Well we did the run of what I'll call The Last of the Mohicans run. It was so beautiful and at times while we were running a long the white ledges it totally felt like we were in that movie. The run started up in Kolob canyon and took at trail all the way down to where you climb up Angels Landing in Zion NP. There were 6 of us at the start but it was dark and Steve and I took off and really didn't see anyone after that. Steve's wife met us at around 14 for an aid station and then again at around 23. I between I packed water and GU. The first leg was the prettiest as we worked down two separate canyons crossing two different streams like 20 times. I stopped worrying about keeping things dry as it was not possible. There was about 10 miles of sand running and that sucked and really wore the legs out faster than they should have. The second leg was around 8-10 miles long. I didn't keep track and it didn't have any sand thank goodness. However we did do around 2000 ft of climbing here but I ran well on this trail and ended up pushing ahead of Steve and the rest of them for good. The third leg was basically the run down the West Rim that we all did together last November. By now it was hot out and it was around a 14 mile leg with only the water you could carry. I ended up rationing it out pretty good but got way hungry. Like way. Should have eaten more at the van... live and learn. I enjoyed everything until you start dropping. Unless you've been on the trail before you'd never understand but it drops, and drops, and drops and keeps dropping until your so sick of running down steep switch backs that you feel like just jumping off the cliff. After getting my feet wet on the first leg and then doing that kind of pounding I ended up with a good blister on my front toe. My garmin lost a signal about 3 times so I don't have any real numbers. I was firmly at mile 30 in 5:05 before things went haywire. The distance was a little farther than we thought but then we did take a extra road on the first leg and then extended it down at the parking lot to be at 40. It's a sweet run and we should get a big group from the blog to do it sometime or at least a portion... I was surprised to see so many people. There were camps and hikers from start to finish. Anyways it's the longest run of my life to date. I'm thinking I could really easily leave it at that too and not do Squaw. But I'm sure I'll end up at least attempting it on race day. Steve also ran really good today. I was proud to see him finish within around 15 min's of me. I'm sure there are a few of the guys we started with today that are still up there running. Seriously they could have been a couple hours back. Oh it would be hot by now because it was hot when I finished. | 