Ran the Guardsman Trail with my team in Big Cottonwood Canyon. I know i have said before that i had my heart set on certain trails like the JCC one and Emigration Canyon but now i have a new favorite. One that beats both of these trails. Its the Guardsman Trail. It's all uphill until we reach the top, really rocky, a trail run and best of all- it runs through a couple of ski resorts at high elevation. I saw The Canyons and it's lift 9990 which i hike up in the deep snow during the winter for some quality back country skiing and snowboarding! At the begining of the run, i thought to myself this is going to be a hard run but after the first mile i had passed the majority of my team and i was the third person to make it to the mile mark. Not to mention, i did start running at the end of the group... About 1.25 miles in to the run i began to see two of my team members ahead of me walking and not too long after i had to end up walking for roughly 5ft. I shortly passed them as they were having a really tough time and caught up with all the guys that had passed us when we began walking. I stayed up with them and passed all of them but Taylor for the rest of the run. On the way up, i did pass Taylor briefly but then at the next opportunity he passed me and i was not able to retrieve my spot once again. Once we reached the top and it was time to head back down, i began to pass people again. I ended up passing everyone except for Ben who ended up getting up far enough that i couldn't catch up to him. At the 6 mile mark i was begining to feel really tired from the night before since i had only had 4 hours of sleep but i decided to push harder and just get through it. After all, its just sleep. Right around the 6.5 mile mark, my coach told me he wanted me to gap the group. So i did. It actually was not as hard as i thought it was going to be. I believe that the majority of the group was 20 minutes behind in comparison to when i got there with Bill. I was so happy at the end of my run! I had actually accomplished my goal for a practice! My goal was to finish either first or second and i finished second. I was able to finish my entire run in 1:20.32. I think this season is going to be a great season for me. I can't wait to do this run again! |