Westward Bound

AM: 74 mins. (10.5 miles)
PM: Travel

Welcome to the longest day of my life.

Not really, but it certainly felt that way. Fortunately things started off on the right foot with a solid long-ish run with Jordan at McAlpine. I was happy to see him crest the hour mark, a milestone in light of the past few weeks, and to see that he felt no pain on our two trips up the hill. It was even sunny and relatively warm outside and, dare I say it, felt just a little bit like spring. I'll take it.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon passed in a flurry of laundry, packing and otherwise preparing for the trip out West. Jenna and I left around 4pm for New Mexico--for various reasons, the rest of the team left last night--stopping for an hour layover in Phoenix. Once we arrived in Albuquerque around 11pm desert time--1pm to my tired, bedraggled body--we still had to shuttle over to the rental car center to pick up a sweet ride for our hourlong drive to the Hotel St. Francis in Santa Fe. That's right, we're spending the first half of our trip in Santa Fe. Simmons decided this would help us get acclimated to the altitude, seeing as Santa Fe sits at 7000 feet (ABQ is "only" 5000). All of this meant that Jenna and I didn't arrive at our hotel until past 1, exhausted and desperate for a good night's sleep. I hope our trip includes lots of rest, because I'm going to need it after this busy weekend.