Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

AM: I ran to the Provo High track to do some loosely structured speedwork. Basically, my plan was to run eight 400s at a fast but relaxed pace. The first lane was full of water, so I ran in the third, which means each repeat was a little longer than 400, though I'm not sure how much. Somehow I ran only seven, which makes me wonder if I miscounted or if I accidentally stopped my watch instead of starting a new lap at some point. The former seems more likely, although I'm puzzled, because I was sure I ran eight--six strong, plus two much slower.

77, 78, 76, 76, 75, 75, 81

49:13

AM: I just noticed that the sample course name in the instructions on this page is the Slate Canyon Loop, which is what I call the route I run most mornings. Weird.

Anyways, I ran the Slate Canyon Loop this morning. I was on the road by 5:00, and it was nice out, but I was feeling a little more tired and sluggish than usual. I just took it easy and finished the run without any problems.

Jun mentioned a Slate Canyon trail at the Kat'cina Mosa, so I should clarify that my Slate Canyon is not nearly as cool. It's just a road that loops past the juvenile court and gains 200 feet or so in about two miles.

47:26

PM: Cardio Cinema with Catherine. This time, Mission Impossible 3 was playing. It turns out it's pretty interesting. We showed up after it started and left before it finished, so I guess we'll have to add it to our Netflix queue.

AM: I was feeling a little tired this morning, but things got better as the run progressed. I ran an improvised loop and wound up with 6.5 miles.

48:43

PM: An easy 4.5 miles at the Cardio Cinema with Catherine. Big Fish was on tonight. It's a good movie, but not really the kind you want to be watching on a treadmill.

36:42

AM: Up late studying and up early to run means I got about four hours of sleep last night. And now I'm sleepy. I was going to run down to the Towne Centre for a few laps around the mall, but there was a train at the crossing so I headed out past the cemetery then up past Seven Peaks and Kiwanis Park before swinging through campus on my way home. 5.8 miles.

42:01

PM: An extra 5.5 easy miles at the Cardio Cinema. Princess Bride was playing tonight. Funny movie.

I was going to take it easy today, and I ended up with no time for a run. Catherine and I did hike up Rock Canyon with my siblings and our dogs, though. We went as far as the third bridge, then we turned around and went to J Dawgs for dinner. Good times.

All summer I wanted to run up Timp, but never got a chance. I finally made it last week, and now I can't seem to stop. This morning I ran it with Jared, also known as the SLC Samurai, and the Dorais brothers, Andy and Jason. Both of the Dorais brothers are real runners and ran the 800 at BYU. It also turns out that Andy is one of the two runners I ran into on King's Peak last month. Jared is an LDS guy with a family. He's also Asian, as his alias suggests. I'll let you decide how relevant any of this is later on.

We arrived at the trailhead a little before six, and the place was packed. So packed that we couldn't find a place to park. We drove around for a while looking for a spot before we finally just got creative and invented one.

(Right as we ran past the shack at the start of the trail I saw a green light coming down the trail toward me. "Crockett?" I said. "Crockett," he said. And that's the end of that little story. I hope you found it as interesting as I did.)

Anyways, our little group split up pretty quickly, with Jason and I at the front and Andy and Jared somewhere else. There were plenty of people on the trail, but not nearly as many as I would have expected based on the number of cars in the parking lot. That is, until the saddle, where we ran past what looked like at least 50 people milling around.

Jason and I kept the pace conversational, but we were pretty quick, running the whole way until one or two switchbacks above the cirque, and running a lot of the way after that. Jared, who had been tailgunning the whole way, surprised us by showing up a minute or two later. Somehow he had managed to cut nearly three-quarters of a mile off the trail between the cirque and the summit. As a friend of ours once observed, "If you think like the Samurai, the 'trail' is simply the route between where you are and where you want to go."

We hung around at the summit for a few minutes to regroup, and then we started the descent. The guys I was running with are backcountry skiers, which must explain why they're so good at running technical terrain. We absolutely bombed the descent (at least, according to my perception), and I think we covered the sketchy half mile between the summit and the saddle at least three minutes faster than I've ever done it. No near-death experiences for me, fortunately, although Andy missed a step just below the saddle and almost took a tumble down a talus field.

As the descent continued, we settled back into the same groups we had on the way up. Except Jared was the last out, because he took a "shortcut" that turned out to be a wrong cut and wound up somewhere other than where he wanted to be. That's why he's a samurai and not a ninja.

White Guy in Flat Brim Hat: "Ni hao."

Jared: "F*%k you."

1:39:39 up

56:52 down

2:36:31 round trip (not including the time we stopped at the summit)

2:46:36 elapsed time