16.5 miles Shelbey and I were planning on 12 easy miles this morning. The weather was going to be cooler than normal so we slept in (after staying up late the night before). Didn't hit the trail until 7:45! Our approach was different today. Normally we start our longer runs on a certain trail that is a 5 mile loop. We then generally head out on another trail (opposite side of River road) which we haven't seemed to like as much. I have been convinced that we have these negative feelings as a result of almost always ending our long runs on this trail while we are tired. Today we decided to start with it. When we got to the end of the trail there was a new sign that indicated that another trail head was less than a mile away. The city had new signs up everywhere! So cool! Each sign would tell you how far until you would hit another trail. We figured the trail head mentioned must be the the little paved trail that I have driven past on my way to Costco. We headed out on Riverside Road and sure enough in a little under a mile we see the little paved trail. When we hit 6 miles (our planned turn around point) we decided that we were having too much fun exploring to turn around. This new path took us to a beautiful soccer park and then to a gorgeous wooden bridge (you could smell the wood, it was awesome). On one side of the trail there were green trees and shrubbery, there was red rock on the other. It was breathtaking. Then before you knew it there was black rock and you were right against the Virgin River again. It was beautiful. We kept going (just randomly picking which trail to follow, there were multiple going different directions). Before we new it we hit the end of one of the trails, the sign indicated that it was the "Hell Hole Trail." We couldn't stop laughing because we had been talking the whole time about how wonderful it was! We felt right at home, Ha! We decided to turn and head back and committed to come back tomorrow to try a different turn. Our average pace for 13.5 miles was 8:36. It felt so nice and easy. Beautiful run. When I got home Ryan and Sophia were getting ready to hit the gym. I said I wanted to go. We got there and I ran an additional 3 miles on the treadmill at a 6:55 AP. After 13.5 miles it felt quite hard, but not nearly as hard as I would have expected. I was just going to run 1-2 fast miles but when 2 hit it wasn't hard to convince myself to go one more. After the treadmill run I finished off the workout with 40 minutes of strength training. Feeling good. :-) | 
