Summit junkie!

Highland trail route:

I started coming down with a cold on Sat and I have zero energy, plus I'm taking a few med including Benadryl, so I absolutely did not feel like running, but I didn't want to take another day off, so I decided to run 5 near my house. There is a trail that goes from 6000 W. in Highland all the way to the Alpine Hwy that I have been checking out for a while now, but I have never run it, so I decided to hit it today. From my house I ran east to 6000 W. and then north to the jump on the trail.

The trail runs throuh some farm land and neighborhoods and it was actually pretty fun. I'll definitely take it again. Next time I will go the other way (east) to see where it ends up. The cool thing about this route is it is almost exactly 5 miles out and back from my house, so now I have a new 5 miler to run.

The run itself wasn't great. I was so slow and didn't have any energy, but the last mile and a half I was actually able to pick it up some when a few good songs hit the ipod.

Jun just bought a Sony action cam and we have been messing around with it on our last few runs. Check out this vid he made from our Grandeur Peak run on Friday.

Grandeur Peak loop

View Benchmark solo:

After work I hit up View Benchmark via Ann's trail. This has been a crazy week for me so far. I worked a 16 hour day yesterday and I have been sick since Saturday and today was the worst day by far. My chest is very heavy and I'm plugged up everywhere. I didn't want to miss another day,so I decided to hit the trail. It was stunning out there today and definitely didn't feel like the end of October. Right from the start I felt sluggish and slow (I'm sure the Benadryl didn't help). 

I saw a biker about 1/4 of a mile back and my goal was to keep him from passing me. I was so slow that I am not sure how it took him until almost mile 2 to pass. I hiked the connector trail and I had already stopped several times to blow snot-rockets, as I am not skilled enough yet to do them on the run. The higher I went the worse I felt, but I was determined to push through and finish it off. Up to the summit in a dreadful 50 minutes. Slow. I stayed for about 5 seconds and didn't even enjoy the view. Blah.

The run down didn't get any better. I was super slow and it was tough keeping a 9 min pace on the downhills. My chest was so heavy, it felt like I had a yak sitting on me and I tried several times to cough out the crud, but it was too tight in there. Slow. Sick. Farmer-blow. Oh and I saw more bikers out on my way back than ever before (at least 15). That sucks because this has been my personal running trail for a year now and it sucked stopping every minute to let them pass. Whiiiiiiiiiiiiine!

PM update: Weights at the gym for an hour. I had very little energy, but I got it done.

5 on the track at the gym. Lame.

Summit #100 for 2012- View Benchmark via Coyote Hollow with Jun.

A few years ago I never would have imagined being able to climb 100 peaks in a year, but today I hit #100 doing a sweet run to VB with Jun from Coyote Hollow. I have been very sick all week and today was the first day I felt relatively ok, so I figured I would give it a shot. I didn't feel great, but not too bad either. Thanks to Jun for giving me two gels, that helped me a lot. The weather was just about perfect and we took the long route on the south side of Draper overlooking Utah County and then up to the peak. It was a blast, but I lost my steam a few hundred feet from the top, but felt decent all the way down.