Summit junkie!

Nothing exciting at all. 5 on the TM. My quads were still a bit sore from my summit X3 adventure so the last two days I took it easy and it helped a lot.

Weights at the gym for an hour (upper body/core). I took my girls again and they ran on the track for about 45 minutes and then made friends with one of the personal trainers that showed them a few things. They loved it. I also did a mile on the track while the girls tried out the elliptical.

Mount Wire solo:

I had a very fun run to the top of Wire. I parked in the zoo parking lot, which is where I will park from now on when it is open and it only adds a few minutes each way. I was the only person on the trail. It was snowing slightly with quite a lot of thick fog, but the temperature felt good. I was feeling strong today, so I pushed it pretty hard all the way up. It was cool because just after the first saddle I came out of the fog for about 10 minutes and I could actually see some blue sky. As I ascended the fog started to move up the mountain and it was really cool to watch it moving up and it eventually swallowed me at the second saddle.

The wind and snow picked up on the summit ridge and I ran it up to the top. It was cold, so I didn't stay long. The fog was pretty thick, but once in a while it would open up and I could see the peaks sticking out in the distance. Very cool! I ran hard all the way back to the car and didn't see another soul on the trail the entire way.

Life has been busy lately. I was hoping to get out during the day, but that didn't happen. I had to fit in some TM miles after everyone was in bed. I got to catch up on some of my DVR shows. I knocked out a few of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart that have been stacking up.

I was desperate to get in a trail run yesterday, but it just didn't happen for me. Between the kids school Christmas program and a customer appreciation event at work it just didn't happen. I did manage to eat Cafe Rio for lunch and about 2000 calories at the customer event for dinner. Awesome.

I woke up early to make sure that I could get in a workout. I hit the gym and lifted for close to an hour. I had a very good session, but I was annoyed that a guy stayed on the pull up bar for about 45 minutes. He pulled a bench under it and managed to hog the area not letting anyone else in. He also chewed on his fingernails the entire time. Gross.  I am hoping to get out for a run at some point today.

View Benchmark peak and Lake Mountain with MattVH. Summit #76 and 77 for the year: 

I was frustrated that I couldn't make it out on the trails the last few days and with a very busy Saturday coming up I decided to do a late night mountain run and I was happy Matt wanted to come along. I suggested View Benchmark via Ann's trail and Lake Mountain as possibilities. Matt said why not do both. I like the way he thinks. 

We met at Ann's at 11:00 and we were running up the snowy trail a few minutes later. It was bitter cold and it took about 5 minutes to start to warm up. After that I felt fine, but whenever we stopped it would chill me within about a minute and I had steam flying off of my head. We were having a blast though. It took us longer than I had hoped because of the snow, but we made it up to the summit in about an hour (That included breaks for Matt to move some product). On top we checked out the views, but after a few minutes we were VERY cold, luckily there wasn't much wind.

The run down was a lot of fun. We laughed pretty much the whole way down and had a decent running pace most of the way. Back at the cars we decided to add in Lake Mountain as well, so we drove to Lehi and after taking a break to eat, warm up and change some clothes we parked and were on the trail just before 2:00 am. It was COLD!

We had both changed into our Altra Lone Peaks and after running the first 1.5 miles we could feel the extra strain on the calves and tendons. After the first mile we were in snow the rest of the way. After two miles we settled into a nice fast hiking pace for the rest of the way, but we would still run the slopes that aren't quite as steep. 

About a mile from the top the nice 4X4 track we had been following ended and we had to break the trail the rest of the way which did slow us some. There was a slight wind after the saddle and the snow was very light powder and you could see bright crystals sparkling in the headlamps. It was pretty cool. We reached the summit a little before 3:30 am. It was cold, so we didn't stay long. We tried to snap a few pics, but they didn't turn out so we headed down.

The run down as incredible. We picked up the pace with each mile and the Lone Peaks provided plenty of traction on the steep snowy grade. We were singing to various songs that were blaring on my ipod, laughing and just having a fun time. The last two miles were in the 7's and felt really good. We both had an excellent time and I made it to bed just before 5:00 am and it was definitely more fun than sleeping. 

We had just under 5K elevation gain for the night and we were able to run all but about 2.5 miles of the 16.2.