This run wasn't as long or as vertically challenging as I wanted it to be. Time constraints caused me to cut it a bit short. Next time I need to leave the house earlier so I can make the whole course. The plan was to run up the south trail to Flag Rock, take the north trail down, follow the BST over to farmington canyon, cut through the canyon and climb back up to the upper BST that Dorsimus runs, take that accross to Baer canyon and the do the whole thing in reverse coming back. If I had the time to follow that route it would have given me something like 4,000' of gain today. As it is, my legs are sore so it's probably good I ran out of time. I followed the out course all the way over to where the BST drops into the upper neighborhoods in North Farmington or Fruit Heights (not sure what city it is at that point). I realized that I wasn't going to make it to Baer since I was running out of time so I turned around and came back. I didn't have enough time to climb back up to flag rock so I just took the paved road back home. I felt pretty sluggish today, probably from yesterday's run. I enjoyed the run but I just couldn't move very fast, or so it seemed. I'm not sure what fast is on this course yet so who knows I guess. I have decided a couple of things over the past week though. The first thing is that I'm going to start counting the number of times I reach flag rock, alla Anton Krupicka and Green Mountain. According to a story I read yesterday, between January 2010 and Western States that same year he summited Green Mountain, roughly 3,000' of gain, 176 times. While Flag Rock isn't nearly that steep it is about the same number of miles. Maybe if I can make my goal to reach a ridiculous number of runs up the Rock before the run in July I too will be able to run fast on race day. It seems that if you want to be able to run fast in these ultra type events, which I'm not quite ready for yet, you need to spend a good deal of your time running up really steep trails. Which brings me to the second thing I decided. Before the summer is out, I want to run 10,000' of vert in a single run. This is going to take some training to get ready for, as I ran a mere 4,900 in the past 2 days and feel exhausted at this point. Nevertheless, if I can reach that goal I will be on track for getting myself in the kind of shape I want to be in; competitive shape. I believe, based on some calculations I worked out, that I can achieve this right here. I can get roughly that much elevation gain if I start at Chevron, run up the north side of Flag Rock, run across to Centerville Peak, take that trail to Skyline Drive, and follow the whole thing back in reverse including running back up flag rock. That will be about 25 miles, but it will also be 10,000' of gain. AP: 12:57; Flag Rock Ascent: #1; Vert, 2,722'
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