Well, Larry came through with a great plan for a long run this morning. We started at Suncrest Market in the Suncrest Community on the top of Traverse Ridge (the mountain that separates Salt Lake County and Utah County) and ended back in the neighborhood at Larry's house in Orem. On this 18 mile Draper to Orem run we passed through Highland and Alpine, past Lone Peak High School (where we had stashed water by the seminary building around mile 9), then got on the canal road and followed it through Cedar Hills, Pleasant Grove, and Lindon, and then got off near Oak Canyon Jr. High and ran down into Orem and home.
We left home at 5:30am and started running about 6:07am. It was pretty dark with no moon but it was light enough to see okay. The shoulder was really narrow as we started down Suncrest Drive, and we were a little nervous about traffic, but then we noticed that Larry's dog Ozzie was running on the other side of a fence on the hillside next to the road. It turns out there is a sidewalk there so we hopped the short fence and ran safely on the sidewalk down this scary section. By the time we hit Highland and Alpine it was light enough to see. We enjoyed running through these beautiful cities talking about various things we saw. Larry is a sprinkler contractor and Wayne is a plumbing contractor so they know the valley a lot better than I do. (I just sit in front of my computer all day.) In fact, we passed a new LDS church in Highland where Larry's crew had recently installed the sprinkler system. A couple of miles from the end we saw a group of around 30 young women running towards us on the canal road. A short time later 3 of them passed us going back the same way we were going. Larry asked them if they were from BYU (yes) and how far they were going (5 miles). We don't generally get passed much on our runs, but we figured since they were elite runners 25-30 years younger than us and going less than 1/3 as far, we wouldn't let it bruise our egos too much.
We ran the 18 miles in 2:45:54 (9:12/mi). This includes a couple of stops for the dog to get a drink of water, and a bathroom stop for me. After my bathroom stop (around mile 13.5) I had to push a little to catch back up to Larry and Wayne. I averaged 7:47/mi for the 3/4 mile it took me to catch them. It felt pretty good. I could have done the run at a faster pace, but this was a long easy run. I didn't want to overdo it and risk injury this close to St. George. The weather wasn't too cool at the start nor too warm at the end. I really enjoyed the weather, the scenery, and the company. He planned our 22.5 mile run from Midway to the mouth of Provo Canyon last week, and I really enjoyed that run, too. I think I'll look to Larry for all of my new training route planning needs.
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