Gonna Fly Now

A little over five miles along the Jordan River Parkway during my lunch break. It was another fine day for a run, and even saw a few other runners along the trail, but they all turned around before the mud...wimps.

I probably ran it too fast again...but, man, I love that fast flat course. Total running time was 37:25, for an average pace of 7:17/mile.

GPS output:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4965323

Three-ish miles today inside the Parley's Historic Nature Park. I forgot my GPS, so I don't know my exact distance, but based on my measurements from last week I should have been around three miles, maybe a little further.

The trail is getting seriously rutted out from the constant thaw/freeze cycle we've been experiencing for the past few days. Each day as the snow warms up it turns into slush, then refreezes each night. When it refreezes all of the footprints, dog tracks, and little depressions turn into a sharp rut, which makes finding good footing difficult. I ran again with my MICROspikes, but probably didn't need them.

I think I ran too hard yesterday and stayed up too late last night, but this was a tough run. By the time I was on the uphill portion of the third loop I felt like I was moving awfully slow. The Steve even seemed a bit worn out, too. 

Five miles on the Jordan River Parkway. Five miles on the unplowed Jordan River Parkway. Last night's snow storm and wind gusts dropped about 4" on the trail, with area of wind gusted drifts up to 6" deep. I put down about two miles of the only human footprints to be seen in the snow. (I would have had first tracks, but a few ducks and geese beat me!)

Once again it was a nearly perfect day to be out running. I'm starting to get spoiled by the noon-time sun and traffic free parkway trail. I better start getting up at 5:00 AM again to run in the dark and cold - I'm afraid I might be getting soft.

Total time was 41:10, for an average pace of 8:11/mile. A little slower than normal - probably because I was breaking trail for almost the entire run. (There was only one other set of prints in the three miles where I wasn't the first human).

GPS output:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4972947

My training schedule called for a 10K race today, but I don't know of any 10Ks being run in the middle of the Utah winter. I wasn't sure what kind of mileage I should tackle today, but I decided to do my long run with Locomotion, as usual. Once I got out on the run I thought that I would only run 9 or 10 miles then call it quits, but I felt so good that I decided to do the entire 15 mile course.

The Loco Draper Run has a good variety of terrain, and I ended up with about 6 miles of uphill, 6 miles of downhill, and right around 3 miles of flat. I also did the run pretty slowly, with a 10:46/mile average pace (although my fastest mile was 8:17).

I'm starting to pay the price for doing such a long run though - my calves and hamstring are pretty tight this evening, and I think I may have overworked my IT band. I'll do some stretching and icing before I go to bed, and hopefully everything will feel better in the morning.
 

GPS output:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4980986