Sharing one of my favorite trails - Yetman - with some friends

My friend Julie and her brother Charlie, who was in town for the Thanksgiving holiday, joined me for a trail run today on Yetman trail in Tucson Mountain Park. They indulged me by not starting the run until around 8am (it was still around 45 degrees at the start). That is the cool thing about running in Tucson in the winter - sleeping in a little! It warmed up quickly, and we ended our run with the temp around 65. Lovely.

It had rained pretty hard on Wednesday and Thanksgiving day, so the dirt was nice and packed down. Yetman trail starts at the trailhead at the end of Camino de Oeste and runs past Stone House, which always has good photo opportunities. It curves off at the junction with Starr Pass trail and heads through the middle of the park. Instead of taking it over to Gates Pass Rd., we hook a left towards Tucson Mountain Estates and then loop around back to Starr Pass trail from outside the boundary of the park. It is known as 'THE loop' to some trail runners who regularly run that area.

Julie had read about this trail run on my blog before she moved to Tucson temporarily from CO, so she was happy to get to check it out finally. I think both she and Charlie had a good time. It really is a good trail - a combo of perfect singletrack, smooth and rocky, some hills, lots of cactus, and a bunch of sand to really get the calves in shape. On top of that, Stone House is there and the trail is not too packed with people. Well, now you see why it is one of my favorite trails in Tucson.

We ran into Randy Accetta, who is the President of the Southern Arizona Roadrunners. He was out with a few friends on a trail run and he gave me some ribbing over my color coordinated outfit, especially my pink heart gaiters. I told him I would send him a picture and he could post it in the newsletter! Trail running couture! Here it is! Funny. You can imagine more than one person has made comments about my trail running outfits... Hey, just gotta be me :)

I got in about 28 miles for the week, so I'm slowly getting my mileage back up there. I know I'm getting back into shape, because I wasn't even tired afterwards; no nap, no exhaustion. I just had lots of energy.

We ended up doing about 11 miles on the loop, and then I did a short out and back on the dirt road for an additional mile. Charlie hung in there pretty well; he runs on a regular basis, but not normally 11 mile runs. I felt pretty happy about my 12 mile time - 2:10. Not anything amazing for a road run, but with the trail being rocky and hilly and me trying to get back in shape, I thought I did well.

I'm so glad that Julie could join me again. Her and her brother are super nice. When she goes back up to Colorado, I'm going to have to go visit her and run some of the local trails where she lives. I'll also see if I can hook up with Kathleen in Colorado Springs on the same trip and just do a boatload of Colorado trail running.