Flagstaff to Sedona GAD (Girl Adventure Day)

In past years when I have asked Katie, "What are your running goals for the fall?", the answer has typically been "I would like to run a half marathon", or perhaps "I would like to run a 5k PR".  So when this year's response was, "I think I would like to run from Flagstaff to Sedona", I couldn't help but remember that this is the person who told me her body doesn't run, the person who asked me time and time again... for month after month... when she was EVER going to be able to run up the hill on Verde Valley School Road, the same person who once stopped and hugged the mailbox on the top of the hill because it was hot outside and the mailbox was cool, the same person who called me from Maui after her first half marathon in a state of panic because she was afraid she was going to lose a toenail and would NEVER be the same again.  So really, you want to run from Flagstaff to Sedona?  Yes, really.  The one thing I have learned from running with my best friend for the last 6 years is that she may rebel against most of what I tell her, she will give me looks that shoot nails through me, but when she says she is going to do something, do NOT stand in her way.  So I either had a choice to run with her or watch her from the comfort of my vehicle.  We know what most sane people would choose.  So it's not surprising what I chose to do. 

We pulled the maps out and googled and quickly discovered that unless you are a motorized vehicle there isn't a very direct and safe way to get from there to here.  After three trips to Flagstaff and a lot of driving on "roads" that don't seem suited for anything but a mountain goat we finally determined our route.  We picked our date and hired our support crew, Cabana Boy Dave (CBD), and began training. Finally, race day arrived, preceded by the typical sleepless night before.

Feeling a little green and anxious, we bypass our last opportunity to change our minds and just go back to bed, and begin the loooooong drive to Flag. Driving less than the distance that you are about to turn around and run on a cold, dark, windy morning does nothing to boost your confidence about the run.

Wearing everything possible to indicate that we are not bear bait and we are not elk, we move to our informal starting line.  We began our adventure on 89A at Fort Tuthill just inside the Flagstaff city limits.  Elevation 7032 feet.

 

 The early miles took us onto Old Munds Highway and Forest Service Road 700.   The first miles were the easiest in every sense... smooth dirt and gravel road... very gentle downhill... Katie was not sassy yet... Sherry was not grumpy yet.  But as we know, we had a lot of miles ahead of us and things can go downhill fast in every sort of way. 

 

 

 We had many miles of a long and sometimes winding, and sometimes not so winding, road. We had gray skies all day and what started out as a few snowflakes later turned to sleet. CBD was unable to capture our more adventurous part of the run on film because it was not drivable. We followed dirt roads to about a mile out of Munds Park and then had a stretch of about a mile where we had to hike through brush, trees, and rocks to eventually connect up to I17 for a few miles.  We encountered a highway patrolman right before the Munds Park bridge and held our breath that he wasn't going to stop us from running over it.  We got an odd look, not surprisingly not the first of the day, and he let us go.

 

It was in one sense a relief to get out of the brush and off Interstate 17 to continue our adventure down Schnebly Hill Road.   If you are not familiar with Schnebly Hill Road, the sign explains why I said it was in ONE sense a relief.  We knew that we had a rough road ahead of us for many more miles.  Through 24 miles of our run we would descend less than 600 feet.  In the next six and a half miles we would descend nearly 2000 feet.  We have a hard time smiling at the people who think that must be easy.  This is what long distance runners refer to as the wheels coming off.  If it doesn't hurt before 6.5 miles of screaming downhill, it is guaranteed to hurt at this point.   

 

 

And there were rocks, rocks, and more rocks.  Little rocks, big rocks, and tiny pebbles that liked to get into our shoes.  And wind that was blowing really little rocks, aka sand, into our eyes and noses and mouths. 

 

So stuff starts to happen when you are getting tired and getting sore and one person gets sassy and the other gets grumpy and at some point we decided that we should each stay on our own side of the road.  That was all in fun and only lasted about 2 minutes.  But seriously, if you think you know everything you could possibly know about a person, go run 34 miles with them and you will probably learn just a little bit more - all good stuff of course. 

 

 

So now the fun really begins.  We finally reach the most scenic part of the run but we can barely enjoy it because the next several miles are the most treacherous part of the run.  It is steep and it is hard to find anyplace to set your foot down without hitting a rock.  And we have on video proof of just how challenging this part of the road was when Katie decided to hit a rock and take a dive.  I wanted to know if she was OK.  She wanted to know how graceful her fall was on a scale of 1 to 10.  If 10 is a gymnast and 1 is Elaine dancing on Seinfeld, she scored about a 2.

   

 

So the road went on for miles and miles.  CBD sometimes stayed back and other times leap-frogged ahead of us.  He made the mistake of going ahead of us on the worst part of the road and managed to get stuck.  We come upon him after having run close to 30 miles and we have to push him!   

 

 

 

The number one goal was to just complete the run so we did take a few moments here and there to take in the views and enjoy the experience.   Things you do to pass the time when you are running for hours on end...  count the number of cattle guards you cross...  16. 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Don't really have an explanation for the next picture.  We swear the only thing we were drinking during the run was water and Powerade, but it appears that there was a little bit of metabolic fatigue happening at this point.  Or perhaps we are just missing the drunken lunge. 

 

 

Finally, the road is smoothing out a bit and we are counting down the last miles.  At this point we decided we just wanted to be done so we abandoned our run/walk method and just ran the last few miles.    

 

 

So it would seem that coming off all those dirt roads and rocks would be a relief.  Wrong!  At this point nearly everything from head to toe was aching and hitting the hard asphalt felt like shock waves going through our bodies.  THEN, on top of that, Katie (who just 6 years ago told me her body doesn't run) looks at her Garmin and determines we are going to come up short of an even number on mileage so we need to round it off.  So there we go running by our last turn to the finish line where CBD stands ready to snap a finish picture.  Of course he already knows that we are not in our right minds so he is not surprised when he hears the explanation.   

 

 

SUCCESS!  34 miles total ending in Sedona at an elevation of  4283 feet. 

 

 The problem with sitting down after running 34 miles?  Standing up.   

 

We learned some new things about ourselves and about each other over the course of 7 hours and 34 miles, but it seems that some things never change.  Katie is still sassy...  Sherry is still grumpy... but they are still best friends and are already talking about the next adventure.