Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

Wow. So, those trail miles this weekend destroyed my quads. I guess it's been way too long since I ran down a proper hill. Accordingly, I limited myself to a short treadmill run this evening. Then I went and played basketball with my brother.

34:35

I made it to the gym late tonight, as is usually the case these days. I made it through nine steady miles on the flat before I got bored and decided it was time to go home so I could finish my homework and get to bed at a reasonable time. It's strange to think that I used to average about ten miles per day during the week, as recently as last semester.

On the plus side, we went and saw a specialist this afternoon, and it looks like there's no reason to be worried about Baby right now.

I made it out for another quick out and back up Grove Creek Canyon this evening. I brought a headlamp along, just in case, but I was able to finish the run before daylight ran out, although just barely. The trail was in great shape, even after the rain and snow earlier this week, but there was a lot of snow in the last quarter mile to the bench. Because I was the first to break trail, I finished the climb in 26:20, much slower than last time. I descended in 16:50, even slower, because of the snow at the top and the low light at the bottom. 

43:10

I had an intramurals basketball game tonight. It was the first round of the playoffs, and we crushed the other team (the Crushers, ironically) by more than 20 points. I attribute the sudden turnaround to two things: 1) we played much better than we have in our other games, and 2) we only had seven players, and we couldn't have built a stronger seven-player team from our thirteen-man roster. 

Catherine and I celebrated our victory with my brother at J-Dawgs. The festivities were dampened somewhat by our discovery that J-Dawgs has gotten rid of the amazing root beer they had in the soda fountain and replaced it with Mug, but we still had a good time.

Catherine and I went to AF High to run on the track almost immediately after we ate. I felt as good as you might expect someone to feel while running with two cups of root beer, one and a half hot dogs, and all the associated sauce, pickles, onions and peppers in his stomach. Fortunately, I felt better as I went, but I decided to call it quits after a little more than five miles. Of course, it wasn't just the food--basketball does something to your legs that running doesn't.

38:45

After our surprising and dominant (surprisingly dominant) intramurals victory last night, my brother and I were under the impression that we'd be playing again tomorrow. That turned out to be wrong, but by the time I had figured that out I had already made plans to take advantage of my light Friday schedule and do my long run today. So, I dropped Catherine off at the bus this morning and then headed up to Grove Creek Canyon. 

I had no actual plan for my run this morning, so I started with an out and back up the canyon to the bench. There was less snow up there than there was on Wednesday, but what remained was slick and bulletproof. Even so, I finished the climb in a not terrible 26:25. I made a leisurely descent, and on my way back down I thought about just running laps up the canyon. I had convinced myself that that was the way to go, but when I got back to my car to drop off some layers I changed my mind and headed south on the BST. By that point I was thinking I would run an out and back to the Orem trailhead and finish with another lap up the canyon if I felt like it. But when I got to Dry Creek I changed my mind and headed up the canyon to Trail 51 to scout a route for next weekend. Bad idea.

The trail conditions went from sloppy to impassable so gradually that by the time I realized I should turn around I was at the halfway point and it made just as much sense to keep going. For some reason, there are still massive amounts of snow up there, despite all the direct sunlight. The only explanations I can think of are that 1) the snow builds up in deep drifts along that trail, and 2) the trail is much higher up than I thought. Whatever the explanation, I was postholing through knee- to thigh-high snow for way longer than I would have liked to. After more than an hour during which I covered just over two miles, I emerged in Battle Creek Canyon with bloody shins and soaked and frozen hands and feet. I was hoping the Battle Creek trail would be in similar condition to the Dry Creek and Grove Creek trails, but no such luck. Battle Creek is probably the coolest of the three canyons, but it also gets the least sun, and winter isn't nearly as quick to retreat. Add in some super technical singletrack and two numb feet, and the going was slow.

At one of the many bridge crossings near the bottom, I overtook two girls and a guy hiking down the canyon. The guy and one of the girls were on the other side of the bridge were waiting for their friend, who was slowly picking her way across. I could tell she was nervous, so I stood back and waited for her to cross before crossing myself. But then her friend told her there was a runner behind her, so she looked back, saw me, got startled, slipped, fell on her butt, and started crying. Awkward.

Anyways, from there to the bottom of the canyon the trail widened into a dirt road that was covered with enough clear ice that it felt more like a skating rink than a trail. I moved over and ran through the bushes on the shoulder, which allowed me to make it down without further incident. From the mouth of the canyon it was a short run back to the car, and I was so glad to be done.

In short, 13 miles in just under three hours. The appeal of mountain running is the adventure, but it doesn't always work to your advantage.

I had planned to run on the road today, but after yesterday's fiasco I thought I would try for another trail run today. So, I headed up to Grove Creek Canyon and did my usual out and back on the BST to Orem.  I still didn't feel very great, but I felt better than I have for the last few weeks. Also, the trails down low are in better shape every day, and there was very little mud out there this morning.

Unfortunately, my Garmin battery died shortly after the turnaround, so I don't know how long the run took. I do know it was 42:45 to the turnaround, and I think I was faster on the return.