Day 3 in the books

Started the day with a 2 hr run in a beautiful national park here. It was in the foothills of a mountain range. There was an 8 mile newly paved road loop within the park. There wasn't one car on the road!

We started out on the road and Jeff and I detoured off onto a dirt road, which led to some single track trail. We stopped in the trail to check out a huge rattle snake, that was hanging out in a bush about 5 feet away from us. Bruce came up on us and the three of us continued on our adventure on the single track. Once again, not a cloud in the sky.

The park was gorgeous in a bizarre way. It's desert so there's cacti everywhere and no shade whatsoever. The path was hard packed dirt and was just great, great trail running. It was quite hilly as well and also hot in there.

I had Jeff and Bruce stop on a few occasions to take in the incredible views. We had some good conversations and solved the worlds problems as we ran.

On the way back from the run, we all stopped to get smoothies, then showered quickly and headed off to Trisports, or the newly named "candy shop" for some shopping. They had a two lane endless pool in the shop that the campers used to try out wetsuits. With the underwater camera set up, we were able to see their stroke up close on the flat screen. Pretty cool! Bruce, Jeff and Sarah made some new wetsuit purchases from their tryings.

We stayed at trisports for quite a bit and everyone was famished so we stopped off for some sandwhiches on the way back. It was getting late so we opted to skip the easy recovery ride and instead did assisted stretching, core work and had a nutrition discussion. There have been lots of nutrition questions on this trip, to say the least. seems like this the area where triathletes are most confused.

I went off on a bit of a rant discussing motivation as well and how most are more talented then their race times depict but their heads get in their way.

Everyone is bonding well and having fun. They are a bit tired so the afternoon off did some good. Besides, tomorrow we have a 6+ hour ride planned with a 27 mile climb up Mt Lemmon followed by a 1 hr brick! Should be fun.

Cheers,

EH