The Non Boston Marathon

Most of you are probably aware by now that our marathon took the form of a 3 day trip across France and Spain by train and car in order to get a flight out of Madrid and since we missed the race by two days we went straight to sunny California to catch up with the rest of our trip.
Whilst staying with friends in San Jose we did a great trail run in the Rancho San Antonia State Park - about 12 miles through beautiful countryside in 80 degrees of sunshine, climbing to a height which gave us fantastic views of Silicon Valley.
However, the highlight of our trip so far is the 17 mile run/hike we did at the Grand Canyon, Arizona - from rim to river and back.  All the official advice states that you should not attempt this in one day but should camp at the bottom and return the next day.  As you all know if Martin is told not to do something then it immdiately becomes irresistible to him.  I was a bit worried - on average 400 people need to be rescued annually and several die, but we were well prepared with plenty of food and water and we started out at 5.30am (Yes Phil, 5.30am!!!), partially to get ahead of the mule trains but mainly to avoid the heat.
We went down the Bright Angel trail which was absolutely stunning and reached the Colorado river after about 8 miles, then crossed and followed the river to Phantom Ranch where we stopped for our picnic breakfast. We then returned up the South Kaibab trail which was slightly less distance.  The total descent (followed by the ascent of course) was almost 5000 feet and coming back up it was HOT!  As soon as you had a drink your mouth was instantly parched again.
In spite of that and all the dire warnings we managed to complete the trek in 5 hours 40 minutes and we didn't really push it.  Two days indeed, what is that about?!
Our sojourn in Arizona was followed by a couple of days in Utah for some spring ski-ing.  Unfortunately an unseasonble storm blew in and THREE feet of snow fell whilst we were in Snowbird meaning that we could not ski at all.  We didn't have the gear, it was way too cold and the top of the mountain was a white out - very dangerous for a novice skier like me.  Fortunately we were able to console ourselves in the rooftop pool and hot tub.  Very weird swimming with snow falling on your head and incredibly difficult breathing at 8000 feet elevation. The hot tub was sheer bliss though.
The next stop was Colorado - Boulder to be precise, running mecca of the world.  What a fantastic place, I want to live there - followed by a scenic drive to Glenwood Springs where I am typing this. We have taken advantage of the fantastic natural hot springs pool (even the width was 33m, I could barely make out the other end of the pool lengthways!) and the "therapy" pool is 104 degrees, a bit hot even for me.  We did a 50 mile mountain bike ride today - snow prevented us completing the route we had planned and even getting to 7000 feet was hard enough.  I hope all this altitude training pays off!
Now that the weather has returned to normal we are hoping to get a day on the ski slopes tomorrow on our way back to Boulder.
Apologies for the length of this mostly non running report...but Phil did say he needed some material for the View from the Back of the Pack!  I was planning to post some pictures but it proved impossible to narrow a selection down from the three million or so that we have taken so far..........
Only a week to go now and we will be back in time for next week's club handicap and meeting!