The Jan Alfano Trail parkrun - Arizona isn't just for deserts

I'd participated in 126 parkrun events (74 running, 52 volunteering), but all of them had been at the Byxbee parkrun event in the San Francisco Bay Area. Finally, with the opening of the new Jan Alfano Trail parkrun, Mrs Notthat and I had a chance to be parkrun tourists since Prescott Arizona is roughly on the way to Colorado, where lots of my family lives. 

When you think of running a 5K in Arizona, it's hard not to think "just run from this cactus past Fred the Gila monster and the people frying eggs on the sidewalk to the cactus that looks like a vulture, then turn around and come back, and try to ignore all the bleached bones scattered along the trail."

It turns out that the Jan Alfano Trail parkrun has almost no cacti, Gila monsters, or bleached bones, and only a few people frying eggs on the sidewalk. The biggest surprise was the altitude - Prescott is a mile-high city, which can be an issue if you are from a sea level area. The biggest non-surprise was that there was sun. A LOT of sun. The start was at 7:30 so the sidewalk egg fryers were not having much success since it wasn't THAT hot yet.

A map of the out-and-back course. Note the lake! (Also note that the road to the left is named Willow Creek Road and the road along the bottom is Willow Lake Road - I'm guessing that's never caused confusion ever.)

Mrs Notthat and I had no trouble finding the start, and were happy to see lots of close parking.

Mrs Notthat listening to the pre-run briefing. Note that there is shade! Also note that the guy in the white shirt standing next to Mrs Notthat was the only other tourist - he was from Europe, was working in Las Vegas, and drove down from there just for this event. Oh, and he finished first.

Being a new event, the number of runners is still fairly small (22 finished the day we ran - I got a top-20 finish!). But the atmosphere was still fun and wildly supportive. 

TOTALLY UNEXPECTED SHADE!!!

One very nice surprise was that there was periodic shade along the course! (Byxbee has none.) There were still lots of very sunny sections though.

First place already on his way back.

Once the course got close to the lake, the scenery factor jumped to ten.

Willow Creek Reservoir and its rocks.

I loved running through this rocky area. 

Mrs Notthat, who loves the sun, but not so much the altitude, on her way back from the turnaround. One fun thing - this was her 200th 5K run (including those outside of parkrun).

The trail was generally fairly smooth gravel/dirt, although there were occasional rocks and such that you could trip over if you weren't a little bit careful. It was reasonably flat with a few small hills scattered around (my watch said there was 83 feet of climbing). There were also a fair number of non-parkrunners out there - if you have any thoughts of getting a walk/run in in Arizona, you really need to get up and out early.

"Which way do I go?" I warned the brave volunteer at the turnaround that I was about to ask the dumbest question she had ever heard.

Not sure if this counts as a cactus or not, but the fact that it would hurt if you tried to pick one of these flowers at least puts it into the running as one.

 

parkrun paparazzi!

The finish! Finally!

And that's about it! We had both managed to finish without mishap - no Gila monsters, no cactus thorns, and minimal sunburn.

It was a total blast running this event - it was only their third one! I really hope that the event catches on and the numbers go up a bit, but it's also really nice to have it at its current size. 

A post-run Mr and Mrs Notthat - sweaty but still smiling!

A HUGE thanks to all the volunteers that made this event possible - such a fun course and community! We ended up staying in Prescott for one more night before heading up to the Grand Canyon (fun fact - it's at an even higher altitude, around 7000 feet!). 

That's it - move along…

PS: Here is a link to a thing I wrote about the Byxbee parkrun.