with high humidity as usual, but the run up to the HOL overall was a really comfortable run.
Then we did 12 repeats on the HOL where we saw more bicycle crazy's who tried to navigate the HOL and we saw more people out with their dogs walking down to the Barton Springs Creek, and a Cub Scout group, and a bunch of people who recognized us and encourged us with our Pikes Peak training. We saw Mike R. who I had run with 6 years ago with our marathon-a-month group, so we had a nice chat with Mike at the top of the HOL. We also saw Mark L. who I had trained for the Pikes Peak Marathon 3 years ago, fun to see Mark.
In 4 years of training on the HOL I have never had any kind of serious fall, probably in doing over 320 reps of the HOL over that time. But today on my 3rd loop on the way down I had a goofy trip on my left foot which sprained the ankle (not too seriously) and I fell down and rolled to the side of the trail. Nothing too serious but the ankle did swell and I have been icing it here at home this afternoon. We went on and finished our 12 reps of the HOL and then our 7.5 mile return greenbelt run back to the Barton Springs Pool. On the way back we saw Abe D. who I had trained with for Pikes Peak 3 years ago, who had beat me by 10 seconds in our first Pikes Peak Marathon, fun to see Abe.
On the way back the temperature had reached 95 degrees and it took a toll on our heart rate as we cautiously slowed the pace to control our heart rates. My HR was staying about 150 to 154 for the last 4 miles while Tom's HR was bouncing at 168 to 175. We have sure found it curious that Tom's HR continues to stay about 15 to 20 beats higher than mine on our training runs. Anyway we finished the run and then went over into the Barton Springs to cool down and get the sweaty smell off. As usual the spring was loaded with adults, children, and dogs. I counted 11 dogs in the spring that people were throwing tennis balls out into the water for the dogs to retrieve, crazy and fun to watch. Tom and I both worked our way to our usual spot where the water falls into the lower springs pool. That is where the freshest and cleanest water enters the springs pool. Anyway a great day to do 26 miles and we both felt great after the run. Now we enter the taper phase of our training, should be fun.
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