Day 10: Big Hills and Big Houses

Date: February 5th 2011 12:00 pm
Distance: 9.5 miles
Weather: Sunny

I slept in and spent a good chunk of my morning satiating my Wikipedia addiction. For what it's worth, I now know that Jabba the Hut was monstrous one-ton puppet that took 3 full grown men to operate (in the original Star Wars, of course). Who knew? Anyways, I didn't start the run until noon, which is why the weather was a bit more pleasant. I designed my course as to avoid running on busy roads and breathing in car fumes for two hours. Between that and the traffic lights, it can get old fast. It was also my longest run to date, so that is always nice. It really opens up my options as far as finding interesting places to run to. You can only do so much with 3 mile runs.

The big hill

I was still a little under the weather (see Day 9 for more details) and the course was challenging. The first 2 miles were mostly uphill. It was fine for a while until I found the big one. This hill made 24th ave (in Spokane Valley) look like a speed bump. The picture here doesn't quite do it justice, but you get the idea. The name of the street at the top is "Pluto". Given the altitude up there and the length of the trip, I find it quite appropriate.

Mansion, complete with American flag

It was a peaceful run up there. Very few cars. But let me tell you the houses were HUGE. I passed some legitimate mansions while I was up there. The kind with the manicured lawn and the orchard in the back.  Once again the picture doesn't do it justice. This was a "small" one.

I did a loop around the Riverwoods and was excited to see the APX campus they had been building the entire summer I worked for APX. To my surprise, the building didn't say APX anywhere. In fact, I only saw these banners that said "Vivint". I also noticed that all the APX adds on the cougar stadium were changed to say "Vivint". Turns out, they changed the name of the company and are now selling more than just alarm systems.

All in all, the run was pleasant. I felt more sore than usual when it was done, but that is expected. The last time I ran over 9 miles was during the Ogden marathon in 2009.

I felt pretty sore after that too.