(Unfortunately, yesterday, and not today. And it was strictly coincidental and not by design). Nevertheless, how appropriate for ALMOST the Fourth of July. Not to mention that with the hot weather that I enjoy so much, I've been busy making the most of my weekends and have gotten a bit lax about posting here, so I needed the extra prodding provided by this opportunity for a Fourth of July subject line that was just too good to pass up.
Yes, I burned 1,776 calories on a 12 mile run in McDowell Mountain Ranch yesterday morning. And I followed that up with an additional 1,553 calories burned in 10.61 miles of McDowell Mountain Ranch running today.
Don't think for a moment that just because I haven't appeared on here for a while I somehow got done in by that Thompson Peak hike from my last post and/or dropped off the face of the earth. On the contrary - I've been outdoors and active on just about every weekend since then. Most recently, I discovered for the first time the Reach 11 Recreation Area of Phoenix. It was nice of them to name it Reach 11 because that's about how many miles I have to "reach" - one way - to get there on my bike!
When I lived in Michigan, my wife Lynn and I enjoyed walks through trails in the woods (during those rare Michigan moments when it wasn't icy or raining). But after a decade of living amongst saguaros and agaves, she had a hard time believing me when I told her I actually found a wooded trail right here in the blistering Valley of the Sun. So here are the iPhone pictures I took to prove it:
So now we'll definitely have to plan to walk this trail sometime. After the temperature descends back down into only double digits. In October.
But I'll try to make a point of posting here at least a few more times between now and then. No matter how alluring the hot weather weekends become.
In the meantime, happy Fourth of July, and console yourselves with this thought: in exactly 565 days, the Kenyan will be out of office!!!! Independence and freedom are once again in sight!
