Summit junkie!

Weights at the gym for an hour working upper body/core and then 1 on the track to shake out my legs. My legs have never recovered this well after a 50K. I only had a tiny bit of soreness.

I wanted to take it easy, so I didn't push anything. I also did 30 minutes of core work.

Ave Twin Peaks with Mark K.

I met Mark at the Capitol at 5:30 and we were quickly running up the road to City Creek Canyon. My legs felt great, so we kept up a decent pace to the canyon. Once we hit the hills Mark was hiking some of the steeper sections and it was slower than we normally go, but I was totally ok with it this morning. We were just chatting away and we came around a bend and both of us saw a set of eyes just off the trail about 50 yards away. They looked exactly like the cougar eyes I saw at the Wasatch 100 and looked about the right height. It definitely wasn't a deer, but looked too big to be a coyote. As we moved up the trail the eyes disappeared and we never saw it again, but as we came around the next bend in the trail there was half of a deer leg right off the trail, so it probably was a cougar and it freaked me out a bit.

We had a really relaxing fun run up to the ridge where we encountered a lot of windblown snow and in places the trail had been completely covered. We actually lost the trail a few times and ended up post-holing in the drifted snow, but quickly found it, although we did have to put in some new track over the drifts. We hit both summits and took a quick break, but didn't stay long. The run down was fun. We just chatted about upcoming races and gear and the time flew by.

Back on the road Mark really picked up the pace and dropped me for a bit, but he waited for me and we ran it in back to the cars together. It was a fun morning with perfect weather. My legs were a tiny bit heavy on the run down, but overall I am really happy with how I recovered from the 50K on Sat.

5 at the gym. On my way home from the gym two guys from my neighborhood texted me asking... ok begging me to come over to the church for a church basketball game, so I went home and changed into my Air Jordan's that feel like cement bricks compared the Altra's and cruised over to the church. I got there just as the game was stating and ended up playing the entire game. It was a lot of fun, but it reminded me my I haven't been playing lately. I took an elbow to the arm, a knee to the thigh and hit the deck twice. It was a ton of fun though and we won the game in overtime.

Highland/Alpine loop solo:

The weather forecast was calling for a huge storm to hit overnight, so I decided I wouldn't get up and hit the trails and that ended up being a mistake. The weather was downright balmy when I woke up and I was wishing I had gotten out to take advantage of it. By 10:00 am it was a complete whiteout and when I finally got around to my run it was still snowing and blowing, but it has settled down some.

I ran from my house to the Alpine Hwy and then went north to the Timpanogos hwy. There was a strong cold headwind and it really wasn't all that fun, but I pushed through it. When I hit Kohlers I turned left onto the Timp Hwy and I was still getting a nasty breeze, but not as bad as before. I stopped into Wendy's to pee and then after I turned south on 6000 W. the wind died down a bit and the rest of the run was much better. The last mile I mixed in some tabata intervals where I ran as hard as I could for 20 seconds and then dialed it back for 10 seconds and then hard again for 20. My paced would dip into the 5's the first two or three and then back to the 7's for the 10 second break. Oh man it kicked my butt.