Runnin' Adventures of the WLB

Davis Creek trail to Hell Hole, Prayer Rock, Pretty Valley and back

Reminded myself why I don't like to 'just run' on streets/pavement.

BLISTERS!

Felt pretty crappy from mile 3 to mile 4 - was running on a Parkway paved trail that had an inch of crunchy ice covered by a couple inches of wet snow... slippery and didn't help the new blisters!

Awesome wintry run along the BST and up Adam's canyon with my brother dorsimus and brother-in-law.

2nd time using cheap "Snow Trax" from Costco. Nowhere near as good as microspikes, but for 7 bucks (package of 2 pair for 14 bucks) they are worth it. Eventually I might have to get something better!

Here's dorsimus running up!

And here we are in a little ice cave near the top of Adam's Canyon:

Ran up Farmington Canyon with Matt (dorsimus), Matt (MattVH), Matt (Twinkies), Steve, Ryan and another guy whose name I can't remember.

 COLD sub 10° F but that wasn't a problem until after!

Went up 4.75 - I was the slow one so a few others went up a full 5 - 2 people peeled off earlier (Twinkies and the other guy I couldn't remember) - back down was a lot more pleasant!

Matt(dorsimus) and Steve Newman 9ish miles in:

Steve, MattVH (you can see his head), dorsimus, and Ryan:

Overall I felt really good - but I am slow to wake up going UP. Keepin' on working on it!

Too lazy to get up at 4 am and go 20 miles with the Wranglers, and also too lazy to get up at 5:30 for 10 miles in Farmington Canyon with Steve's group...

 So instead I got up at 6:30 and went 3.35 miles up the little switchbacks from Freedom Hills park on the Farmington/Centerville border, and South on the Firebreak Road/BST.

The trail was used, but not packed or anything, so it was much slower going than I wanted, and I wasn't feeling it. Went about a mile and a half to just before Ricks Creek canyon, turned around and headed back.

Saw about 6-10 deer, a couple of jackrabbits, and one really slow dude in a ninja suit.

At least I didn't have to worry about snakes today!

I was going to run around the little trail at Freedom Hills to get a little bit more distance, but I only made it once (the extra .35 ha!)

Didn't feel that great in the midst of it - but I feel good having done it.

I definitely prefer going with a group. Even if I'm slow, I at least have something to strive for - catching up!

Started the morning with an hour of Ashtanga Yoga followed by a half hour of indoor climbing.

 I love Fridays!

 In the afternoon did Crossfit - pretty mean workout. I went a bit light and used a 35 lb kettlebell and 2 45 lb plates for the sled pushes.

Warmup: 4 laps around gym (about 400m), (10 jump squats, 5 burpees)x2, (10 wall runs, 10 walking lunges)x2, (5 pullups, 7 pushups)x2, KB Rack walk around gym

Workout: 10 Turkish getups, 2 sled pushes, 20 pull ups, 2 sled pushes, 30 squat press, 2 sled push, 40 walking lunges, 2 sled push, 30 squat press, 2 sled push, 20 pull ups, 2 sled push, 10 turkish getups - Finished in 30:12.

Now to decide where I'm running tomorrow!

It was a beautiful day - once you get up past 6000 feet!!

This inversion is NASTY!

Went 5 miles up Farmington Canyon with dorsimus and our brother-in-law Ben. Some fog rolled in on the way up as well, so it was an interesting change in view throughout the run.

Here's Dorsimus trying to outrun the fog bank (it keep creeping in!)

 About 8 miles in we ran around a bend and stopped to look back to make sure all our group was there - and Ben wasn't coming around the bend. We waited, and waited, and waited a bit more - then I ran down to dorsimus to wait there:

SNOW NINJA!!! (coming back into the mucky muck!)

Still no sign of Ben - so we ran back up the road a ways (beyond the far right back part you can see in the ninja picture) and he wasn't there.

Turns out he had decided to go straight down the mountain to meet us on a lower part of the road... but didn't tell us that! We found where he went down and headed back down the road, verifying with a snowmobiler that he was down lower, and finished the run with an extra mile because of the backtrack!

Not a bad end to the week!

Dorsimus enjoying being above the disgustingness

5 miles up the canyon again with MattVH, Dorsimus, Steve, Ryan and Casey.

I got to the parking lot 8 minutes late AND realized that I had forgotten my headlamp again. D'OH!

Headed up the road by myself and saw a couple of headlamps coming down the BST connector, then they headed up so I slowed down to see who it was - some guys from my High School a year and 2 years ahead of me who we actually saw running on Saturday in the canyon! Kind of funny since I've randomly run into these guys at Ragnar and such. It looked like they were doing loops of the Canyon road and the BST connector...

The only reason I know Ryan and Casey were there is I 'caught up' to them as they were turning around at mile 3! Also around this time I could finally start to breathe normally again. Blech!

Casey and Ryan said that MattVH, Matt and Steve were not that far ahead and I might be able to catch them - so off I went. I had tantalizing hints of the headlamps again and again but those canyon roads are tricky to judge distance in the dark. Finally about 4 miles in at one of the horseshoe canyons you run in and out of, I Tarzan yelled across the chasm to the headlamps and they decided to stop and wait for me, which was very nice or I probably wouldn't have caught them at all!

Finished running up past Sunset Campground and turned around for a MUCH faster decent, up and over the crazy bumpy moguls from the snowmobiles. Interesting how you don't notice those as much going up!

Temp started at about 5° but I wasn't as cold this morning as I was last week when it was 10-11°. Interesting.

MattVH, Dorsimus, and Steve talking after the run.

This week started off good with a great 10 miler with the Davis Trail Running group on Tuesday - then WHAM! Wednesday afternoon I crashed with a cough and a fever. DANG! I was so hoping to get over 20 this week, if not closer to 30 for the week, but Wednesday and Thursday were out of the question and Friday wasn't a lot better, even though I could somewhat function.

So this morning I decided to make myself get out and try to make it above the crappy crap for a little while, my sister wasn't feeling like running so my brother-in-law and I took my wife up Farmington Canyon for her first winter run up there. In the inversion it was warmer than it has been, but still cold, and the ground had a quarter inch thick crust of ICE that was pretty slick.

I was actually trying to do a ninja move there...

My wife had a pair of Altra Eve's and had forgotten the Snow Trax which would have been very useful on those minimal-tread shoes!

We also had to be careful because there were signs of Snow Ninjas on the road:

Can't just ignore a sign like that! Also there were some OTHER interesting signs of a more natural type:

Luckily we didn't see any live Mountain Lions!!

The slush after we got out of the inversion was rough, and we went pretty slow up AND back down in that craziness.

But it was still nice to get out of it for a couple of hours! (Total time 3.5 hours!)

Brother-in-law Ben running down STILL above the nasty!

Treadmills are not fun. Seriously that 2 miles felt like 10. I'd rather run 10!

I came in to work for an early morning BJJ class, but the weather made everybody late so we didn't hold that. I ran the treadmill for a bit over 15 minutes and that was all I could handle :p

Did some parallel grip pull ups, preacher curls, windshield wipers and showered off.

I need to get outside!