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

Sitting around after church today with my feet up on the couch, wondering if I would ever get the motivation to get a run in with all the rain all day.  Then work called and asked if I wanted to do a short turn, so I jumped up and took my son with me to Denver.  Wouldn't you believe it, the weather in Denver was 75 degrees and sunshine and I got the nicest 6 mile run in before heading back to Utah. 

We get to spend Memorial Day with family at the cemetaries in Salt Lake and then I have a three day mini vacation in Fairbanks, Alaska.  Actually it's work, but one flight up Monday night and one flight back Thursday morning with nothing in between.  I'm excited to catch some of the best trail running in the country for a few days.

Flew into Salt Lake last night and hung out at the hotel instead of driving home to Logan since the whole day was family activities in Salt Lake for Memorial day.  I got at least 4 hours of sleep before I headed up for an early run with Rob Murphy up City Creek.  He wanted to go 12 miles which was nuts since we ran a marathon a week ago but I trust his judgement since he is so old.

It ended up being a perfect run and pretty weird to run into the snowline 6 miles up.  It is also so much nicer to do distance runs with some company!  On the way back down I could definetly feel the effect of the marathon in the legs.  It's time to start the training back up and I pretty much don't know which races to run the next few months!

Right now I'm sitting in the plane typing on the laptop, getting ready for a six hour flight to Fairbanks.  It's only two more weeks until we have WiFi on the planes and a whole new dimension of inflight entertainment opens up.  We also got Toblerone chocolate in the cabin, which is pretty much as good as life can get.

I must be in heaven.  Out of all the places in the world that I have run in, Alaska just blows my mind.  I never get used to the flight up here first of all, no matter how many times I have done it.  Usually when we fly westbound with these faster generation planes and it's during the sunset, the sunset can take up to two hours since we are flying at close to 650 miles per hour in the same direction as the earth.  But when you fly northwestbound across Canada into Alaska the sun holds still on the horizon like a great flaming ball and then it slowly rises and moves across the mountain line for the next 5 hours.  This time of year Fairbanks is getting almost 20 hours of direct sunshine.  It's also hard to comprehend that we cross most mountain ranges in the United States in about 5 minutes at this speed.  The Wasatch range in about 3, and the Rockies and Uintas combined in about 20 minutes.  But when you fly across Alaska you are over what seems like a continuous mountain range for three hours.   It's so big it just makes you grin.

I landed the plane with the sun blazing on my right side at 11pm, 1am mountain time.  When we got to the hotel (cabins on the river actually) I knew that I had to get out for a midight run in the sun even though Rob and I had run that morning in the snow up City Creek in Salt Lake.  I threw on a pair of shorts and my sunglasses and went for a quick 4 miler.  It was about 75 degrees and not a cloud in sight.  I have three days here and I'll be running them all!

In the morning I hit a huge breakfast of reindeer sausage and pancakes with the crew and made some phone calls to Running Club North, the local club to see what the locals were doing.  Today was a track workout with intervals and I had no interest in that, but did get some good info on trails along the ridges.  I headed out for an easy 14 on some of the nicest trails I have seen.  A bit sore from the marathon still, but this is just the life.  No way I'm not going to be on the trails.  When I got back I had a message from Dan, a local trail runner who wanted to do a long overnight trail run tonight starting at 10pm.  That is going to take a few hours to think about, but since I don't have to fly the plane back for a few more days it's pretty tempting.

It was so hot after the run that I swam a good 30 minute workout in the river to the side of the cabins.  Man is that water cold.

Last night was the best trail run I've ever had.  We left Pike's Lodge in Fairbanks at around 10:30pm and started backwards along the Iron Dog trail.  I was worried tonight about so much mileage this week but honestly couldn't care less about messing up future races this year.  This stuff is why I run.  The sun was shining straight in our faces until we got buried in the trees along the trail and for the next few hours I felt like a little kid again.  My legs were pretty tight and my plan was just to head back if they felt like they were getting worse.  Dan was pretty patient as I knew I needed to hold a slower pace.  After 10 miles the soreness all faded however, and the rest of the run was just fun. 

We traded off the backpack when either of us felt like it.  I was pretty useless for anything on this run since I had no idea where we were.  Serious trail stuff like this is so new to me, I can only guess on when my body needs water and how much too eat, or when.  What is cool, is that we are fast in Utah.  We are used to hill running and altitude.  It's a relief to not only keep up but get stronger at the pace.  I'm pretty tired today so I'll keep this short and maybe catch it up later.  The scenery was awesome.  It is so different than road running.  These trails were a lot flatter than what I run around Anchorage which was a relief.  We stopped a few times for some sandwiches and even walked up a hill or two instead of running them.  We stopped finally in a tiny town for the turnaround and even debated sleeping for an hour or two, but the mosquitos were enormous.  They killed you when you stopped.  I have no idea of the pace tonight, I would guess just a bit slower than 8 minute miles.  The trail took us over 4 1/2 hours which would be about right  and I was as wasted as any marathon I have ever run.

Tonight could be a short run up to the hotsprings and back, but it's pretty much a question of if I have any legs left at all.  I sat in the river when we got back for about 20 minutes freezing my legs.  Hopefully that will help with some recovery.  Yesterday after swimming in this river my core temperature was so low I was shaking for about an hour.

11 recovery miles in the evening before flying out the redeye from Fairbanks.  I am totally dead tired from the last few days.

6 miles on an increasing tempo run on the treadmill this morning.  I felt I needed shake out the slow pace of the last 4 days.  2 miles at 6min, 2 miles at 5:30, 2 miles at 5.  Both legs felt like I was moments away from a little cramping in the hamstrings but overall not sore.  Must be from keeping tha pace way down lately and some soft trails.  Spent two hours after that teaching my son how to lift weights at the gym.  He really wants to run the TOU in the Fall and I think the first step is weight lifting 3 times a week and hiking 3 days of the week.  There is no PE in his school to speak of.  He could not do a single pullup, could manage 2 pushups and had a really hard time with any free weights at all.  In spite of that, I'll bet he will be passing me up within three months.

6 miles on the Bonneville trail with Jessie in the late evening

Wow, what a beautiful weekend.  We planted four trees today and I spent the afternoon teaching my son how to canoe.  I had just enough time for a really fun trail run from my house along the deer fence, down to First Dam and up the Logan river Trail.  Great mileage week and still alive!  Yes!