More Than a Half Marathon

We did our long walk yesterday. tl;dr it was great!!!!!! No mishaps, the weather was fantastic. Would I do it again? Yes! Definitely. In fact we’re already planning the next one.

Read on for more detail and pics:

We intended to walk 12 miles, but Apple maps lied to me and it was 14 instead. I was a little worried that would be the case, but it turned out ok.

We shuttled the kids to a friend’s house, drove to our starting point in a grocery store parking lot, and parked next to a tree that we knew would make some shade over the car by the time we were due back (this is New Mexico after all, shade is at a premium, especially for a black car).

Equipped with our backpack, plenty of water, our hats, and sunglasses, we set out bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and super chipper. The path toward Tijeras was lovely, hot, with a nice cool breeze. Perfect day for a hike. After about 4 miles of a steady gradual uphill slope, my muscles were crying a little so I was pretty excited to see the 6 mile marker. But that’s also when we realized that we underestimated the distance. We thought we’d figured the distance at 6 miles even, but it ended up being 6.9 to the Subway where we were planning to have lunch.

The scenery is of course magnificent, but we were walking on the highway, if you can call it that. So if you don’t like walking on pavement this trek is not for you. It’s not a really heavily travelled road, but there are cars from time to time. We didn’t really expect to find any alternate routes, but we kept an eye on the land to the south side of the road (the Interstate is on the north side) for potential off-road trails, but mostly the land was fenced off or there were no trespassing signs, so that was a no go.

When prepping for the walk I found out that a part of the highway eastbound to Tijeras is a musical highway. We checked it out the other day in our car just to see what it was like and it’s adorable. Even more adorable were the cars passing by as we walked, playing the music for us.

It’s a good idea, in my opinion, to hike the hardest bit at the beginning, this walk was perfect for that. Steady uphill out and mostly downhill back. And we felt rested from a short break and a sandwich at the Subway. But, wow, my feet hurt and I am sporting a couple of pesky blisters. That said, I got some nice pictures 🙂

This is Albuquerque to Tijeras:

Setting out at 9:30am from the Smiths parking lot

Old Route 66

Interesting rock in Carnuel

Crossing I-40

Being crossed by I-40

A land grant on the south side of the road

Spotting the highway sign for Tijeras, almost there!

Tijeras in the distance

Everything is so green right now

This is Tijeras back to Albuquerque:

Heading back

First view of ABQ through the hills

Ghost bike

Weird crosswalk button where there was no street to cross and no stop light.

Some kind of electrical deal on the road, maybe to discourage deer and elk? Not sure

Almost done

Nice shot of the southeast part of ABQ all the way to Tome hill

Wild melons

Edited to include image of the RunKeeper map because it’s cool. Check out that elevation change!