I wanted to get a good run in today but I didn't want to kill myself. I would like to be running Farmington canyon up to Francis peak weekly by July so I figure I need to start making my every day runs closer to 10 miles, rather than 7. If I can average 10-15 miles during the week then I can surely pull out a 25 on the weekend - provided I'm eating enough. With that in mind I thought I would head up the canyon to the campground via the road, come back down the trail that cuts down the middle of the canyon, cut across the firebreak to the flag rock trail and then go up and over that from north to south. I wasn't feeling that great when I woke up this morning but 2 miles into this run I was glad I had pushed myself out the door. The canyon is beautiful in the morning, with the sun streaking down the valley and a slight chill in the air. The road was abnormally busy today. I saw some campers making their way down the paved part of the road, a guy with ropes (rock climber I'm assuming) going up, and I even passed a couple of guys trying to run the canyon. They said they were new to running uphill and it showed. I tried to pass on some encouragement and kept moving. I made it to the campground in just over an hour and then set out to find the trail back down. I was concerned that it would not be visible since the campground has been closed for a year and has clearly not been maintained at all. I found a sign by an overgrown trail and started down. I remember hiking up this trail several years ago and it was pretty decent then. It has been neglected for some time now and I had to do a bit of bushwhacking to get started. Once I got passed the waterfall the trail cleared up a bit and I was able to move a little faster. I was surprised at how fast I made it back down the canyon from the camp ground. From the spot where the trail goes up the canyon and road turns from pavement to gravel it is about 4 miles. The trail coming back down was 2. Once I hit the firebreak I walked for a minute to get some nutrition in my stomach. If I was still going to climb up to flag rock I was going to need some more energy. By the time I hit the trail to turn up I was beat. I thought about calling it off and just heading back down the firebreak home but decided that I had set out to go over flag rock so that is what I was going to do. It was slow going, maybe the slowest it's ever been. It took me over 30 minutes just to climb the less than 2 mile section of trail to the rock. When I got to the top I ran into a guy I haven't seen in years (Rick Wesche). I had heard he was thinking about running the race in July but until today I hadn't seen him on the trail. He had just made it up a few seconds before I got there so we stopped to chat for a minute. I then set out and he followed me back down the trail. once we got back to the firebreak we jogged for a bit together chatting about life until I turned to head home. It was good to catch up with him. All in all this run was pretty awesome, even if it was tiring. It took me 2:42:36 to make the whole trek, a time I'm sure I can cut down with some practice. If nothing else, this is a great training run for the trail half in Moab in November. | 