Deer Trail #99 - Flagstaff, AZ

by Maria Torres

The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them. - Anonymous

I have put in a lot of miles since my last post, and the ten mile run in Flagstaff, AZ, was by far the most eventful. David and I had planned a weekend getaway in Flagstaff the weekend of August 15th, and one of the highlights was going to be our long run on Saturday. Telluride is an amazing little town, but it is just that: little. You can only run the same path so many times before getting a little bored. So on Friday we printed off several maps of trails in the area and headed down to Flagstaff. We wanted to go on Saturday morning so we could get the run out of the way, but disaster hit...insomnia! As long as I can remember, it has always hit me in waves. I go about 4 nights in a row with little or no sleep, and then I am fine for several weeks. Prior to leaving for Flagstaff, I hadn't been sleeping well so I knew it was a possibility. It was especially bad on that Friday night though. Before finally dosing off from 5 a.m. - 6:30 a.m., I tried pretty much everything to fall asleep. I watched the Olympics, complete with late night Ambien commercials (they market to insomniacs in the middle of the night, FYI), and had even listened to an entire thunderstorm come and go. It was so frustrating because I knew I'd feel like the living dead on Saturday and wouldn't be able to run. I also felt bad because I knew David wouldn't want to go without me. That's exactly what happened, so instead we spent the day exploring the town and shopping. We ate Indian food that night (delicious), bought an OTC sleeping aid at Wal-Mart, and decided we'd just get up early on Sunday.

We headed out for Deer Trail #99 early after a pretty rushed continental breakfast - David refused to let me wait in line for a fresh Belgian waffle, which was probably a good thing in retrospect. That might not have been the best "energy food," but it sure sounded good at the time. When we finally arrived at the trail, a sign said that it was about .6 miles to the actual trailhead. David seemed very reluctant to leave me and run up ahead (he runs faster than me), but after I assured him several times that I'd be fine & that it looked safe, he felt better. We did agree that if there were any confusing areas or forks along the path that he would turn around and come back to tell me which way to go. Anyone who knows me knows that if there is any possible way to get lost, I will find it. So off we finally went, and that was the last we saw of each other until an hour and a half later...

I never saw David on my run, and I just assumed he ran up ahead thinking there were no confusing parts on the trail. Every once in a while I would look down to see if his footprints were in the dirt, but I didn't ever really get worried because it seemed perfectly safe to me. When I saw him waving his arms in the distance an hour and a half into the run, I was actually more annoyed than anything. I thought, "just because he's celebrating being finished with his 10 miles doesn't mean I can yet." When I got close enough to see him, I was surprised to discover that he was actually yelling at me. What in the world?! He had what looked like - I can't be sure - tears in his eyes (shhhh!) and looked terrified. To add insult to injury, because I didn't immediately understand the gravity of the situation, I was still set on finishing up my run. Yeah, that didn't go over so well with David.

Apparently, David made it 2 minutes into his run (we know this because it was saved on his Ipod) before turning back and discovering that I was nowhere to be found. When he ran back to find me, I wasn't there, and we still can't figure out how I took a different route and ended up on the right trail. Not only did he not get to do his run, but he also had a search party out looking for me...complete with park rangers, folks on horseback (not even kidding), and hikers. He ran back to the car, left a note on it, and then proceeded to twist his ankle three times while looking for me. Apparently I had also missed a sign that warned of mountain lions in the area, so he had pretty much decided I'd been dragged off the trail for mountain lion lunch. He had even called his dad to figure out what to do! [As an aside, his dad was talking this over with his sister, including the possibility of a mountain lion attack. His little nieces, who were over swimming at his parents' house, must have overheard this. So when his mom got home, his nieces ran to the door proclaiming, "Maria was dragged off by mountain lions!!"] I felt absolutely horrible. We plan to invest in some walkie-talkies before our next long run to avoid any future crises.

It took time for David to relax, but we had a great day after that. Before heading back to Telluride, we went to the Grand Canyon and took these:

Since I knew I'd be in Las Vegas the next weekend for my friend Sara's bachelorette party, I ran all my longer runs before I left. After the 10 miles on Sunday, I ran 3 on Monday, 7 on Tuesday, and 5 on Wednesday. I only had 3 left to run while I was in Las Vegas, and that didn't ever happen. So this week, I have to run every day Tuesday-Saturday to catch up. I'm actually looking forward to it so I can get back into marathon mode! :)