What ever it takes!

I've actually recovered quite well from my 35 mile run on Saturday but I've been wanting to get out on my bike for a while now and today seemed like a great day, plus it gave my legs an extra day off of running.  Started from my office, out around the Zoo and back on Wasatch.  Nice morning, really cool views of the Lunar eclipse all morning.  I didn't even know there was an eclipse today but when I went to bed last night the moon was full and when I woke up it wasn't, which I thought was strange so I Googled it and sure enough, an eclipse.

12 miles on a warm but very nice morning, the full moon made it possible to start running at 4:30 with no headlamp.

I've really been having a shoe dilemma trying to decide what shoes to wear for the BigHorn, I finally broke down and bought some Altra Lonepeaks yesterday, I figured I'd be save with the zero lift shoe since I train in minimalist shoes most the time anyway.  I was sufficiently happy with them today, I'm not much of a shoe guy, if the shoe fits wear it I always say :)  I did get a small blister on my left foot but I think that's more from the new socks I bought too. 

Anyway, 12 miles all on gravel road at an average 7:32 pace, which is much harder to hold on dirt that pavement so I'm pretty happy with the run.  7:30 is about the fastest I ever need to run in the race, and that's downhill pace.

Now off to the airport to fly to Minneapolis for a couple days

Pretty nice run this morning along the river parkway here in Minneapolis, believe it or not I have never been to this city, seems like a nice place with lots of active people out running and riding bikes.  It took me a little while to figure out the trail system, I almost gave up at 5 miles and came back to the hotel gym to finish but then I asked a biker where to go and he pointed me to the correct trail and that one seemed to go on for a long time.  Every once in a while there would be little single track dirt trails that would take off through the trees down by the river, I kept trying those out but they were really over grown with bushes and I got sick of getting spider webs in my face so I ended up just sticking to the pavement.

A little bit muggy and buggy here, it reminded me of when I lived in Mississippi.

I bought Scott Jureks new book "Eat and Run" yesterday on my iPAD to read on the plane, I really like it so far, I'm about 1/2 way through already and it's really getting me excited to run the Big Horn.  I'm not sure how a book full of pain, vomit, and all the other discomforts that come with running ultra long distances can get me excited but it does.

Pretty amazing run this morning, went out and followed the River Trail again today but since I started knowing the right way to go I was able to follow it much further.  About 4 miles out of downtown Minneapolis the trail got really beautiful going through foresty residential areas, there were lots of side dirt trails that kept taking off into the woods, I couldn't help myself and eventually just left the path and started running down an amazing trail, it was like I found running Mecca, soft dirt trails with leaves all over them, little bridges that crossed over streams and wild life everywhere, it was simply amazing.  I could have kept running forever until I realized I was completely lost, had no idea which way I was heading and some how the river got on the wrong side of me and I didn't remember ever crossing a bridge, so I turned around and tried to back track, eventually I found my way back to a park I remembered running through and got back on the right track.  My Garmin Database got full and stopped working so I'm not sure exact distance, it was further than 12 cause it said 6 when I turned around and then I ran a bit extra just trying to figure out how to get back.

Anyway, awesome run, I wish I knew someone local who knew those trails better cause it would be amazing to just run forever though the woods like that.  I fly home this afternoon.

The hotel I'm staying at has had network problems for over 1 year, we have sent 4 techs out to try and fix it and finally they convinced me to come out and take a look.  I found the problem in about 4 hours and have the new parts coming in this morning to replace the bad.  They don't pay me enough!!!

Course specific run today, I realized I should have done about 19 more of these, started out at the base of Little Cottonwood and started running up the mountain bike trail.  I was suckin air hard, and kept thinking, "Oh, Crap the Bighorns going to eat me alive" got into a little bit more of a rhythm and tried to run, albeit slow the whole time, there were sections that were just technically not runnable, to steep and too technical.  At 4.5 mile the trail came to a river and the only way I could see out led me up to the main road so I decided it was a good time to turn around.  That's when the fun began.  

When I was 15 or 16 years old I was a wannabe skateboarder, I couldn't skate but I tried to dress like one.  Vision Street Wear shoes, Quicksilver shorts, and Powell Peralta T-shirt.  Well one of my best friends and I's favorite things to do was to hike up Adams Canyon in Layton up to the Waterfall and then just run as fast as we could down the canyon and jump off rocks on the way down doing skater moves.  At the time I had no idea I was excercising, no idea what pace I was running, and no clue that I was trail running.  All I knew that it was dangerous and fun.  I hadn't thought about those days for years until today, running down the canyon I felt like I was 16 again, and was pretty sure I could have beat my 16 year old self down the canyon.  What a great run, thrashed my quads pretty good but I will definitely be doing that again this year.

2,000' climb in 4.5 miles, 8.3% average grade up, same coming down.  No wonder I was suckin air.

Ryan is running UVM Half today so I was all alone for my run. Luckily it wasn't long.  I woke up me other pacing partner (My 10 year old son) to come with me at 5:00am.  He wasn't happy when I woke him up but he's a great kid and I can always count on him.  By the way kids on bikes make great pacers and water bottle holders.  Averaged 7:30 for the run which I'm pretty happy about, especially since we started out fairly slow so I made it up on the way back.

I think I've decided to change my stratagy a bit for next week, I've been feeling much better than I ever thought I would at this point and my long runs went very well so I think I'm going to push it a little bit.  I was going to go in with just a I want to finish attitude but I'm pretty sure I can finish so I might as well try for a decent time.  I looked up a couple of the people running the 50, there were 3 that stood out.  Craig Howie won the 50M leadville last year, I suspect he will win next week.  Damion Stoy took 1st place last week at the Pocatello 50K and Dominik something from Park City took second.  Both will be there next week.  The funny thing is I actually have a faster marathon time than any of these guys, but they are ultra-runners with lots of experience, I've never ran more than 35.   I'd like to try and go out with Damion and Dominik and just see how it goes, Damion has ran this race like 5 times so I figure he's a great trail guide.

I finished Scott Jureks book last night, it's a bit dark, not Dean Koontz dark but a bit depressing.  I actually liked it and got a lot out of it.  I wouldn't recommend having your non-running spouse read it.  It makes runners look like self absorbed, 1 track minded jerks.  But one thing about it, I new Ultra-runners were over the top, but Wow! these guys are completely crazy.  Pretty sure I don't every want to run 100 but who know, after next week I may change my mind.