2011-2012

MT WRIGHTSON ASCENT - 9/11/11 - 5.2 mi

The first run of the season was a good one. It was a beautiful day and a good crowd of runners. The mountain was green with lots of late summer wildflowers and decent water in the springs. Not a lot of blood was necessary this year. Maybe the mountain has been appeased. …or maybe it’s just slumbering.

A new bar has been set for refreshments as this year’s RD brought refrigerated Kosher dill spears! A whopping 410mgs of sodium per spear and much more fun than Succeed! They were very well received. gj

SABINO BASIN - 9/18/11 - 13.2 mi

TTR Familia,

On September 18^th we had 31 runners out for Sabino Basin. It was great to see everyone and we had fun being run directors for the first time. Here are the gory details:

GREEN BUG RUN - 9/25/11 - 18.8 mi

It was a pleasant day on the mountain. A few people mentioned it was getting warm on the return trip. No injuries to report. This seemed to be the lost and found run. People dropped keys, sunglasses and even lip balm stuff. All were found and returned to owners. I ended up with some shoe inserts and a Javalina 100 water bottle, anyone want to claim either of these? Ashley and I hiked out towards Sycamore Dam and turned around just in time for Ashlley to run into a snake.

See you on trail,

Long Live TTR

Chris Fall

MT HOPKINS ASCENT - 10/2/11 - 23.6 mi

Thank you to everyone who came out to Mt Hopkins yesterday. It was a great morning for a run, and 19 people showed up to tackle the road. Speedy times were definitely the game of the day - results below.

Special thanks go to Sion who ended up responsible for distributing the refreshments at the bottom and getting times signed in (a responsibility bestowed only on the fastest of the pack), and everyone who retrieved Amelia's ball for her on their way past the aid station. She had fun learning that things roll down hills. Jane

BABY JESUS-SUTHERLAND-50 YR TRAIL LOOP - 10/16/11

Sixteen runners turned out for the Baby Jesus run on Sunday. My goal with this run, as with most of my TTR runs, was to introduce people to some new trails. This part of the operation was a success. People liked the trails a lot, and I got the impression that they would like to see it on the TTR schedule again. I will try to put it in the winter next time, both to beat the heat and to reduce the amount of overgrowth.

The downside of sending people out on new trails is that they tend to get lost. I tried very hard to avoid that this time, but after marking the trail with chalk and cairns and giving 10 minutes of description of how to negotiate the confusing sections, I did an inadequate job of describing when to leave the 50-year trail for the last quarter mile back to the parking lot. So after getting everyone around the loop without a hitch four runners did an extra 3-4 miles at the very end of the run. I am sincerely sorry for that and will fix it next time.

For those counting miles, it was 2 miles to the Cottonwoods, 4.9 miles to the cattle trough, 5.6 miles to Sutherland Road, 6.5 miles to the Sutherland trail, 10.6 miles to the 50-year trail junction, 15.3 miles to Golder Ranch Road, and 0.3-0.5 miles further to the parking lot, depending on if you took road or singletrack.

BEAR CANYON LOOP - 10/30/11 - 16.8 mi

35 people showed up this year - most ran Bear Canyon loop, but some ran shorter distances. This classic route has probably been run more times, by more runners, than any other route in the Tucson Trail Run Series. Gene Joseph ran it today, bringing his lifetime tally to 482 times!

This day was also Ross Zimmerman's birthday! When Ross came in from his run, we all sang Happy Birthday to him and then ate cake and ice cream. His wife Pam baked a glorious German chocolate triple layer cake and had 6 different Breyer's ice cream flavors to choose from. Everyone really enjoyed the cake and the coolness of the ice cream after they came in - this might have to be an annual celebration!

The runners were fast this year. John Artley came in first at 2:15. Sion and Ramon came in shortly afterwards at 2:25. After that, the runners just kept coming.

We moved our refreshment area away from the alcove on the East end of the parking lot to the SE corner, where we would be out of the way of others. It worked great - we had a lot of shade to cool off runners. I think it confused some runners coming in when they didn't see us right away, but overall, a good place for TTR to hang out for future runs at Sabino.

Thanks to everyone for sending me your contact information over email this year. We didn't have quite as many runners as last year, but it certainly made the sign-in process much easier.

It was nice to meet the new people who came out as well! One of the new runners, John Weller, took a few pictures of people on the route. I added them to my Picasa pics of the day - here is the link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110774878380999570775/BearCanyonLoop02?authkey=Gv1sRgCOPc25yc09mszgE#

Here are the results:

Thanks for allowing me to be of service for the day! I always enjoy being with TTR folks.

Renee Stevens

AGUA CALIENTE ASCENT - 11/6/11 - 15 mi

Hey All,

The weather for this run couldn't have been better. Started out at around 50 degrees with full cloud cover & ended just under 60 with the sun poking out for a few minutes here & there. There were a total of 31 runners doing various distances. A few took a wrong turn but still managed to get back to the route later thanks to Pam Golden. I think there may have even been a course record set but we will have to wait for confirmation.

Tom Gormley

Full loop including the hill 15 miles

Loop minus the hill 11.3 miles

Loop minus the hill with different trail before the wash 10.5 miles

Various different routes & distances

CHAROLEAU GAP/SAMANIEGO RIDGE - 11/13/11

The weather predictions Sunday morning were for a pretty high chance of rain. The question was how early the storms would come. Since it was the weekend for JJ100 I wasn't expecting too many runners, but 6 adventurous folks showed up for the challenge. The rain started about 90 minutes into the run and everyone had a bit of an opportunity to get wet, if not drenched. Fortunately it wasn't too cold, so it didn't appear that anyone was suffering from hypothermia. Last year there was ample opportunity to stand around and visit and replenish energy, but this year was quite different. It wasn't a great morning for socializing. I'm hoping that if this route with an added distance to the town of Oracle can be added to the schedule in the Spring and then the weather may be better.

Congratulations to all the finishers at JJ100. It sounds like it was a very successful event for the runners and the volunteers.

Mary Croft

MT LEMMON ASCENT - 11/20/11 - 18.6 mi

Hi All,

We had perfect weather for this year's run! Special thanks to Joe Plassmann, Joe Dana, and Duane Arter for picking up runners at the top. These are the times I have to the top and then to the parking area since the road was closed to us. The runners got more for their money getting to run a couple of extra miles!

I don't have times for Julie or Christa, but both finished looking strong!

Congrats to all!

Lynda Hendricks

RD OP 50

AZ TRAIL 50K - 11/27/11

We had 14 eager runners show up on a cold & windy Sonoita day - so cold that we started this run at 7:01 a.m. It was just too cold to stand around. I started everyone & Harry took off to man the aid station for the runners near the turn around point. This will change next year as we didn't see any reason not to have the aid all the way at the turn around point. Dallas & Renee decided to run to the aid station & get a ride back. I convinced them to take a ride to the aid & run the course backwards. I think Renee was thankful for this plan as it warmed up a bit more before they started running. Very few runners managed not to get lost at some point. Although lost, most knew where they had made their mistakes & got back on trail with little trouble. All said and done, we had a pretty good time. We poured a few birthday beers in honor of this run's founder, Wayne. Next year we are planning to change this run up a bit so stayed tuned. We may even rent the cabins at Kentucky Camp & do some sort of bbq or aid station.

Full 50K

BEYOND @ SABINO CANYON - 1/7/12

Tucson Trail Runners,

A big THANK YOU to all of you who came out today to volunteer at the Beyond event at Sabino Canyon. We couldn't have done it without you all. We had TTRs doing registration, food/drinks, sweeping and Bear Canyon Loop runner check-in. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with all of you today!!

I do have one large Beyond cotton t-shirt left if any of you would like to have it. It is a nice design.

Another huge thank you to the Southern Arizona Roadrunners (SAR) who really took the lead on this event. They are all fine people and we enjoyed partnering with them for Beyond.

We had about 200 people show up to run - many ran the shorter 3.5 mile loop to the Bear Canyon TH and many ran the 8 mile out and back to 7 Falls. We had over 25 runners do the 16.5 mile Bear Canyon Loop option. Gene and Tim from SAR said a few words before the run started. Gene talked about Gabe and how much he meant to everyone. Runners were sent off in waves - BCL first, then 7 Falls, then the shorter distance.

TTR was set up in the SE corner of the parking lot for returning BCL runners. After the sweepers came in from the loop, we realized we still had 4 people on our list not checked in. Our worst fears realized. About 1/2 of the runners had never run BCL before and the 4 remaining were not names any of us recognized. We were concerned that some may have taken side trails and were still out there somewhere. We already knew of two runners who did the whole loop without water (not sure why - there was discussion from other runners that they thought we were going to have an aid station?) so there were concerns about the other runners for that reason, too.

I called Steve O from SAR, who was very helpful. He was able to supply phone numbers from the registration at Active.com for 3 people. The other one only had an email address. Sign-ins today only included email addresses. Gene started calling and leaving messages. Within a half an hour, all 3 had returned phone calls. The other emailed Steve back a while later to say he was okay. Apparently, none of them heard that we were set up in the SE corner of the parking lot and so, when they returned, they left without notifying us.

Thank you Gene and Steve for helping round up these 4 missing runners. We spent quite a bit of time dealing with the situation, and were pleased to find out they were okay. There was a lot going on there this morning, and we just didn't think about a lot of these details. I made the assumption that the people signed up for Bear Canyon Loop knew what they were doing. We learned a lot today.

1. If there are new people, make sure you acquaint yourself with them and determine if they are adequately trained for the run. Make sure they have maps and understand the trickier parts of the route.

2. Always make sure that runners have water on these distances.

3. Always make sure runners 'check-in' upon return from a run. The thought of calling 911 to initiate search and rescue for a runner that we could not contact did not sound good to me. Especially, if they were home safe and sound.

Seasoned TTRs usually know these things. Newer trail runners might not. We have a lot of newer trail runners who have joined our group in the last 6 months. Don't hesitate to introduce yourself and pass on helpful information to them about our runs.

I hope the things I learned today will be helpful to some of you in the future as you direct runs for TTR.

I really enjoyed talking to the runners who had never run Bear Canyon. Comments from them and other 7 Falls runners really summed up the day! Beyond was about getting people outdoors and these runners were overjoyed at the beauty of this area that they had never seen before. To watch people light up when talking about Bear Canyon was just delightful!

I took a few pictures of the day:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110774878380999570775/Beyond?authkey=Gv1sRgCMGNsemrsezhTg#

Thank you to Ross Zimmerman, Pam Golden, and their families for starting the Tucson Trails Tribute fund, which put on the Beyond events all around Tucson today. It was a vision that became reality, and being out there felt like a celebration of life. We are with you all this weekend in spirit and love you all very much.

Renee Stevens

TORTOLITA MOUNTAIN LOOP - 1/15/12 - 16mi

A beautiful, mostly cloudy morning in the Tortolitas was enjoyed by 18 trail runners Sunday morning. We had many regulars and some new folks. Ross had asked us to keep our eyes open for the feral horse herd, but no horses were spotted. A few runners chased a large javelina down the trail for a bit, though. The damage caused by last winter's freeze was very evident, with many dead and damaged large sagauros.

We used the new trailhead, recently constructed by the town of Marana. It is on the grounds of the Ritz-Carlton resort - plenty of parking, restrooms with water... The new trailhead cuts off 1 mile of running through the wash each way - no one complained about missing that.

There were no major incidents. Most everyone did the advertised route. Doug Kelly chose to do his own version (surprise, surprise), starting with Alamo Springs, then Wild Wustang, Cochie Springs trail to the road in the wash, then the bushwack route back to the northern end of Wild Mustang and back down Wild Burro. (I think I got that right.) There seemed to be some interest among the group for including the Cochie Springs trail in next year's run. I have not yet run that but will check it out, so next year we might have some changes. Dallas Stevens also took his own variation, though not as intentially as Doug. Instead of heading on Wild Burro Trail down the wash to the traihead at the end of the run, he followed it up the wash for quite a while but finally decided to abandon that route (something about a sign stating that he was entering Globe).

I ran the route on Saturday, and my gps reading was 14.06 miles. GPS readings on Sunday ranged from 14.24 to 14.6. Actually, Joel Woppert got 14.8, but he missed the final turn at the end and put in a bit extra.

I hope to see you in the Tortolitas next year.

Bruce Johnson

Full route (14+ miles)

REDINGTON 50K - 1/29/12

Thirty-two runners turned out today for the new, late-January iteration of the Redington 50K. Congratulations to everyone for (mostly) staying on-route this year. Special recognition to those who completed their first-ever run of this distance!

Weather was sunny, windy and warm. Great weather for tailgating after-the-fact.

Pictures to come from Ross Zimmerman, faithful documentarian and event counselor. More thanks to "Papa" Pete Chagaris for distributing life-sustaining water and Nutter Butters at Italian Springs.

Please email with corrections.

Thanks,

-- RD

To AZ Trail Sign (~31.5 miles)

To Italian Springs (~27 miles)

Miscellaneous

SOLDIER/LA MILAGROSA LOOP - 2/5/12 - 15.7 mi

This was another glorious day of trail running in Tucson. Everyone returned intact, and nobody got lost out there today. I’m not sure how much the fluorescent cheese ball and blue ribbon trail markers had to do with this favorable result, but we’ll take it!

Below are the results of Soldier Trail/La Milagrosa Loop this morning, Sunday, February 05, 2012.

Full Loop

Javelina - 20.4 mi

Odds & Ends

ESPERERO CANYON LOOP - 3/18/12 - 21 mi

TTR,

We had 15 brave souls show up to run Esperero Trail this past Sunday. The weather was cold, rainy, and windy. But contrary to popular belief, I had more people show up to run than RSVP'd! Congratulations to everyone for your hard work. ~ Kathy

MICA MOUNTAIN MARATHON - 3/25/12 - 26.2 mi

A cool start and a warm but mostly overcast and windy day may the difficult Mica mountain run a bit more tolerable. There were 17 people who logged some miles anywhere from 4.6 to 29+. Down from Phoenix to join us were Jamil Coury, Boone Ebel and James Bennett. Since they came all this way might as well have a good look around the mountain. So at 3.3 miles above Cowhead they took a left (course goes right) onto the North Slope Trail, when the trail began to descend they realized they had made a mistake. Spotting Spud rock they set off bushwhacking up to it. There on the rock they were joined by Catlow Shipek and John Weller enjoying the rather strong wind. All pressed on to Mica and finished with something over 27.5 miles.

The rest of the Mica toppers were Ken Greco who did not fall! Lisa Osinga who did go down twice, minor injuries, completing a 47 mile weekend and Boone Unrast who on the way back inexplicitly turned down the Ernie’s Falls Trail to the gate adding a couple more miles to his day.

Joe aka Julio “Oh my God, That's so cute the way you just draw on stuff and think about yourself all the time." Banksy

MT BIGELOW ASCENT/DESCENT - 4/1/12 - 30.8 mi

TTRs,

Thanks to everyone who came out on Sunday! We had another wonderful Bigelow A/D with perfect weather! The talent in TTR is amazing and I had a great time seeing everyone including Amelia twice with Dad up at the top and then later with Mom down at Sabino. Runners were hammering the tram road just after 6:00am. Mark Martin and I arrived up at Palisades at 8:00am and set up shop for aid. Although we didn't have white stuff on the ground this year people still enjoyed Mark's soup and my mac & cheese. A few folks got off trail but all made it to the required destination in great spirits. Thank you to everyone for either e-mailing me or calling me that didn't run to the top when you got back to your vehicles - big help!

Seeing Catlow arrive at Palisades in 2:30 was just unbelievable. He is such a gifted and talented athlete. I personally will enjoy watching him on Highline Trail in a few weeks. Chase PRd and Sion's first Bigelow was impressive as usual. Seeing Adrian's big smile after 30+ miles was fantastic for such an effort to make it to an after run activity. This run is very beautiful and makes the down hill pain worth it looking off in the distance running down Palisades. Great job to all the 'full route' folks!

Thanks for helping out again Mark - it's always great being in your company! And thanks Jim for hanging out with us - discussing S&R and 'real' adventure racing!

I have a grey Philadelphia Marathon bag with a shirt in it - let me know who this belongs to.

Thanks!

Dallas

VENTANA LOOPS - 4/8/12 - 18 mi

Five hardy souls stepped up for the resurrection of the Ventana Canyon loop some 6 years since last it appeared on the TTR schedule... The weather started out great but quickly heated up... Tim lead from the start and showed up at the Ventana Canyon TH shortly after 10:00 am looking a little warm but by the time he finished the road section he was definitely looking hot and commented on how hot the last road section was... Next to arrive was the "first couple" of TTR, Dallas and Renee, a little after 11:00, followed shortly by Christie, and then Steve.. Steve had run out of water about 2 miles from the trail head and was quite cooked by the time he made it out so he decided to call it a day... Everyone commented on how amazing the course was but also how difficult it was and that the heat really didn't do anyone any favors.. No injuries, other then Steve kneeing a rock (???), so all in all a great day...

Here are the times I have but with running between Ventana and the finish I may be off so just let me know and I will correct...

p.s. If this loop makes it on to next years schedule it would probably be better to have it slotted into one of the cooler months....

Thanks for coming out... See you next time on the trail....

David

SABINO FESTIVAL OF ROUTES - 4/22/12

With congratulations to Zane Grey heroes for their great performance at the race, here is a report on Sunday run. Despite the rising temperature, the Festival of Routes Runs went well, and participants truly explored many of the available options. With many thanks to all of them, here are the results. Kamran

Thanks to everyone that participated for creating another awesome TTR day, and thanks also to Miro for staffing the turnaround at the observatory, and recording all the summit times!

Joe P.

SUNSET LOOPS - 6/3/12 - 17 mi

Hi everyone,

We had a nice crowd show up for Sunset Loops last Sunday, probably more than I've ever seen up there for that run. It was supposed to be pretty hot in Tucson and we were expecting it to be warm up top as well, but there was a nice breeze and overall, the weather was awesome.

After the group left shortly after 7am, I went out and hiked/ran the Sunset/Aspen/Marshall Gulch/Sunset loop (~7 miles). I'm working my way back to running health from my anterior tibial tendonitis and all seems to be well so far. As soon as I made it back, Tom and Chris showed up. They came up from Sabino via Box Canyon trail and then did a little bit on Sunset as well. This is becoming an annual trek for them on the day of Sunset Loops. They were in very good spirits when they arrived.

We had plenty of takers on the full loop, which is Sunset, Aspen, Lemmon, Wilderness of Rocks, Marshall Gulch, and Sunset. Apparently, there is some sort of discrepancy on the short dirt road section going to/coming back from Sunset trail - some 'cutting through' and others taking the full road around. Well, I lumped everyone together, so I guess next year, everyone will have to find out what this 'shortcut' is. :)

We had a few runners show up that I haven't seen in a while, and also, some newer members to TTR. Korey, a fairly new runner to our group, came in first with a spectacular finish time (even after starting a few minutes late due to waiting for someone).

Nice little write-up on the run from Korey:

http://koreykonga.blogspot.com/2012/06/sunset-loops-mt-lemmon.html

My favorite part of his blogpost:

From here we began to drop down Mt. Lemmon trail.

This was amazing! It was well shaded and VERY RUNNABLE single track, which is hard to come by when running with TTR because they are notorious for organizing very difficult, sometimes un-runnable runs.

Nobody reported running out of water, which was good. However, Gene came in and reported that a hiker was dehydrated and in bad shape on Sunset. Ken drove his Jeep down to the trailhead with Chris and took ice and water. They offered aid and a ride back. Ross and Pam were still out on the trail and were there to help as well. The gal was better and was very grateful for the aid, a ride and a chair to sit in at the parking lot.

Good job everyone - some fast times this year. Always fun to be of service and be social with everyone. - Renee

Sunset Loops pics - Ross Z.

SUNSET SIDE-DOOR FESTIVAL OF ROUTES - 7/1/12

The results from this run were eaten by the RD's dog - honestly. If you ran SSDFR this year and know your time and route please e-mail us and we'll list it below.

Thanks for a fantastic running season!