We’re having some work done on the main rental cabin. It’s not hugely off-putting, but while the work is in progress, we can’t really rent the cabin. It turns out that there are a number of long weekends and a couple of major holidays on the way (Carnival and Mother’s Day) - more than one person wants to spend the night up here.
This weekend represents a long weekend and Nataly rented the cabin we have been using as our base of operations for 3 nights. That meant I had to get our stuff out of Cabin 2 and into the cabin where the work is ongoing, Cabin 1. Not a great deal of work, but it had to happen by the end of the day Thursday.
Once I moved us, I made a couple of peanut butter sandwiches, choked them down, and prepped for my run.
Regarding the sandwiches…I bought some bread at the supermarket and will never do that again. It was stale and barely suitable for making croutons. Yuck. Make the time to make your own bread, Jay. Here's the 33% WW Multigrain Nut Bread I made a couple weeks ago...
Thursday’s run once again took me out the Road to Bella Vista. I set out thinking initially I’d just give the hill a decent effort and cruise for the rest of the outing and that’s just what I did until I got to the 3 mile mark of my 8 mile trot. There I saw a couple of familiar faces, waved, smiled and looked at my watch and realized I was pretty well flying.
The 3 mile mark on the road to Bella Vista signifies the start of a mile (plus) long flatter stretch which cuts along a stream channel. There are several minor crossings to be negotiated, but it’s a really good, fun stretch of track. I ran the mile to my turn around in just over 8 minutes.
I got to the turn in 35 minutes, maybe a bit under. I knew I only had 1 mile of climbing left, 1 mile flat, and 2 miles of descending left. I decided to try for a big negative split and increased my effort for mile 5. I was actually pretty disappointed when the lap flashed and showed me 1 second slower than I was for the preceding one. Oh well, I still had those 2 miles of descending.
The road gains a solid 500-600 feet in elevation over the next mile and there are stretches which force me to hike. They’re short, but this mile ended up being the slowest of my run by more than a minute.
I made that time back in the first 3 quarters of a mile of the descent back to Cuevas. At this point, I was running as hard downhill as anytime since my last Imogene Pass Run (I’ll be back in 2014, Imogene). My last 2 mile splits were 6:53 and 7:03. That last mile includes a vicious little climb of about 150 feet vertical in a quarter mile, otherwise I may well have been under 6 minutes for that last mile.
This turned out to be a huge PR on the course. I averaged under 8:30/mile and until now, I haven’t broken 8:50/mile on any length jaunt on the out and back to Bella Vista. Needless to say, I’m happy with the effort.
Friday’s run was affected by Thursday’s. I headed out and my legs felt like they had given a solid PR effort the day before. I stopped a couple of times to chat with the Gatekeeper and Hugo, as well as to try and call Nataly. As a result, my first mile splits include conversation, but I wasn’t thinking about setting any kind of land speed records on this run.
I was actually looking forward to taking it easy and snapping some photos. I was heading out the Road to Palermo. I haven’t gone that direction since August of last year when the road was a horrible slick mud disaster. Despite that, I remember it being beautiful.
About a half mile into the climb, the vistas open up and the mountains pose for you…
Many roads in Bolivia really are tracks at best. Cars get beat to hell here.
The red dirt, when wet, is as slick as wet soap. My first “run” on this road was unfortunately under those conditions. I’d probably have been back sooner were it not for the muck.
My turn around featured a beautiful soccer field and basketball court. I ran 90 minutes of Futbol and hooped it up for another hour before actually going back. (um…no.)
Wouldn’t to suck to have this view out of your bedroom window.
My running partners for Friday’s effort, literally jackasses. One even turned its butt to me and kicked. Jackass…
Anyway. After 8 hard miles on Thursday, and 14 difficult miles on Friday. Saturday is going to be slow.
Thanks for reading and if your running partner shows you their butt, watch out for a good swift kick…
Jay
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