Welcome to the seventh episode in the Out Of Breath series! In this feature, I'll share my Strava run details (at the bottom of this post) as well as a few pictures of the places I'm running through/by/in/past/etc. This run occurred 21st June, 2017.
So we were spending a few days camping in the the gorgeous Sierra de San Pedro Martir National Park Parque Nacional Sierra de San Pedro Martir. I love how so many places in Mexico take a few minutes to pronounce, but before you are finished (trying) to say the words, the native speaker will cut you off with a short one or two word abbreviation. I can't wait until we do the language school and I am more fluent!
Anyway, we were camping around at approximately 2500m/8200ft elevation at and I decided I wanted to take a run before we left. This was the first run where I was truly out of breath for a good portion of the run, especially since it was a trail run (which I love, but haven't done in a while) with constant 20-30m climbs and descents on the little trail.
This picture is at the beginning when I wasn't breathing as hard, and there was a beautiful meadow to cross. Another motivation for the run was the faster that I went, the less the mosquitoes would bite me. This theory was tested when I had to take a break off the trail later on to do some business, but I avoided having anything important bitten.
Trees, trees and more trees. The scenery at the top of this mountain was uncanny in how much it resembled the area (far northeast corner of Washington state) where I grew up. The elevation was definitely not the same, but all of the pine trees and the relatively sparse undergrowth was very similar. It's not easy to see in these pictures, but I am very curious to know what this area is like in the winter; there are some enormous trees that look to have blown over and been completely uprooted in the past few months. It was impressive.
Speaking of blown over trees! This is exactly what I meant. This run certainly wasn't one of my fastest ones, because there were a number of these obstacles to climb over along the trail I was following.
Some of the blown over trees are much older and have obviously been there a while. You can also see a sampling of the many pine cones littering the path; some of them were honestly as large as my head. I've never seen ones so big before.
It was quite a spectacular run. Minus the mosquitoes and lack of shower at the end of the run (yeah, that wasn't so fun), it was certainly one of the most unique I've done.
Feel free to follow me on Strava if you also use it. It's a pretty cool tool for running/cycling/etc.