Met Jon and Cody at First Dam and then carpooled up Logan Canyon to Franklin Basin. We parked in the lot near the highway, and then started up Franklin Basin Road, which is a fairly well-maintained dirt forest road. Parking lot elevation is about 6600', and temps were in the low 50s to start the run at 7AM. Perfect! It felt really good for my arms and hands to be a little chilly in the shade. The road climbs at a fairly steady 4% grade (~200ft/mile), and our pace going up was pretty slow -- a lot of miles in the 8:30 to 8:50 range. We turned around at the junction of Gibson Lake Rd, which happened to be exactly 8.0 miles. We took that as a sign not to get greedy and go further. Elevation here was 8100', so we had climbed 1500'. Going down was much faster, and the last three miles turned into a bit of a mini-tempo - 6:44, 6:36, 6:30, 6:46, 6:26, 5:58, 5:44, 5:48. It was already getting warm by the bottom. Also, various campers were cooking bacon as we passed their campsites. I really wanted to stop and say "hello, please give me bacon", but restrained myself. 7:32/mile average pace for the entire 16-mile run. A good Saturday morning. That gives me 90 miles for the week, tying my highest mileage week for the year. If I do Draper Days, I will drop down a little bit next week, but if I don't run it then I'll maintain upper 80s another week before the Des News 10K. After Des News, I'll start my 9-week "marathon program", which pretty much involves doing the same thing I've been doing for the last 6 months. (Cascadia: 227 miles)
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