Fly on the Wall

While camping with my daughter's school class, I ran up and down a canyon with 2 other dads....

3 quick miles on my work's 5k course.  Race is Wednesday.

This month I've been way too busy.  In addition to my job, house project, and family stuff, last week I had 3 long and full days at a geology convention in Utah Valley, then a short trip to Phoenix, then camping with my daughter's school class.  Now that things are just a bit slower and I'm hoping to get in some more miles, I've caught a cold.  Oh well.  Better sick now than when I'm training for St. George.  And I guess I'll be well rested.  We'll see how I do today in my work's lunch time 5k.  Probably not very well.

Should I sign up for the Wasatch Steeple Chase?  It is in 4 weeks, which means I won't be very well prepared.  But maybe I should just run it for the joy of it and not worry about a lack of training....

RACE REPORT:  DQ => DNF. 

10 ez, including running yesterday's 5k the right way.

I ran a modified version of the Wasatch Steeplechase course, which starts less then a mile from downtown in Memory Grove, ascends a ridge line to a cliffy mountain, bombs down into City Creek canyon, and back down the canyon bottom to the start (I started and ended at my house and ran the canyon road in lieu of the trail  down the canyon bottom).  The race advertises vertical gain and loss of approximately 9000 feet in 17.5 miles. 

The views and vistas were amazing.  The wild flowers were beautiful.  The trail was brutal.  Much of the ascent was too steep to run.  Some of the ridge line was too steep to walk.  I slid down snow fields and dozed through overgrown brush.  My fastest mile down the road at the canyon bottom was 6:40.  Compare this to my slowest mile on the trail of 32:09.  I wasn't actually the whole time.  I kept stopping to consult my topo map.  A fun adventure but it took me 3 hours and 48 minutes.  If I get to run this race I hope to do it in under 3 hours.