The annual Labor Day Run at Saguaro National Park (East) is one of my favorite events. It's close to home (3.5 miles), it's said to be the only running event in a national park, and it was the first ever run I competed in (the 2008 edition). The course, with rolling steep hills and one monster 1.5-mile climb, is tough. What makes it really, really tough, however, is the fact that it takes place in what is, essentially, the middle of the summer here in the Sonoran Desert. I try to do a little better each year, but that means training in the most humid time of the year for Tucson. So the course has kicked my ass plenty of times; usually I find that the heat and humidity gets to me about halfway through, at the base of the big hill, and I end up jogging back, or hiking across the loop and back to the start.
Other times of year—when I'm not training for Labor Day—it's just fun, a great way to get out and enjoy some natural scenery. I've seen deer, gila monsters, rattlesnakes (western diamondback and Arizona black), desert tortoises, coyote and bobcats. I've witnessed amazing sunsets, starlit nights and satellite passes, and also awe-inspiring lightning storms (both distant and holy-crap-I-could-die sweeping over me). I was just a little trepidatious the first time running it around sunset and into twilight (mountain lion and killer bee attacks have occurred out there) and afterwards started the first of a series of entries like "ran the Saguaro Loop at sunset and did not get attacked by [bats|bees|cougars|etc|etc]."
I set a 66-minute PR out there early this spring. That was taking it easy in the first couple of miles with their roller-coaster hills, gradually ramping up and running the last 5K at my max pace. I didn't get to train a whole lot until late in July. My first few training runs established that a significant speed-up, e.g. a sub-1-hour time, was probably not going to happen by Labor Day, but shaving two or maybe even three minutes off of my PR could happen (with a lot of hard work). However, after a number of training runs throughout August, I still couldn't seem to go faster than 29 minutes to the base of the hill or less than 14 minutes on the hill, only a tiny improvement on my PR splits, and still requiring a huge effort in the last 5K in order to improve my time.
Fast forward to race day, 6:35AM. I started closer to the front—less people to pass—this time. But I'm still slow, so not too close. I was amazed to look at my watch and see about 7:15 had gone by in mile 1, 14:30 by mile 2. I slowed down a little bit to save energy for the hill. Topped out on the hill (mile 5) in 40:40 and felt pretty good (slight side-ache). This was the 2-minute improvement I was looking for! But somehow, elated that the PR was well in sight, I slowed down and stopped watching the split times, just cruised along at a slightly slower pace. I picked up the pace again in the last mile, but it was too late, the sub-64-minute time was not going to happen. Still got a PR with a 64:45 minute time (on my watch; it turns out the official time of 64:53 is from the gun, not from crossing the line) and 126th place out of 779. So it was a moment of some mixed emotions: glad for the PR, but a little bummed that I did the last few miles slower than in training.
Next year, my training goal will be to achieve the sub-1-hour time!
