Race Across New Mexico, Stage 4

After having a very sore pes anserine area with the three days of consecutive marathons, on cement, with a slant on the shoulder, my legs felt like they deserved a bit of a break. I put on some rocktape on my leg, and decided to walk the 4th stage. Little did I know, this would actually be more difficult than running the 26+ miles. I noticed during the walking that the long head of my left gastrocnemius became sore. I wasn't used to walking more than 4 miles, so by the time I got to 24 miles (which took about six and a half hours!), I was almost limping and just decided to jog it in.

This stage was neat because we passed by the Very Large Array (VLA), an array of 27 or so massive satellites. You may have seen these in the movie Contact and also in Transformers 2. It was very extraordinary and surreal to run by the VLA, which you could see from 5 miles away.

Here is a sweet photo of me standing in from of some of the 30m diameter satellites:

The VLA is built at the bottom of an old lake. Now it is called the Plains of San Augustin:

Trucking along, Jose Peres takes on the flat roads of the San Augustine Plains.

After climbing a bit, it was glorious to look back at the long, straight road upon which we ran:

And, a most momentous occasion, I hit the 100 mile mark of the journey!

Stage 4
Distance - 26.73
Time - 6:52:56
Pace - 15:27
Calories - 1720
Elevation Gain - 464
Elevation Loss - 828
HR Avg - 109
HR Max - 173
Minimum Elevation - 6886
Maximum Elevation - 7283

Totals (4 Stages)
Distance - 106.27
Time - 20:29:32
Pace - 11:34
Calories - 8026
Elevation Gain - 3596
Elevation Loss - 4073
HR Avg - 136
HR Max - 180
Minimum Elevation - 6990
Maximum Elevation - 7665