The sun is up, the air is fresh, the stone is old

3 mile warm up. 6X1mile repeats with 3 min jog in between. 2.5 cool down. On Des Plains River trail, Chicago after a 12 hour work day.

Trail running in South Park, CO while on call. Some new trails I have no idea of the names.

The most spectacular mountain running day of my life. At least so far. The perfect un-storm in Colorado created a dry line through the Rockies which looked to last two days. Basically, perfect dry sunshine with pretty much zero chance of any clouds, lightning, or afternoon thundercells.

Starting at 3:30am I ran Mt Sheridan, then Sherman. Drove 30 minutes to Kite Lake Trailhead and summited Democrat, Lincoln, Cameron, and Bross. Got a quick breakfast in Alma and drove 30 minutes to Quandary. Ran the summit trail to Quandary, my new favorite 14er in Colorado. Had lunch in Breckenridge and summited Grays and Torrys, drove 30 minutes to Guanella Pass to try and summit Bierstadt and Evans but ran out of time since I had to catch an 8pm flight home so I could only do one more.

I trail ran eight 14,000 foot peaks and three 13,000 foot in a day. Over 42 miles of pure elevation running, nearly all above 12,500. Climbed just over 17,000 feet doing it. Wish I had more time to wrote about this incredible experience. I ran this day as fast as I could, max effort on the ascents and using the short car time as rests.

Video link of about five minutes of trail time from the GoPro:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=viEhT3ELq-s

Bently and I ran the Green Canyon trail. He took me to school today. Way fast up the hills.

Easy run on the flatest road I could find in Logan.

First road race in a long time. Local fundraiser Mandi put on to raise funds for the orphanage they visit every year. Sore legs but good to be running fast for a change! I took a wrong turn right at the first running with the 5k runners when I should have turned for the 10k, but backtracked the course quick. Not used to being in the lead.

Hiked the 4 mile trail to the Wind Caves with Walter and Mandi's kids afterwards.

After church I took the kids on the hike up the North Face of Willard. Above the 9,500 foot line is a small herd of mountain goats that I have seen a few times. We found them just below the peak and the kids spent over an hour walking around them and taking pictures. Amazing afternoon.

Got home and ran my 5 mile neighborhood loop. Seriously shot legs today.

Gym workout. First in a while. Rainy afternoon and needed a tempo today. 1 mile easy, 10 at 5:50 pace.

I was going to head up to Jackson to run the Grand but weather forcasts right now just aren't good enough.

Started an early morning workout and total fail. My legs are so damaged that I couldn't run an 8 min pace. Stopped after three miles. Even 30 min after my heart rate is at 110. Very strange but pretty sure it's just overtraining and all the hard mountain/trail stuff the past three weeks. Taking the day off.

PM. My son insisted I run a night run with him. We ran the new trail above the pipeline off the BST. This is now an eight mile route that you run 1 mile on top of a pipeline, 500 yards through a cave, and single track switchbacks up a mountain. Not sore but totally flat legs. Bently pushed the pace hard coming down at just above 6:30.

Ran Rattlesnake Trail over Box Elder to Wellsville Peak. Fall colors are amazing! Slow run today hoping for some bounce back in the legs. Spent the evening with the kids hanging drywall in the basement.

6 morning, 6 at night. Easy day. We spent the evening setting up a rapell from our roof.

Home with kids, no time for a real run.

Very quick run late in DC.

Monuments run in DC. Ran south along the Mt Vernon trail to the Masonic Temple, then headed back North through Lady Bird Johnson Park though Arlington Cemetery and across the bridge to the Lincoln Memorial. Ran across the Mall on the grass to the Washington Memorial and then looped over to the White House. Continued on East to the Capital and then south to the Jefferson Memorial back. Awesome day!

Ran part of the elk migration trail above Star Valley along Stuart Pass. Just an easy run enjoying the Fall colors.

Bucket list 18 mile trail run/clim/rapell up th Grand and Middle Tetons, Jackson Hole WY.  9,300 feet climbed, three rapells, one stupid galcier travers, over 7 hours as hard as I could go.  

Short report:  Left Lupine Meadows 6,300 feet elevation at 8am.  Carried a light climbing rack, rope, and no water.  Plenty on the mountains.  Ran past Surprise Lake up Garnet Canyon.  Got to the 11,300 foot Saddle/Base Camp between the Tetons in just over two hours after making the mistake of taking a shortcut across the upper glacier.  Just over 8 miles to this point.  Talked for a few minutes with a climbing guide with Exum Guide Services at the Base Hut with four clients who said that they were not summited Grand because of snow and ice.  I put on warmer gear and headed up the Grand through the South/West climb.  At Upper Saddle, 13,000 met a group of three climbers coming down who had called it off before the technical climb.  I roped in and started up.  Over 2,000 feet of drop on the North side, the most I have ever experienced.  I took the Owens/Spaulding route passing through the Belly Crawl, up the Chimney and through the Chute.  Very slow going with non stop ice.  It began to snow lightly and I was starting to shake from the cold.  I finally got stuck on the last climb, just 120 feet below the summit, on an ice field.  Couldn't find any handholds and after cussing and changing my mind numerous times, called it off.  I was the only climber on Grand today above 13,000 feet.  I climbed back down to the Upper Saddle and decided to rapell off down the South Face rather than the way I came up.  So much freakin fun!  It took three rapell sets to descend the South Face and I dropped right onto the Lower Saddle above Base Camp.  By now I had finally acclimatized to the elevation and felt great.  I took off to the sister mountain, Middle and free climbed via the North Route.  Much easier than Grand and minimal ice.  Sun was shining by now and I headed down through Garnet canyon.  I was drinking from the glacier water all the way down and by now I was really hurting.  None of the Fourteeners in Colorado that I have done had this kind of verticle or the climb.  7,000 feet of climb just up the Grand.  Mostly boulder hopping all day.  I failed the summit on the Grand, barely, so that's one to save for next year.  Summited the Middle though.

My entire body hurts after this.  Probably the most intense full body workout I've ever tried.

Kayaked 3rd dam with the kids for the evening and watched the first two Back to the Future movies with them. Last week we watched Blazing Saddles together. Now they are convinced that Dad utterly lacks any social grace.

Reverse hill repeats. 30 minutes easy run then 800 meter hill repeats reversed. Resting on the uphills, fast down. Trying to shake out my stiff legs.

Bloomington Lake trail. Fit this one in perfectly while the kids were in school. Very humid in Utah today. I'm betting TOU will be one of it's slower years. I'm on call again this weekend so if I don't get an assignment by midnight to night I'll consider running the marathon.

Kick in the pants today. Sasha stayed with us last night for the race and I didn't know if I would have the morning off to run. I ran the race with my phone snd just hoped it didn't ring. :-) I ran kind of a heavy week especially the Teton run, but couldn't set a whole week aside for a taper for a race I probably couldn't do. I had to be happy with whatever my legs had left. Turns out it wasn't much.

Lots of fun through mile 7 running with Sasha and Nate. I wasn't feeling the pace at all but seeing the first seven go by at average of 5:35 wasn't good. I dropped back and let the group go. Came through the half exactly 1:18 and it felt like a 2:38 could be in the cards. Then my legs just got worse and worse. Mark passed me looking great and probably three others in the next 10 miles. I just had to hold on. Thought quite a few times about dnfing but I'm not going to experience that again. I could hold on to 7:30 and that's what I did. Hiked the afternoon with the kids in Peter Sinks looking for a long lost cave. We found it which was the highlight of the day.

I'm becoming a great mediocre marathoner.

Off day. Explored Canteen Cave with kids.

Off day. Kayaked Tony Grove with kids and hiked.

Wasatch/Bear ridgeline trail from Mt Logan to Naomi.

BST trail early morning. Legs feel awesome. Drilled with Search and Rescue all afternoon. Learned Single Rope Techniques and Ascending. Spent another $700 on climbing gear.

Easy 8 road miles. I always love this week after a marathon. All the time spent usually running can be used for all my other hobbies.

Been on call this month with Frontier's new Salt Lake routes and so far worked 9 hours in the month. Best September ever. Met with Dr Liddell at Utah State yesterday an expert climber/caver who works with Search and Rescue in Utah. We spent two hours on cave climbing techniques in prep for tonight's expedition into Polygamy Cave. Also Tuesday while running the ridge above Tony Grove I found three cave entrances which I marked on the topo. I rappelled 200 feet into one which may be an undiscovered. To date 67 caves have been mapped in the Dolomite above Tony Grove at about the 8,700 foot line. Amazing area.

Lost an entire day due to the shutdown at OHare. Stuck in the airport. Good times.

Super lazy day surfing Venice Beach, CA.

14 hours at work dealing with an entire Air Traffic Control system brought to its knees by one idiot.

Summited the Grand Teton in a fast, Alpine style today. Miles probably shouldn't count since they were slow jogging/hiking. In rain, then snow, with the best protection I've ever had and the heaviest. On the way down stopped and talked to two old Exum guides spending an afternoon at Lower Saddle Base Camp. One was a survivor of the failed K2 expedition, a book I read Monday. Amazing people.

Took the kids boxes of Mexican candy to their classes. Not as good as it sounds. Mexicans make some awesome food but have never figured out candy.

Afternoon spent working on free rope techniques on the back of the house. Before I'm given GPS coordinates for Main Drain, the deepest cave in Utah, my self proclaimed instructor will be timing my climb speed on the rope Thursday. I hope to take up a lot of slack with my legs, my upper body strength is stupid low.

Bently and I ran Dry Canyon in the rain and mud.