We went to Logan and stayed with Scott Ensign and his family last night. Thanks Scott!!
Nan ran the 15K Freedom run down Blacksmith fork this morning, won the women's race and set a course record I think in 53:15 or so. Congrats and nice run Nan!
After the race Cody Draper was nice enough to take me on an amazingly fun trail run starting at Richards Hollow up Blacksmith Fork. Fortunately I was feeling good, and he is still in recovery mode from winning the Logan peak race last week, so I was able to hang with him for the 8.75 mile run straight up. The run up felt great, weather was outstanding, and the scenery and trail incredible. We caught sight of a moose walking out of the meadow as we entered at one point, 100 yards away or so. And all but 2 miles of the uphill was a gorgeous single track.
We cruised the downhill pretty fast, and the most fun section for me was the 2-3 mile section through smooth single track, blasting through river crossings and running sub 6 min/pace. The river crossings were awesome because it just drenched my legs and feet in brisk water...felt so good. There were probably 10 of them but I would have loved more.
The last 2.5 miles down hill were pretty steep and sometimes technical, so I hung back a bit there, content to cruise in at 8:30 pace back to the car and just lose myself in the mountain.
What a perfect run, and great company. Thanks Cody...that was a blast!! I usually run by myself, it was great to have good company on a great trail.
We did a total of 17.5 miles, avg about 9:20 pace, in about 2:44 total time (I forgot to stop the clock for maybe 5 minutes of stop time) - Garmin says 6000 Feet Ascent - which has got to be high...we started at 5300 feet and topped out at 8900 - so 3600ft. Of course there were ups and downs along the way, but an extra 2400 feet? I'm sure the garmin is generous.
It was a perfect training run for me since it was 2 weeks out from the northfork 50K and the elevation gain was slightly more challenging than the race but not much. Feeling that good during that run got me excited to see what I can do at my 2nd 50K.
Here are some pictures and a video of last night hanging out at Scott's house with some other FRBers, the race this AM, and the subsequent trail run. What a fun time:
- Nan and Ali at Scotts house
- Paul P and Dave S
- good times at the Ensign house
- Scott and Cody
- Paul finishing strong, actually he made it look like a stroll through the park to blow everyone away
- 15K under 48 minutes? ummmm...yeah, that's fast.
- Nan mirroring Paul's insanely fast finish that didn't even look hard to her.
- Scott pushing strong to the finish
- Early on in the run up Richards hollow, what is cody stopping for? Oh...yeah, that.
- View down into logan from the high point of our run around 9000 ft.
- Cody pointing out Logan peak
- Cody and I at the half way, about to head down
- River crossings abounded...very refreshing
