Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 7.5 miles easy, horsepark loops.

Then... Pfeifferhorn! What an awesome day. Andrea, Amiee, Kevin, Jillian, and Tanya went on a great hike up in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Up to Red Pine Lake, then the upper lakes, then a few of us went up to the ridge and I sealed the deal for the team by tagging the summit of Pfeiff - I think it was the only peak on the alpine ridge than I've never been on previously. Its a good push - 3700 feet over 4.5 miles to the top. When we got the ridge, since I was going solo the rest of the way, I ran a good part of it... some skyrunning... just soooo cool - although pacing was key at ~11,000 feet :-) There is a fun knife edge area that requires some scrambling before you go up the final stretch to the summit.

Somehow, in the last 1-2 miles on the way down, I dropped my camera. I'm pretty upset only because I know I had taken about 100+ awesome pictures today. I don't care about the camera itself, but I am essentially obsessed with documenting fun days with friends like this, so I just hate to lose the photos. I ran back up ~1.5 miles, walked around for a while searching, then finally ran back down to the car. No luck :-(  At least I got some extra trail running practice. Ran the stretch from the White Pine trailhead to the trail junction in a little under 7 minutes, which is pretty good... it usually takes about 20 minutes to hike it. And I didn't fall once!

Despite the loss of the camera - I just can't get over what a great day it was to be up high in the mountains with a great group of people. Lots of fun - I love these kinds of days! 

Amiee was nice enough to send me some of her pictures to make me feel better...

That's me on the top if you look close! 

Andrea insists that I add a few miles of running to my daily total, since she knows I ran at least 3 while looking for the camera. So, we'll say PM - 2 miles. 

AM - 12.1 miles up to work via Tanner Park / Parley's Trail. I'm already having mountain withdrawal so I think I subconsciously picked the hilliest route possible. Thank goodness for Alta Wednesday because Friday seems sooooooo far away right now.

PM - 8.8 miles home.  

5K heats are tonight. Runner's World posted a fantastic profile on Alan Webb this morning. His career has been a roller coaster of ups and downs. I'm really hoping he can make the finals and even though he'll be a long shot, at least get a chance to make the team.

AM - 10.7 miles. JAJAK group run. Andrea and Allie gapped the guys right from the cars and it took us over 1.5 miles to reel them in. Shaving my head last night didn't make me any faster this morning. I split off after ~8 miles and went up the hill to work.

PM - 9 miles home. Ran into AdamRW up on campus and we ran about 5 miles together... good to catch with him! 

Tomorrow night we'll meet at the 6200S park & ride around 5:30pm, then carpool up to Alta and meet Rob and his XC team. 

AM - 8 miles, horsepark loops. Lots of dogs out this morning. 

PM - 9 miles at Alta w/ Rob, Kevin, Fritz, and the XC kids. Awesome night up there (as always)!

I've been thinking a bit about the second half of the year. Looks like Andrea and I will probably run the Big Sur 1/2 in November, and possibly the RnR Vegas 1/2 in December. If that plan pans out, those two will be my focus races (Big Sur is very competitive, and Vegas is a PR-type course... I really want another crack at 1:05), but they are a long way off. In the shorter term I'm planning to run the TOU half and marathon, but at this point I don't see myself putting in another "big" (10-12 week) training cycle / buildup for those two races... even for the marathon. I'm gonna sort of wing it. I got right back into workouts a few weeks after Boston, and while the results were pretty good in May/June, and the fire to start hitting the tempos and intervals is already burning again, I need to be objective enough to realize that I'm playing a somewhat dangerous game if I keep pressing forward with the harder efforts. Especially since I haven't taken any true "down" time in the past six months. So no structured workouts for the next month or maybe even longer... I won't rule out jumping in a low key race (Tour de Run?) if I start getting antsy, but that's it. Its very tempting to continue to keep rolling along when you're running well, but if I had a coach - the first thing they would tell me to do right now is back off for a while. No one has a linear improvement curve (in the long-term) so I'd rather shut down the intensity on my own terms, rather than risk getting stale or injured in the future. Plus, its summer, and while I really do enjoy enjoy the rigors of harder training, right now I want to keep things 100% fun and have the flexibility to do whatever comes up and seems cool. That being said, a lot of the things I think are fun/cool end up being hard, anyways :-)

AM - 10.3 miles up to work, slow jog. 

PM - 7.3 miles home. 

If anyone is interested in doing Tour de Run (3 stage race on July 13-14 - 5K, 10K, 5 miles), you can use the code wasatchreferral and it will only be $50. This seems like a pretty cool new idea, hopefully we can get a bunch of people to sign up... maybe even make a few teams from the blog? I wrote some more about the race on Wasatch & Beyond (blog link)

AM - 10.3 miles up to work. Leaving for a little vacation this afternoon - spending 4 nights at Brian Head (elevation 9600 ft!) and using that as a springboard to Cedar Breaks and Zion. Then we'll head "down" to Bryce Canyon for a night before coming home. Can't wait to hit the road!

How about those 5Ks last night? If you didn't see the end of the men's race - here's the video highlights. Start at 2:10 for the last lap. Incredible trials for Galen Rupp... 5K/10K double, both Olympic Trials records... wow. Letsrun recaps -  Men - Women. I feel so bad for Julia Lucas. Really happy to see Molly Huddle (Go Saucony!!!) and Lopez Lomong make the team. I ran at the same high school state championship meet as those two... so its good to see that they've improved a lot more than me over the past decade! :-)

PM - 7.1 miles at Brian Head on a really cool dirt road. Lots of climbing. High altitude. Love it. Almost got trampled by an Elk.

The Y-axis is what its all about..

Fires off I-15 on the drive down...

AM - 10.5 miles. First half w/ Andrea on a dirt road, second half up on some wild terrain on the Navajo Ridge. Basically just ran up and through the ski area. 

PM - 8.3 miles. Brian Head town trail with some extra climbs thrown in for good measure.

Andrea, Amiee, and I went to Cedar Breaks National Monument and did a cool hike on the rim. Then we played horseshoes, basketball, ARCHERY, ping pong... it was basically nonstop activity!...