Kerry's Running Blog

The first step down the stairs in the morning is usually a good indication of my lingering injury status. Most of the summer I've had to brace myself for some sharp pain in my left knee, hip flexors or right ankle. Often, the pain or soreness is gone by the time I reach the bottom, but this morning and most of last week, I've felt nothing. I'll take that as a good sign. What doesn't seem like such a good sign is that my weight was up a little over a pound from last week (after a 60 mile week and really watching what I eat!). Oh well, I had a good run this morning. I was kind of waiting to see if there was any lingering fatigue from Saturday's long run before deciding whether to push it or not. I thought I'd wait until the four mile mark before I made that decision. As I was approaching the turn on to the Alpine Highway, a young woman  passed ahead of me going north at what looked like a pretty good pace. As I rounded the corner heading north, I realized after a minute or two that she wasn't gaining on me, so without giving it another thought I started to pick up the pace. I could have surged a bit an caught up to her rather quickly, but I didn't want to try to keep that up the rest of the way to Kohler's. As I closed in to about ten feet, a dog suddenly started barking nearby and it freaked her out a bit and she turned around and saw me. When it's so dark, you naturally wonder about strangers so I just said good morning in a friendly voice and passed her. It would have been nice to have somebody to talk to inasmuch as we were going roughly the same pace and going in the same direction, but it wasn't going to work with a young woman. I thought about the reports that I'd read recently about some guy up in Bountiful that's been targeting early morning joggers. I didn't want this young woman to have any reason to doubt my reasons for being out at that time of the morning. After passing her I continued to pick up the pace and finished strong. Saw lots of people out this morning including Lloyd N., Jill W and the bishop and his wife.

One thing I forgot to note on my blog entry for Saturday was our encounter with a group of hunters in the foot hills above Cedar Hills and Pleasant Grove. We had run into a couple of guys earlier that were in hunting vest and looked like they were scouting things out and it may have been the same two that we saw about a half an hour later on another trail. They were outside their truck at that point with their shotguns. We headed off on another trail and as we rounded a corner we saw two more pickup trucks with hunting decals in the rear windows. We didn't think too much about it until we heard a shot off in the distance, followed by another shot less than fifty yards away. The fact that we couldn't see who was shooting or what they were shooting at made us think that maybe we ought to turn around. We didn't hear or see anything else as we headed back down the mountain, but we were wondering what they might have been hunting and whether it was even legal in that area (many of the trails are fairly popular with hikers, runners and mountain bikers). That's something I need to remember to check on.

I was planning on taking it easier this morning, but just as I was getting ready to turn on to the Alpine Highway heading north a young guy passed in front of me going the same direction. Yesterday I was thinking it would be cool to have somebody to talk to along that stretch and it was like central casting sent somebody to meet me there EXCEPT somebody forgot to tell him to leave the iPod at home! He seemed quite absorbed in his music so I just picked up the pace, said good morning and passed him. Oh well, at least having somebody there pushed me to run a little harder along that stretch and I just kept it up the rest of the way home. Felt great this morning despite a few fleeting aches and pains. Beautiful clear skies this morning with temperatures in the high 40's to low 50's.

It might have just been my imagination, but the stars seemed even brighter this morning. Venus was spectacular as usual and I even saw a couple of shooting stars. It was a routine run in many ways, but a bit unusual in other. Shortly after passing the high school I saw someone's motion detector light come on across the street and about five seconds later three deer came running on a collision course towards me at full speed. I stopped and they passed about ten feet ahead, but I waited for a bit to see if there were any others coming. A minute later some furry little creature scurried across the road in front of me (it might have been a rabbit or a skunk). I was going to turn my headlight on just to give any other creatures fair warning that I was coming, but just about then I got something stuck in the bottom of my shoe that made a very odd clicking noise, loud enough that it would give anything in the immediate area ample warning. When I got into the park there were a couple of animals fighting just a little ways off the path, with sudden loud shrieks and then softer whimpering, following my the sounds of branches breaking. I think it might have been racoons, as I've heard something similar before (it definitely wasn't cats). The rest of the run was fairly uneventful. Legs felt good overall. Temperatures were in the low 50's under clear skies.

Clear skies, slightly warmer temperatures. I felt a bit of soreness in my instep on my right foot laying in bed this morning, but it really didn't bother me during the run. This, of course, is the time of year when I become hypersensitive to every ache and pain. Feeling great overall. No shooting stars this morning, but someone did shoot off a large firework somewhere in American Fork around 5:45. People are strange.

Fairly warm, clear skies. And dark. Took  it fairly easy for the four miles, pretty much lost in thought and then picked it up at the four mile mark, realizing that this is one of my last effective workouts before St. George. Felt pretty good, but realized that I couldn't have kept up that pace forever. I guess I'm as ready as I'm going to be. I'm just happy that all my injuries seem to be healed up at this point.

Beautiful, clear morning. Pleasantly cool for the whole run. A bit of a canyon breeze right at the mouth of the canyon, but nothing outside of that. Laureen and I left the house about 5:30 (after I drove around to drop water off). We were both amazed by the number of runners we saw this morning. We expected that this close to St. George that we'd see others out and about, but there were two or three times as many as last week. This week we only ran down to Harvey Blvd. before heading north (cutting off a few miles in the process) and we didn't extend the run along the mountain trail, nor run further west along the canal, but outside of that it was basically the same run as last week. Laureen was running stronger, which I was happy to see. If she does well this year at St. George it'll all be worth it. I was hoping to add a few more miles on, but we needed to get back to take the girls to some early activities. With the light rain and cooler temperatures in the afternoon, I was really hoping to get out again, but there was just too much to do.