Like the canyon

Boulder field trails with Indian and Hidden Valley add on up to the icey sections of each. Lots of hikers out tonight. Spring must be in the air.

9 miles, easy pace, legs a bit heavy.

AM: Cold and cloudy couple of hours of dust on crust skiing. Better than just crust I suppose. 

PM: Cold and clear 10 miles on the BST norte.  Felt better all the way around tonight.

60 minutes on the trainer.  Moderate effort.  Really wanted to run tonight, but a late parent/teacher conference and a serious snow storm doused my motivation. May not sleep tonight in anticipation of a REAL powder day manna.  :)

AM: YEEEEFREEEKINNGHAA! WOW!  About time Snowbasin had a proper powder day. Now I remember why I arranged my life around the ski season. Hate to admit it, but I've had an anxious energy all winter that has left me in a bit if a funk that I couldn't really figure out.  Gone. Shook it all off by 3/4 of the way down to first run. Untracked and over the top all day long. I know it's pathetic to let something like lack of a ski season affect me so much, but I guess it did.....I feel completely different than I did 24 hours ago.

Skied and hiked hard non-stop from 9-4. High speed lifts and no line meant tons of vertical and a glorious, hazy exhaustion.  Rough guess at the vertical descent is 30,000 ft. Probably totaled a good hour of hard hiking. Snowed most of the day, sun broke out  for a couple toward the end.

PM: Got in a good 45 minute jog with heavy legs on the freshly snow coverd trails.  Hoping tomorrow is a repeat of today.....

Repeat of Thursday. Add about 8000 locals and 4000 SLC'ers cuz the canyons were closed. Great snow, good day all in all, even if the fresh was gone too fast.

No running.

Early morning long run on the Island with the O-town group.  Started up the White Rock Trail with Cory, Matt, Shane, Chad, Molly and a couple of others. Ski legs felt a bit slow and heavy at first but came around after a mile or so.  Big group runs can be tough as not everyone is on the same page all the time.  My goal going in was to get 25 miles or so at a 50 mile race pace. Put it in cruise control, turned on some music and settled into a steady rhythm and just ran how I needed to run without worrying about were the others were at.

 Ran in my own world for miles. Out Elephant Head trail, back and around the 50k loop.  Miles clicked by quickly and the pace felt moderate and unlabored most of the time, which is what I wanted. Steady effort.  I noticed Shane closing in from a ways back. No surprise. 

Shane ran with me the last mile or so back to the White Rock trail head.  We cruised along chatting away, feeling pretty good at a 7:15-7:20 pace and 19 miles in to the run.  I had noticed someone a bit behind Shane and closing in on us.  It turned out to be Pablo, a kid I have run into on the trails this winter.  He's a strong runner, and is racing the 50k this year.  His second race ever.  I think he'll do really well.

We froze in a stiff breeze waiting outside the locked cars for the rest of the group. Shane smartly hid out in the bathroom while I paced around the car for a good 30 minutes. Reasoning that chattering teeth is preferable to outhouse stench.

Cory and the gang arrived eager to keep moving and head out around the 6 mile loop on the north end of the island. Shane and I suggested a long out and back to Crown Burger in a warm car. Group wasn't having it, 25 miles it was. 

Took about two miles to get the blood flowing again. Everything felt locked up. Seemed everyone pushed the pace the last 4 miles or so.  Luckily I was in the lead for the last 2 of those single track miles, keeping the dogs at bay until we hit the last mile or so on the dirt road.  Matt, Shane and Pablo took off at a sub 7 pace, I hung on about 50 yards back.  Last mile was not a steady effort.

Miles: 25.6, 8:39 pace, 2740 vert.