My first summer in Tucson was a relatively dry one. This year, the monsoon showed up much earlier than last year and feels like a much more substantial presence. The corresponding rise in humidity is taking me down a peg in the heat tolerance department. Both sweat and ice work a lot better when they evaporate. After some runs lately I look and feel like I’ve jumped into a pool with my clothes on. I promise that I’m not just constantly peeing my pants.
The most logical response to this weather would be to switch to something indoors, or at least get out first thing in the morning. The problem is that the morning is the perfect time for too many other things too. Walks with my husband, writing in my journal, catching up on the deep work that I rarely get time for during a work day. By the time I’ve done those things, we’re in the triple digits and the sun has a big, blinding smile on its face. And even when the sun goes down, the heat sticks around.
I also love spending time outside all year, no matter what the weather. I like getting out in the snow, the heat, and everything in between. I like seeing how the outside world changes while being an active part of it. For me, the point of running is to do it outside. I’ve run on a treadmill only once in the past few years when wildfire smoke was inescapable. I don’t know how people do it on a regular basis. I salute those of you with that level of mental fortitude.
1. My Heat Strategy
Fortunately, my stubbornness comes along with enjoying the strategic side of gear planning and over-preparing for all situations. I like the process of methodically building towards solving a problem, through reading and listening and experimenting. I’ve gradually learned a few things about how to keep running outside without putting myself in a bad situation.
My two part simplified heat strategy has been:
1.) Getting used to carrying a lot more stuff. Like several pounds of stuff. In the summer desert situation, most of that stuff has been multiple liters of water and a ridiculous quantity of ice cubes inside a special stretchy bandana. In places without cell service I also take a satellite device. And on any trail in any weather, I carry my emergency survival kit in a waterproof bag.
2.) Taking it slow. Moving slower and doing less miles has been the name of the game, whether I like it or not. I heard some advice once that you should ration effort and not water when hiking in the desert. And if I’m halfway through my water and I’m not near a guaranteed source, it’s always time to turn around.
The latter is the harder part. I can get used to carrying more weight, but one of my favorite things to do is roaming around an area freestyle for several unplanned hours. This doesn’t work so good when you’re guzzling down two liters in two hours and your mouth is so dry you can’t say hello to someone passing by. I’ve pushed this limit before and felt the grim reality of being alone, exposed, and dehydrated. It was dumb.
Sometimes even when I do have enough water, I can tell it’s not a good day to wander off too far into the desert. Hydrated or not, heat puts a lot of extra stress on your body, especially when coupled with direct exposure to the sun. When its cold, you warm up by moving. When its hot, you cool down by not moving. I’ve looked longingly at maps and sign posts telling me about all the great trails I could see if I just went a little farther, while also knowing it would be irresponsible to follow that urge.
2. There’s No Such Thing As Not Enough
Lately this all makes me feel like I’m lacking something. I want to do big scary things. Looking at my mileage, it doesn’t measure up to what I feel like I should be doing to prepare for those things. I think about how if I was really serious, I would be getting up at 4AM and grinding out at least a couple hours, well before sunrise and all my other activities.
Thinking like this tends to make me miserable no matter what choices I make. It’s rare in life that there is one correct choice and one right thing to do. A lot of people would confidently say that I shouldn’t be running in this heat at all, or shouldn’t be running ultra marathons, or shouldn’t be going out into nature alone. I’m confident that these choices all do much more good in my life than harm.
I have to accept that beyond the rules of physics, most of reality is just made up moment to moment, and I’ll never know if I was right or wrong about most things. I keep running when I can, and still find ways to enjoy it even as I’m roasting in the sun. The goals I want to achieve aren’t going to win me anything lasting, even if I achieve them. They just exist so I have a reason to keep running.
3. Sabino Canyon Sizzler
One of my favorite mid summer outings around Tucson lately was at Sabino Canyon. I rolled up around noon after my trademark move of ‘doing other things all morning.’ As expected, the giant parking lot was mostly empty and the never-ending Excessive Heat Warning was in full effect on my weather app. A few brave people were waiting for the electric shuttle to take them on a ride up the canyon. Others were returning to their cars, looking very done for the day, done as in well done after broiling on a grill. I tied what felt like ten pounds of ice around my neck and got started up the road.
The wide road was empty until I passed two young women walking and giggling together. Then another tram came rolling slowly down the road. Me and the passengers waved at each other. As I shuffled up and around a curve, I was surprised to see a family with young children pulling a big wagon up the hill. I waved at them too.
A little farther on, I discovered the main reason why there were still other people here making the hot trek up the canyon. There was still enough water in Sabino Creek that I spotted several people down in the water taking a refreshing dip in the deeper pools. Most of them looked to be couples and families hanging out on the boulders and rough white sand that lined the creek. A few of them might have been nude. It reminded me of going to one of the rocky beaches along Lake Washington on a hot summer day in Seattle. Give people any body of water in July and they will show up and make the best of it, no matter how many ducks are pooping in the water or how many sharp rocks they have to step on.
I was happy to see the water since it meant I could use my filter bottle to fill back up along the way. There’s technically a drinking fountain a few miles up the road, but that water gets so hot that I prefer the relatively cooler creek water when its available. You could seriously cook ramen using that drinking fountain. Plus, when you get water from the creek it tastes a little bit like black tea from the oak leaf tannins, naturally brewed into the water from higher up in the mountains. I don’t know if its actually good or bad for you, but since I have a filter I figure that the risk of drinking it is low. It’s all a part of absorbing the environment and being absorbed by it. I haven’t had any intestinal misfortunes yet as a result.
The water also meant that the day was a good one for dragonfly spotting. Giant red flame skimmers zipped around the twinkling water. I remember last year I thought they were some kind of huge scary wasp and didn’t bother taking a closer look. Luckily since then I realized that they were very obviously the wrong shape to be big scary wasps.
Dragonflies keep earning more respect in my mind as I learn more about them. Their agility and vision make them some of the best hunters in the world. When I was fencing regularly, I thought a lot about dragonflies as inspiration, but didn’t see them in person very often. I’ve been seeing them more often now in the desert than I ever did in wetter places. It’s probably because I’ve been so hypervigilant about every flying thing within a mile radius. But it might also be a sign of something else, especially since I’m not scared of them anymore.
I got up to the end of the tram road at mile 3.7 to find a couple chatting at the stop where the shuttle turns around. They had just come down from a short hike up the trail that continues from the tram road and looked ready to go home. Their two sons were still coming back down the trail and their mom yelled up to them that she was taking a picture of them hiking. There were some communication challenges. “We’re coming down!” the sons yelled down from above. “I know, I’m taking a picture!” yelled their mom. “What did you say? We’ll be down there soon!” they called as they continued to not pose for an action shot. We chatted as they waited for the shuttle and I transferred my extra liter of water from the back of my vest to my bottles.
As I continued up the rocky switchbacks and rose higher above the sparkling creek, I daydreamed about making it all the way to Hutch’s Pool. The deep, persistent pool is a popular swimming hole for hikers along the trail, but it would take several more rocky, winding miles to get that far. It had already taken me forever to get up to that point and it was getting towards the peak heat of the day, where any extra effort came with a big tax. I set myself a shorter turnaround distance limit and promised myself that I would go up to the pool another time, another day.
While its always disappointing to stop short of a landmark, it also leaves something to look forward to. It’s like stopping work for the day when you still have momentum on a project. It can feel so wrong in the moment, but I always want to have something unfinished that I look forward to getting back to. Not to mention I also wanted to get back home before dinner.
Running back down the tram road is fast and satisfying as long as you can get into a groove and don’t think too hard about your knees. Part way down my mouth started feeling like paper, so I stopped by one of the deeper parts of the creek to fill up again. People relaxed in the shade of huge, gray slabs of rock that were striped with white from layers of ancient, compressed Earth crust and then worn smooth by years of floods. A little kid splashed around while his mother called after him. I enjoyed the feeling of acceptance that all there was to do was wait out the heat by a water source. The scene would have probably been the same millions of years ago.
I got back to the parking lot and beelined towards the vending machines, after visualizing an ice cold can of Coke for at least the last mile, and while also feeling very glad I hadn’t tried to go farther. I sat on a bench, chugged down both a Coke and a Gatorade, and apologized to my body for the double dose of corn syrup. I couldn’t believe how much liquid I could still drink after downing nearly three liters of water. And I still had plenty of room for dinner.
4. Nocturnal Neighbors
Other runs lately have been less obviously scenic but still full of peaceful scenes and wildlife sightings. Many times I’ve been going out at night either after a local storm or during one that is happening silently off in the distance. Even though its still muggy and hot most of the time, at least the lack of sun means you don’t get that extra dose of radiation. I prefer being able to see the mountains and trees, but its also been nice to catch some nocturnal animal sightings in the neighborhood.
Tarantulas are one of the neighbors I only ever see in the dark. One of the biggest examples was a few blocks down from my house, about an hour after sunset. So far they’ve all been desert blonde tarantulas, creeping slowly and carefully around the gravel edges of neighborhood roads. They seem like something that should obviously be on my ‘scary’ list, but for some reason they don’t bother me like some other creepy things do. Maybe its because they’re furry and slow. I would probably think differently if one showed up inside my house, instead of me showing up in theirs.
Kangaroo mice are a much more universally cute nocturnal desert animal that I see all the time after dark. They move along by hopping on their powerful back legs. I can’t get enough of watching videos of kangaroo mice escaping rattlesnakes and other predators. This video is one I’ve watched multiple times because I love seeing the slow motion mouse ninja moves, especially when one of the mice kicks sand directly in a rattlesnake’s face.
Coyotes are usually heard and not seen. When they yip and yowl nearby I always go on alert but they don’t seem to care much about humans. The animals I’m most wary of running into at night are javelinas. There was a huge squadron of javelinas that roamed my old neighborhood. One time I went out to check the mail at night and got surrounded by them while they were passing through our front yard. Many times I’ve seen a couple baby javelinas in the group, which are cute but also mean that their mom is going to be ready to protect them. In our new neighborhood, I have yet to see a javelina, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there. (I like to watch the Youtube channel below to get my javelina fix lately. It has a lot of great critter cam footage.)
Thinking about night runs makes me a little sad that I haven’t done any of the night races this year that Aravaipa Running puts on in the Phoenix area. Last year I did two of the 50k night runs and they were helpful for training my brain and emotions for night running in the desert, which really came in handy for the Javelina Jundred in the fall. Both times I finished around 2-3AM and then passed out in my car until the sun came up. I really enjoyed the experience, even if it messed up my Sunday.
This year I finally realized its not going to be a simple repeat of last summer, and not just because I moved to a different part of Tucson or because its been a wetter summer. All the experiences of last year were lessons in adaptation, and now its just a new set of lessons in a slightly different format. I have new responsibilities that feel like they should override everything else, especially running. Sometimes that’s true and most times its an excuse.
5. Charouleau Gap
My last longer run of July was a short trip about 30 minutes north to a jeep trail called Charouleau Gap. I wanted some uphill climbing and rugged-ness and that is definitely what I got. This was technically marked as a “forest road” on my map, but only a road in the sense that a 4×4 vehicle might be able to navigate it without losing a few bits and pieces along the way.
After reading about this trick in a book about hiking the Grand Canyon, I brought a very large plastic syringe in my vest just in case I needed to collect water from post-storm pools along the way. The Canada Del Oro wash was bone dry despite all the rain lately. There were still quite a few pools that would have been good candidates for the syringe trick. The only problem was that the pools were also full of wriggling tadpoles, born from frogs who emerge from the ground during monsoon storms to reproduce as quickly as they can before the water dries up. I decided I’d just turn around earlier instead of trying to avoid slurping tadpoles.
The trail wound up and down and around dusty hills and giant slabs of gray rock. The rocks looked like flowing lava, but were just worn down by years of rain, smooth and undulating in the heat. Around one of the first curves I noticed many huge, dark birds circling in the sky. I saw their shadows passing over the ground around me. The higher and farther I looked, the more I spotted circling. They were turkey vultures, maybe around 20 of them. It was hypnotizing to watch and reminded me how easy it is to underestimate the danger of a summer afternoon in the desert. The vultures weren’t circling me, but it wouldn’t take much to become a carrion candidate.
Around a lonely bend I came across a metal sign that looked like it could have been here for fifty years or more. It was at a high point where I could look down and see SaddleBrooke, a big retirement community north of Tucson. The contrast between the rawness of the environment and the tidiness of these planned neighborhoods is still surreal to me.
As I got closer the mountains, I could feel the heat getting to me. It’s a fine line sometimes between “ok” and “not ok.” I made myself sit in the shade of a bush and drink some extra water and electrolytes. It was time to turn around, despite the familiar allure of the jeep road continuing off into the distance. There’s no arguing with the desert.
This fact was underlined again at the very end of this afternoon adventure. I was doing that thing where I was circling the parking area to round up the distance on my watch to the next mile. All of a sudden, I almost tripped over a big deer skeleton with patches of fur still clinging to it. The skull’s empty eye sockets gaped, and I decided it was time to drive home and get a Slurpee, a good way to tie a bow on surviving a hot and grindy July.
P.S. Here’s a bonus video giving you a taste of some of the more intense monsoon action this past month, from a local photographer and storm chaser. I think this is the same storm that took out a bunch of our trees!
Leave a Reply