I got the call the night before from Matt VH for a trip up Farmington canyon. We have talked about this run for a while but I hurt my leg so it was put on hold. We started at Farmington Pond at the bottom of the canyon just after 6am. It was touch chilly outside at that hour but not too bad. I opted to leave my long sleeve shirt in the car rather than have to carry it with me. The road feels steep for the first mile or so- the paved part- but as soon as it transitions to dirt it mellows out a lot. We climbed 3,500 feet over the first 7 miles but it didn't feel like it at all. However, the higher we climbed the colder it got. The sun hadn't made it's way into the canyon yet so we were jogging in shadows. The river cutting its way down the middle of the canyon must have made the wind much colder than it otherwise would have been. By the time we got to the junction that splits up the Francis peak or over to Bountiful I was frozen. Bad choice on the shirt I guess. So we sat in the sunlight on a rock for a minute while I took the rocks out of my shoe and eye-balled the peak that was still another 4 miles and 2,000 vertical feet away. About 1/4 mile past that junction the road climbs higher than the river and it was immediately warmer, if not down right pleasant. The road is also smoother at that point for reasons I'm uncertain about. So we ran together for a while, up past the pine trees until we reached the tree line. The road on this last section is also quite a bit steeper than the road on the first 7 miles and it didn't take long for VH to put a gap on me. I wouldn't see him again until the top. He beat me there by a good 5-10 minutes and even ran down the back side a bit to make sure he got 13 miles for the run up. By the time I got there I didn't have that kind of energy in me so I just stopped and stretched and drank some water. The downhill trek was much faster than the uphill. We made it to the top in 2:53:00 and we made it back down in just under 2 hours. Obviously, a lot of that was due to gravity. We just took the breaks off and let it do it's thing. At first it felt good and before we knew it, we were running a 7 minute mile down that road. After a couple of quad pounding miles though it didn't feel quite as good. By the junction I was tired and had more rocks in my shoe so I stopped to remove them while VH continued moving. After I got the rocks out and caught up to him we made our way to Sunset camp ground hoping for water so I could refill my bottles. Turns out the campground has been shut down and the water was turned off. Oh crap. Another 5 miles to go and no water. The road at that point is substantially more rocky as well, so the breaks off and just cruise approach was not working quite as well. By the time we hit black top I was spent. The furthest I have run since my last marathon in 2006 is 13.1 miles. I'm not used to this distance and my body was letting me know it. Once on the black top I took the breaks off again and let gravity drag me to my car. I thought it would be less painful if it was over with sooner. I reached the cars a minute or 2 before matt but I was in much worse shape than him. When I got there I collapsed on into my car; when he got there he took off his pack and proceeded to jog around on the grass until he hit 26 miles. Clearly I haven't been running this type of distance enough to be in as good of shape as he is. So now that is the goal. Make this a regular run on the weekend until going 26 miles is not a big deal. A day later I am surprised at how good I feel. Absolutely no joint pain just some minor muscle soreness. I slept like a baby last night but got right out of bed this morning and was able to mover around like I hadn't done anything yesterday. I've run 3 marathons prior to this and I never felt that way after any of those. More consistent training is part of it I'm sure, but I think that the big difference comes from running with proper form. I can't wait to test my legs out next week. | 