Last Saturday, I rode the Tour de Scottsdale, the last cycling event in my plan for the year. Now comes time to start running again. Kathleen and I have set our eyes on a 10K in December, and probably a couple 5K’s to warm up and add to the tshirt collection.
Even though my overall condition is pretty good from eight months of cycling, it’s important to ease into a running routine that avoids injuries. Because running taxes different muscles than cycling, it’s easy for someone my age who is aerobically fit to overwork and strain those muscles. It’s like putting crappy tires on a Ford Mustang.
This morning’s run was mostly a walk around one of my favorite routes through Cave Creek, an old mining town nine miles southwest of where we live in Arizona. After the gold was mined out of the nearby hills, the town floundered in the first half of the twentieth century. In the 70’s, the hippies arrived, drawn by the wild west character that allowed them to live anywhere without the bother of laws or enforcement. Twenty years later, restaurants and shops selling trinkets to tourists began to appear.
