Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

Today is a rest day, so I thought I'd reflect on my last six weeks or so as a runner.

As much as I hate to admit it, running is harder than I thought it would be. Cardiovascular system is certainly transferable--all my time on a bike over the past five years counts for something--but my legs are struggling to keep up. It's not that I was never sore as a cyclist (I was), but my body never felt quite as abused after a long ride as it does after a long run.

I'm also having a hard time figuring out the mid-run refueling thing. It's easy to carry plenty of food and water on a bike. For running, I tried using a lumbar pack with a bottle, but I hated the way it bounced around and rode up. I've since picked up a handheld bottle, which I think will be okay, but I miss jersey pockets and frame-mounted bottle cages.

It's easy to eat on a bike, too, and you can eat almost anything you want without stomach problems. In the winter, that usually meant gas-station donuts and hot chocolate. In the summer, Mt. Dew and Snickers. If I ate any of that in the middle of a run, I'm pretty sure it would wind up on the road a mile later.

And any fueling problems are exacerbated when running. Since there's absolutely no coasting, an easy run seems to burn way more calories than an easy ride. After three hours of running, I feel almost as depleted as I do after a six-hour bike ride.

Still, there's plenty to enjoy about running. For one thing, it's new to me, and I enjoy being at the bottom of the learning curve. Down here, improvement comes quickly and in large increments. Also, I enjoy the low-tech aspect. I always hated the time and money that went into maintaining a bicycle, and it seemed that no matter what I did there was always some mysterious noise or poorly adjusted component to drive me crazy. Not much can go wrong when you're running. I guess your shoes could give you blisters or something, but even an expensive pair of running shoes costs less than a set of bicycle tires and lasts at least as long.

Anyways, I'm rambling now. I guess that's what happens on a day off. Back on the trails tomorrow, weather permitting.

I took the day off from work today to spend time with Catherine, so while she was out for her long run, I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for a run on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. I ran a loop from my house, climbing up via Dry Creek and descending into City Creek Canyon. Conditions ranged from dry to muddy to snow packed, but other than a few sections where the mud forced me to walk, the entire trail was runable.

The route had less climbing than I thought it would and it turned out to be shorter and faster than expected. And it will be even faster when the trails are dry. I'm lucky to have it in my neighborhood, and I suspect I'll be spending plenty of time up there this year.

Total vertical: 1,648 ft

Average Pace: 8:23/mile

I enjoyed yesterday's run enough that I decided to run the BST again this morning. I ran the exact same route as yesterday, but in reverse, climbing out of City Creek and descending Dry Creek. Because the wet parts of the trail had all day yesterday to dry (and the parts that didn't dry had all night to freeze), conditions were better today than they were yesterday.

Somehow, my Garmin decided that the route in reverse was 0.17 miles longer and had an extra 16 feet of climbing. It's possible that running on different sides of the road and choosing different lines on the trail accounts for the discrepancy, but I can more likely attribute it to GPS error. So it probably doesn't matter too much that I was 2 seconds per mile faster today than I was yesterday.

Having run the trail both ways now, I'm not sure which I prefer. But running from City Creek seems to hit you a lot harder up front with the climbing than running from Dry Creek.

Easy run for just over an hour on the treadmill. I had planned to hit the trails one more time this morning, but it rained yesterday and I assumed the trails would be muddy. They were probably fine, though. Maybe tomorrow.

I decided to hit the trails one more time before the weekend. This time I ran up the west side of City Creek canyon, I topped out at the second peak past the ridge, higher than I've ever run before, just as the sun was coming over the mountains. The climb still hurts, and I'm still running slowly up the hill (and walking the last two pitches), but I'm stronger every time.

Total vertical: 1,725 feet

Average pace: 8:30/mile 

I was going to go for a short jog, but my right leg has been a little sore so I decided to take a rest day before my long run on Saturday.

My plan was to run the Canals Loop I saw on Crockett's blog, about 25 mellow miles through the southwest part of Salt Lake Valley. Catherine decided that instead of running in Liberty Park, she would come with me, run a 12 mile out-and-back, and meet me at the car.
From the weather reports I knew to expect worse weather than we've had for the past few days, but the last report I saw said high 30s/low 40s with some rain and snow. That seemed manageable, so I wasn't concerned when we hit the canal roads in the rain. And for the first 4 miles, it was very pleasant. I enjoyed running through the fields on the dirt road, and the rain kept me nice and cool.

Unfortunately, at some point during my fifth mile the rain started turning to snow, and before long it was really coming down hard. It didn't take long for my fingers to be frozen and worthless, and my clothes were too soaked to keep me warm. Catherine called and said she wanted to turn around, which seemed like a great idea to me, so I turned around and ran as hard as I could till I met up with her at about mile 6.

By that point it was clear that we weren't going to make it back to our car on our own, so Catherine called her sister for a bailout ride and I knocked on the door of the nearest house. Fortunately for us, the woman who let answered had just returned from her own cold and wet run, so she let us hang out inside and warm up until our rescue arrived.

I'm disappointed to have come up so short on my mileage, but no single workout can make or break your fitness. Sometimes it's necessary to simply take what you can get and then move on. Nine miles are better than none.