I thought the recovery was going well. I guess it was, until I tried to run today. Within 10 feet my butt/groin/hamstring thing that bugged me for 90 miles of the Bear was very present. Bummer (get it?). Went 1 mile without much progress so decided to head back and try out the bike. No pain at all walking or biking. Only running. Guess some cross-training is in order. No rush to get back though...
AM: Did my usual exercises mixed with 1/2 mile of treadmill walking and 5 mins of hard bike riding.
PM: Pushed the kids in the stroller for 4 miles. Leg felt ok going 9min/mile but a bit iffy any faster than that. Put a lot of my weight onto the stoller and it helped I think. Slowly progressing.
Couldn't stand being away from the trails. Ran 5 on Deer Fence then walked for 1 on Providence Canyon Trail. So nice to be out, even if it was dark and early.
Canal Trail and a bit of the BST. No good news to report. Still struggling with this injury. I still think it is my bulging disk causing nerve pain. Not positive though.
Gorgeous afternoon to hit the trails. Lots of people had the same idea as the trails were busy. We headed up to Lake Blache (Mill-B) at a hike. We took lots of photos and enjoyed the views. I wore levis to try and keep me from running. That lasted until the descent. I was cold (9000' elevation) and snow on the ground so I started running to warm up. Then, I figured why not? I jogged the rest of the way down. Now I had 30 mins to spare so I headed up Broads Fork trail for about a mile then decided to jog back down. The family was still not there so I hiked back up their trail until I met them. Loved it.
T-1:50 up, 38 down, 50 up/down/up/down, 3700' vert ~9 miles
Combination run/hike today. More running than hiking, but I hiked the steep stuff to help out the injury. It hurts it to push off hard and/or run fast. I am thinking it is my satorius. Not sure.
Main to Canal Trail to BST to NEW upper canal trail. I loved the new trail. Flat and covered with Bark chips. Perfect for some fast running. I only went 3/4 mile on it before having to head back but it goes from BST to 2nd Dam. Roughly 2.5 miles. Leg was still sore but definetly the best it has been since the Bear.
Today I tagged the peak from the house. It was a proper Bike/Run/Bike routine. 9.25 miles on mountain bike climbing 1000' vert (all in final 2 miles) in 50 mins. Ditched the bike and headed up Deep Canyon to Mendon Peak. Tooks things at a medium effort up the trail enjoying the views and trying not to freeze. I wore too many clothes for the bike ride but not enough for the run. The canyon was in the shade of the morning and brrr.
Hit the peak in 1:13 took the mandatory photos, ate a snickers and went down. Enjoyed cruising down the hill taxing the quads. Made it down in 42 mins and back to the bike. ~8 miles and 3400' vert.
The bike home was fun as I got to cruise down the big hill to the valley bottom. Too bad the dirt road was all washboarded and nasty. Hit 38.5mph on the paved portion of the road. Scary for a bike (for me at least). Nothing fell apart so I got to pedal all the way home. 32 mins and 9.25 miles.
Great morning followed by some rock climbing with the kids at RockHaus. Good times. Now I need to get the trailer ready for some 'camping'. Fun day off of work.
Today was another big vertical day. My leg was pretty happy with me so I decided to push my luck (again). As long as I run steep stuff it is fine. We went up to the forest service road and a bit on that until the mud tested my patience. We quickly threw in the towel and headed back. The upper 1000' of elevation was covered in snow and made for slow going uphill but fun cushy running going down. Great run. Good to be back in action.
It was great to have some company for a perfect day on the trails. 55 degrees and dry trails. Perfect. Since I was short on time I made them work hard on the uphill. Still not tempo pace but close. On the way down, Joe led the way flying. I was close to all out for sections. Then he got a side-ache and we ditched him. We nearly beat a truck down the canyon, but he beat us by 15 seconds. Good times.
6 Very Slow miles on Providence Canyon Route. After last night's sprint-fest it was all I could do to get the legs moving again. Actually, the groin was the issue. Still not 100% healed from that Bear100 injury. The first mile was Painful!
Island Canal Trail to BST Canal Trail to connection with RiverTrail. Down River Trail to First Dam and back on Canal Trail. Fun loop. Easy pace again due to tiredness.
In an effort to kick Mike's butt on the Strava Vert Challenge that is going on right now I hoofed it up a mountain. It was actually pretty fun. The wind was blowing and nearly took me away. I lost the trail a bunch in the dark and fell quite a few times on the loose rocks on the way down. Headwind on the way up and tailwind on the way down is never ideal. I survived.
T-1:44 (6.2 miles) 16:50 ave 3000' vert (42 mins from base of mtn to peak -1.2 miles)
Note: I am in 57th out of 4050 people currently in the challenge. Mike is in 597th place. But who is counting?
Today we did Water Lab to Providence Canyon with about 2 miles up the canyon and back. Things were going along great until the final 3 miles when my butt injury thing flared up again. Pain with every step. Hopefully it is only temporary.
Mt. Jardine from Elmer (above)
View of 7 Sisters from Mt. Elmer
I decided to bushwhack down this instead of backtracking a few miles to get home. Bad idea.
Back on wonderful singletrack!
Saw a few odd characters outside today!