Larry and Wayne were kind enough to accompany me on most of a 12 mile run this morning. Our plan was to run from the mouth of Provo Canyon up to Vivian Park...but we failed to realize the Provo River trail is only cleared up to Nunn's Park. We took the old Bridal Veil road at that point and followed it up to Upper Falls Park, which required crossing through one nasty section of frozen snow about 4-6" deep. It was smooth and frozen enough in some spots to run on top of the snow, but mostly it was a minefield of potential ankle turns. I've decided to run the Utah Valley Marathon in about 6 weeks so I wanted to start getting in some longer runs on Saturday. My goal for today was 12 miles. We hit 9 miles shortly before we got back to the mouth of the canyon. We decided to run on south along the trail. Larry and Wayne said they were going to do about 10 miles, but said they would wait for me to do my 12. Around this point two young women passed us. They were pretty good runners, but not elite runners, and I have to admit that it was bothering me that they were passing me. Since we had decided I was going to go a little farther than my buddies, I left them and soon passed the two ladies. I ran down to Riverwoods and then headed back. As I started back I saw that they were only about 50 yards behind me. My goal was to just get in 12 miles today, the pace wasn't important. That's good because we ran pretty slowly. I ended up averaging about 9:25/mi for the 12 miles, with an 8:01 and an 8:15 mile near the end. It was great running with my buddies up Provo Canyon again. The weather was in the 40's and sunny. It was a great run. (But then, as Tom says, every run is a great run.)
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