Providence Canyon Trail to the 7.5 mile mark (from the house). The creek crossing gets my feet wet and then they freeze the whole way home. Other than that, glorious.
AM: Green Canyon to 1/4 mile past the end of road (via singletrack of course) before the snow stopped me. I froze on the way down. I need to wear my warm gloves not my thin ones.
T- 60 min 9.25 miles 9.2mph 1200' vert
Lunch: Drove to green canyon with Dan and biked for about 30 mins for our lunch break. It was fun, but pretty short.
House to Providence along Deer Fence to Dry Canyon as far as I could go then down and over to Providence Canyon to the Quarry, then halfway down the canyon and back up to the quarry, then home. Lots of hills.
T- 3:05 (8.5mph) 26 miles 3600' Vert
Weekly Summary:
61.5 converted miles, 94 mtn bike miles, 24 road bike miles, 9900' Vert, 591 Minutes (9 hr 51 min)
Providence Canyon Trail from the House...again, but not sick of it yet. I passed a biker going up today who was riding a $3K dollar bike. Take that! On the way down I nearly crashed into a moose who thankfully was scared of me and took off. I was to slow with the camera to get a decent picture. It just looks like a blog in the trees. It was pretty close when I rounded the corner though (15-20 feet is all).
One of my favorite trails of all time. The only problem was all the rain that has fallen lately really muddied up the trail. The first loop, Joe took it easy on me and I managed to barely keep up on the uphills. The first section up to the first summit took 30 mins counting the crossing of the raging creek. The next section was not so glorious as it was pure mud. The sticky kind. My bike totally bogged down and I actually stopped and took off my gear and was going to hike it. I changed my mind and re-geared up and pushed the bike through the sagebrush up by the trail. The trail finally became rideable again, but the bike was just covered in it. I managed to make it around the loop at the top but the north side was still full of snow banks to hike over. The ride down was fun, but I had to ride in the bushes again for the mud section (half mile or so). I stopped at the creek and washed off a lot of the mud making my bike work again. Lap 1 in 1:21 (9.5 miles).
Picture of the trail partway down
Lap 2 began with a short up and back to meet Joe coming down. This lap, Joe was going to go faster and I was going to stay on the lower section of trail and do it nearly 2 times. This time, it took 38:30 to get to the summit. My legs were shot and my bike was still riding slower than normal. Enough excuses. At least it only took 13 mins to get down.
Lap 3 began with the sun coming out and the rain and mist gone and now I was HOT and overdressed. That slowed me down too. I couldn't wait to see Joe again so I could turn around and head down. It took forever since he went to the tree twice that lap. Even with him stalling, I didn't make it to the summit. 30 mins up and then 10 quick mins down.
That was exhausting, but a lot of fun. I would wager that I could do the loop on try trails and no snow in 70 mins. I will test that out someday soon.
Thanks to Joe for not killing me the first lap and for giving me someone to chase coming down. Good times!
T- 2:53 (20 miles) 7mph 4200' Vert
** Weekly summary: 59 miles converted - 97 actual bike miles - 11,250' Vert - 586 mins
Leg still gets sore off and on. Some moments I feel healed, others it feels it hasn't healed at all. Not sure what to think about it yet. I will give it short test run next week and see.
Took a half day vacation and spent the afternoon hiking Crimson Trail with Bethany. It was a blast. The river is flooding over the trail so we did an out and back on the trail rather than return along the trail. Hopefully the trail survives. 2 hours with 2k' vert.
HJ News had an article describing the mile long trail piece that they are building going up Providence Canyon. It says another 5-6 weeks until it is done. I can't wait!
Today I ran 2 miles! Not much, but it was sure nice to run again. Sure, I could have run sooner, but I wanted to let the leg heal as much as possible before I tested it out. I did laps around Gibbons Park grass fields. Things were great until mile 1.5 or so and then the IT got tight. No pain, but tightness so I called it good at 2. Not sure what to think about it. I guess I will try another 2 miles tomorrow to see if it is better/worse/same. At best, I will be ramping up very slowly. At worst, it hasn't improved and I am stuck on the bike all summer. Too soon to tell.
I did get in some biking before and after running, but who cares about that?
House to Deer Fence South to Blacksmithfork Canyon. I battled huge winds but they died down by the time I turned off to Left Hand Fork Canyon. Classic. I went to check out Leatham Hollow trail, but found a stream instead. Bummer. I only made it half mile or so before I was forced to give up.
T- 3:00:00 (11.5mph) 2500' Vert
Picture of the "Trail"
PM: 2 Miles of easy running to both check things out and loosen up. Things went well. No pain and my tight muscles loosened up a bit as well. Good sign. I got home and did 30 mins on the TRX. Exhausting day.
** Weekly summary 64 miles equivalent - 9550' Vert - 633 mins - 120.75 bike miles, 2 grass, 2 road running miles. Lots of volume this week. Next week I will be traveling, so not much will be happening fitness-wise
Business Trip to San Antonio this week. Left sunday afternoon. Arrived to my hotel room at 2am today. Got up in time for a 2 mile run followed by a 35 min session on the elliptical. Between the running in the muggy 80 degrees and the indoor elliptical session, I was drenched. The running felt ok. This week was the test to see if things are healing....
2.5 Miles running followed by 25 mins on the elliptical. Leg hurt during the run. I see no progress in the healing with a 6 week hiatus. Dang
On a happy note, I visited the Alamo yesterday. Pretty cool, but not as cool as the all you can eat ribs we had after. Beef Ribs, Pork Ribs, Smoked Sausage and Smoked Chicken in massive quantities. Very nice.
I hit my own pillow at 1:30 am today. Got up and was at work by 8:30. I rode the bike to work today for the exercise. This week was lots of sitting around and eating candy bars and ribs. So, a successful week but enough of that. Back at it.
After work I went up Providence Canyon. I was in withdrawals. There is some serious water coming out of that canyon. The road is totally washed out halfway up. There is a second river coming down the road. Major damage. The singletrack is still in good shape though so I made it fine.
The course went through drastic changes due to the dangerous snowy (as in slip and fall off a mountain dangerous) conditions. They had first planned to have the course an out and back to Providence Canyon (22 miles) but there is still too much snow on the south syncline trail and Providence Canyon road is washed out so the aid couldn't get set up. So, the course became an out and back up Dry Canyon to the ridge on North Syncline trail. Only 11 miles. Right before the start, I took off on my bike and started up the canyon. I got about 2 miles from the start before the leaders caught me. Seth Wold was leading the charge with about a min lead on the chase pack of Joe Furse, Ty Draney, Chris Cawley, and Aaron Kennard. I let a few folks by then resumed my ride up the canyon. I made it the farthest I have ever gone on my bike up that canyon. Its too rocky to do it often. I made it the start of the switchbacks before calling it good. I tried to sit down and wait for the guys to come back down, but the mosquitos devoured me. I ended up hiking up and down the trail cheering on the other runners. Before too long, seth was on his way down. He had built up a 4 min lead on the chase pack (now Ty, Joe and Chris). I followed Chris down on my bike then passed and caught up to Joe and passed him too. About that time Ty and Seth were running together just 15 seconds ahead. Joe kicked it into gear and nearly caught them before the mouth of the canyon. I zipped over to the finish to watch the action. 3 guys all together and Chris a few seconds back. Turns out that Seth was able to hold off the charging Joe, but just barely. What a race!
Seth, Joe, Ty, Chris, Aaaron....
Trail at mile 4 or so.
If you want to download a video of the chase pack at this point click here
I did a bit more riding on Deer Fence before calling it a day and heading home.
1/2 mile jogging with Aaron before the start
1/2 mile hiking or so
22.5 miles biking
2:40 total time 3600' vert
PM: My family is out of town so I decided to kill some time by heading out AGAIN for another ride. I just can't sit still. Providence Canyon up to the singletrack bridge. I ditched my bike in a bush and ran the trail (including the section under construction) as far as I could go. The leg felt pretty good. I guess I just need to run more trails. Course it was only 2 miles. Oh well, it was fun even if it was short.
T- 62 min bike (13 miles) 19 running (2 miles) 1500' Vert
** Weekly Summary - What started out as a bust of a week ended with a bang with 2 big days. I just didn't have time to exercise while traveling. It appears that my leg just hasn't made significant improvement in the last 6 weeks. What to do?
51 miles equivalent running - 59 mtn bike miles, 9.5 actual running miles - 462 mins - 6850' Vert (in 2 days)
- Providence Canyon to Bridge on mtn bike - 42min 1200' 6.5 miles
- Providence Trail in both directions running - 27:45 3 miles 475'
- Home - 18:30 0' 6.5 miles
- To and From Work - ~8 miles 30 min
- TRX 30 Mins
I am feeling more optimistic today about my running as I was still feeling good after 2 miles so I pushed my luck to 3 miles. Still felt ok then and now. Fingers Crossed....
The new usual run/bike route. 13 miles of biking with 3 miles of trail running sandwiched in. Leg felt ok, not as good as yesterday, but not terrible. Still hoping for the best...
Usual ride up to the Providence Trail. They are making progress daily on the trail. I would guess 100-200 feet a day of new trail. Leg was feeling good for most of the run today. Little by little I guess. I pushed it hard on the bike too. Made it up to the trail at PR pace.
