fueled by M&M's

slow run/walk on the treadmill. 

run/walk on flinders loop.

watch-less run on the jordan river parkway.  pretty cold this afternoon.  at the start of my run i walked in circles for about 15 minutes trying to get my watch gps signal to sync.  the sync never happened. not sure what to think of that, we'll see how the watch performs next time.

a tuesday afternoon migraine messed up my new training schedule. wednesday night i wasn't fully recovered but i went to the AF gold's anyway.  glad i made the trip.

phantogram - my new favorite running music band. nice and casual but bass heavy.

overall it feels great to be running again.  trying not to kick myself too hard for taking it easy this winter.

8.5 miles along the JRP trail.  perfect weather.

4.5mi at the South Orem Golds Gym on the new treadmills.  I tried a 15% grade for 1 minute.  I'm thinking 30% wouldn't be that fun for the average person.

6 run/walk miles along the South end of the JRP.  

3 late night miles at Golds in AF.  I gave alternating slow running and walking a try at 10-15% inclines.  I felt like i got an okay workout and my foot didn't bother me for once. 

5:15 am spin class. Just me and 20+ older women. A bit awkward being the only guy. And I've never done a spin class before. But I'm glad I tried. The workout was pretty brutal!  :)

Maybe some running tonight.  We'll see. 

5mi, late night, AF Golds 

7.6 miles (2 hrs) on dirt roads on "lake mountain" above Saratoga Springs, near Israel Canyon, running with my neighbors.  Not sure of the vertical altitude gain but everyone was fairly hammered at the end of the run.  We're going to try a similar route next week & then run home using the JRP/Lake trail.

I should've brought a camera.  You get a really nice view of Timp from across the lake.

3 miles of tempo work. 400x4 with a lap in between.  and 1mi warmup & cooldown.  i now know where my main focus should be because the 400's were sloooooow.

4.25 miles.  extended flinders loop. the smells coming out of the local lehi sewers are funky tonight. so bad... i met a local ankle biting mini pup right before pioneer crossing.  not looking forward to seeing that little dude this summer.  

i'm finally feeling slightly better again on runs.  and my right foot & ankle are getting stronger.  still a little pain now and then but nothing i think i should worry about.

my wife got offered a new job after several stressful months of applying for jobs and many many interviews.  so that's a huge relief to both of us.  life is good.

12 miles JRP mile markers 3-9 out and back.  

The jogging path under the Mountainview Corridor is almost fully paved and useable. (although not officially open) The northward wind picked up quite a bit for the 2nd half of my run.

3.5 miles. reverse flinders loop.

after a warm up mile my shins were pretty sore.  i think i'm still recovering a bit from saturday. so i'm going to push my "speed work" to thursday.  

i didn't stop to walk on this run and my time was pretty okay per mile. so those are both pluses compared to my previous weeks this year. 

6 miles. tried out a new "work to parents and back to work" loop along the Provo river trail.  i'm going to try and squeeze in this run after work, whenever possible.

my new shoes finally feel a bit broken in. before this run the "v2" cushioning (or lack of) in the heel of the shoe was feeling fairly rock solid. 

my left ankle is hurting quite a bit this weekend.  not sure what to think of that yet.  i started a run tonight but decided i'd better let my ankle rest until tomorrow.

giving myself 1mile for 30 minutes on a stairmaster.  i'm starting to really like the stairmaster machines for a quick tough gym workout

6.5 miles. 2nd attempt at the work to parents to work, after work loop.  Under 60min, not bad.

I'm about give up on my Ghost Shoes.  (skipping the obvious joke here)  They are my worst pair of running shoes.  Not horrible, but not that great either.

4.5 late night miles @ the AF Golds Gym.

13 early morning miles with friends.  Up & Down the Provo River Trail.  We started a half hour before the sun came up, not my favorite time to run for sure.  There was a decent cold breeze coming out of the mouth of the canyon. But the wind calmed down quite a bit after 5-10 minutes. It ended up being a great run and nice weather.

i'm really behind on run reports!  shoot.  i vowed never to let that happen.  4mi, my knee started bugging me and other parts that have never hurt.  i'm heading to the mountains to run this weekend.

10mi offroad up Provo Canyon, moving up the Great Western Trail and I almost made it to Little Baldy before turning around.  

It's really funny.  When I'm running off-road my aching foot doesn't bother me much at all.  My sore knee, from Thursdays run, is doing well too.  

I really need to pack my phone with me to take a few pics for my reports.  It's getting really pretty up on the trails right now. 

after work partial squaw peak trail run (rock canyon).   i made it about .5mi past the squaw peak trail turn off and it started to rain quite a bit so i turned around and ran a few miles across the BST.

Casual 5k race. I had a lot of fun.  

Around 1.5mi into the race I got passed by my 11 year old daughters friend...ouch. For the rest of the race I tried to reel her back in.  Fast little kid!  I was able to catch back up on the downhill sections, but then she left me in the dust on each uphill section. lol. I think she finished around 30 seconds ahead of me.

I saw a few FRB bloggers around finish line but didn't stop to say hi.

Post race I ran home along the JRP trail.

4.5mi painful late night miles with fast neighbors.

I ran 2/3'rds of the Provo City Marathon as a training run.  I got a cool shirt out of it and it was nice to have water/gatorade/gu along the way.  

Fake speed work with some new shoes.  There were a few moments of awesomeness on the run, but not many.

The new Launches have much more cushion than the same shoes with 450+ miles...so that's a plus.  I had to send my NB 1080 v2's back.  They were ripping apart on the front inner portion of the shoe.  Pretty disappointing.  I had a pair of 990's quite a while ago that I really liked.  Also the v2 injection molding is not a bit soft.  :(  Too bad.

2012 battle creek to grove creek canyon attempt #1.

i got to the mouth of battle creek at 8pm.  my intent was to run the loop with my head lamp. i made it to the timpanooke trail but decided against continuing towards grove creek.  I didn't want to descend on an unfamiliar trail, using my headlamp for the first time.  And running on back country trails in the dark is a little intimidating! I'll have to get used to that I guess, or bring a friend when running off road at night.

I'll try again soon.   

7mi lehi night run

6mi on the JRP. feeling like junk! (sick)

finally, one good off road night run!  woot

my neighbors and I decided to checkout the hills east of traverse mountain, in the highland/alpine area.  we parked at the the base of the hills and headed out.  i've wanted to check out this area for a long time...

we gained 920ft of elevation in the first 1.6mi.  ouch, that's a bit much for me, but it was fun. after that nothing but great views of utah county and the slc valley, overall it was a really pretty area.  my headlamp works great, hopefully more night runs very soon.

we made it fairly close to Jun & Scott's "Ann's loop".  Our route is in blue, Ann's loop in red. 

my neighbors. tim wore a reflective safety vest... not sure what that helps with in the mountains but umm, "safety first" tim! good job buddy.  

wow, draper city actually *cares* about the trails?  that's cool! i picked up a trail map for my next run in the area.

1600ft vert

Lehi night run around my hood. Doesn't look like this site is iPad friendly so I'll keep it short.

partial Ann's loop with the potato hill cutoff trail.  this is my first time on this trail, the trail is amazing!  i think the potato hill parking lot is maybe 15minutes from my house. i'll be back soon.

my phone said the loop is 7.1 miles.  and my watch reported 6.8.  :-/ meh.

oh yeah...  10 *steps* into the run i kicked a root and full on pete rose slid across the trail.  that's my first major spill of the year.  skuffed up hands but no blood.

2 afternoon runs.  9mi and 5mi.  not quite the mileage i wanted to get up to over this holiday.  but at least i got out. 

late night shortened ann's loop w/ a few friends. 1 deer and 1 raccoon sighted.

inlaws (cedar hills) to my house (lehi).  going to take it easy next week.

6.5 around lehi with my neighbors.  

i have yet another cold doing it's thing...feeling really hammered right now. hopefully i'll be feeling a lot better by the weekend or this marathon is going to be a death march!  

i gave my original launch shoes one last run. they're hammered, so i'm going to retired them.  

last mini run before the marathon.  

i woke up at 2am on race day with a cold sweat with a cough and a fever.  sooo, i knew the marathon was going to be a doozy.  

made it to the starting line by 4:30am and it was a lot hotter than i anticipated.  no need to huddle around the fires this year.

so the race began.  i went out at 9 min/miles no problem until around mile 11.  at that point my chest tightened up and i was having a hard time breathing if i "pushed the pace" so i settled in and had a slow race.  i noticed that a lot of bloggers had a rough time with the wind, it's not so bad when you're either walking or running at a turtles pace! :)

overall the course was awesome. provo canyon is so pretty this time of year. since i made sure i had my carbs/electrolytes/fluids covered all went well. and my legs aren't sore for the first time, post marathon.

great job to everyone that toughed at the UVM today.  peace.

wow i've really been slacking on updates!  (2 weeks and no updates, yikes)  i got a new road bike so i've been riding that quite a bit lately.  i forget how many rides exactly, but i'm going to give myself credit for 3 long rides.  

11am Saturday i went up AF canyon with a buddy.  we parked at Salamander Flats and ran up trail 216 to 157.  we decided to turn around before the ridge line because my already limited water supply ran out and it was getting pretty hot.   i now know what it's like to be severely dehydrated.  (hint: not fun)  i should've packed more water. lesson learned.  the trail was in great shape and we didn't run into too many people along the way.  i don't know if i like motorbikes on the trail, i can handle mtb'ers/horses/hikers.

<3

checked out trail 40 (lower mill?) in AF canyon.  really amazing trail!  i didn't see anyone until 2 minutes before the end of the trail. (right before connecting to 157)

i'm thinking if running from Brighton over to AF Canyon soon, along the Wasatch 100 trail, so I wanted to make sure I knew a few connecting routes before I dive in.  i'm going to be a pacer for a friend this year, really excited to see the race.

too lazy to post photos to ma' web server so here's a twitter link:

https://twitter.com/peaksutah/status/219644141041221632

rant:  it's hard to find something (anything) in common with a lot of the people on the trails up AF canyon.  motorbikers occasionally haul A by barely giving me and my friends time to get off the trail.  the 2 guys i saw at the top of the trail today, riding horses, left cigarette butts and crushed beer cans along the trail for me to take care of on my return trip down the trail. losers.

20mi bike ride

10mi inlaws to my house loop.  took it easy.  testing out new shoes.

1 hr road bike ride.  good times.

I'm still miffed that i missed logging several mid-week runs... oh well.

5-6 night miles with my neighbors.  Ghost Falls to Canyon Hollow to Clarks.

3mi JRP

4 late night dark miles on the backroads of lehi. it's been a really long time since i went out on a late night run near my house, it was nice to get out. i spooked a few cows/horses/deer grazing and/or sleeping in the fields around me so i must not be stomping too loud as i run.  so far this has been another poor training week so i'm really glad that i got out and ran tonight instead of giving up and going to sleep (again).  

partial grove creek canyon run/hike.

decided last minute to check out the first ever utah Tribal Run.  this is an all night dusk to dawn and see how far you can run in that time type race... the race was supposed to be on antelope island but was moved to miller sports part in tooele at the last minute.  my friend and i decided to both enter the run solo.  he's using the race for wasatch 100 training.  here are more details:

http://www.thetribalrun.com/locations/northern-utah#.UB6UDbSe58E 

anywho, this was a great way to get some training in.  the RD expected around 1k to sign up, but only ended up with around 150 runners... and most of the runners were on teams of up to 6 people.  so each time i went out to run a 5k (approx) loop i was lucky to see 1-2 runners.  even though the participant numbers were low everyone seemed to have a good time and the weather was great.  most of the course was ran on the miller sports park race tracks with a bit of off-road.

my friend and i ran pretty easy/slow.  i ran 9 loops,my friend ran 11.  i took a 45 min nap around 2am and i'm glad i did.  if i run this next year i'll push a harder and see if i can get in the 40-50mi range.

ran the half sick.  good times.  i probably should've skipped the race but i wanted my tech shirt. :-)

finally got out and tested the ankle.  by mile 4 it was a tiny bit tender so i decided not to push it.  it looks like i'll be biking a lot this fall.  :-|

i will be pacing my friend from miles 53 - 75 at the wasatch 100 next week.  i'm really excited!   

Wastach 100 pacer report....

My buddy Matt asked me to pace from Lambs Canyon to Brighton. I've always wanted to see the Wasatch 100 in person so I went for it.  I was looking forward to checking out 22 miles of the course BUT my friend had a rough race.  

First I dropped off a pacer at Big Mountain.  Matt was about 1hr - 1:30 hrs behind anticipated pace. (arrived at 4:20pm)  But he seemed to be in good spirits so I figured maybe he was just racing conservatively.  Since I waited at Big Mtn for quite a while I missed seeing a few bloggers at Lambs. 

At Lambs Canyon my friend was looking at lot more tired.  He arrived at 10:20pm & I thought we really had a slim chance to push the pace and get him to the finish line before 36 hrs elapsed.  Matt overheard a RD mention that there were around 18-20 behind him still trying to finish.

This is ending up being a long race report for only 8 miles of running. lol.  So, i'll try to condense the rest.

From Lambs to Millcreek highlights:

- puke all over the road after Lambs.  A lot of runners were trying to pack in the calories and couldn't keep it down...

- 2 runners returning to Lambs for DNF's 

- we were passed by 6+ runners along the way.

- Matt tried to sleep on the trail. but man it was COLD!  so after about 10 minutes of watching him shiver we moved on. 

 - it took 4.5 hrs to get to Millcreek, ouch.  by the time we decided to DNF there was only 1 active runner behind us. 

I'm really happy that I checked out the race finally.  I now have a tiny tiny bit of perspective on what it would take to race this. I'm really in awe at runners that can finish a race like this. I'm going to run portions of the course this fall and next spring to get a better understanding of the full course.  Maybe by 2020 i'll be tough enough to give the race a try.