Running on Twinkies

Happy New Year!!!

I decided to start the year off good with a 10 mile run in the snow. I ran South from my house to the Bonneville Shoreline trail head. Then ran up to the second set of radio towers. The final mile up the the second tower (all uphill) took me 16:34. The next mile (downhill) was 9:01. I really enjoyed the trail today. It was soft packed most the way with a few deep spots. The sky was clear and the air was clean today.

Since its a new year, it's time for a new set of goals. Last year I set a goal to run a sub 3 hr marathon. I didn't get there. I only ran one marathon which was the Mid-Mountain Marathon. I am shooting for sub 4 hr on that course. This year my marathon goal will be 3:15. I plan on doing that at the Teton Dam marathon in June. My big goal for this year is to complete a 100 miler. I am planning on running the Pony Express 100 in October. Other than that my main focus is going to be to train consistently and not slack off.

I am still working on putting together my race schedule for 2010. Look for it in the next week.

I am copying last years results hear so that I have a record of them.

I am off to a good start. I have ran every day this year.

Today's run was a big loop and a little loop. It was snowing lightly when I started, but stopped by about mile three. I ran from my house to Center Street in North Salt Lake, then went West to the Legacy Parkway Trail. On my way to the trail I stepped off the curb right into a large slushy puddle. It took four steps to get out of it, all of which were about ankle deep. I had wet feet for the rest of the run. I did five miles on the Legacy Parkway Trail. The snow was choppy and not near as nice as yesterday's run on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. I got off the trail at Pages Lane and headed back towards the mountains. There were some good hills in this section. I came back South on 400 East and then on Davis Blvd. When I got close to my house I had only gone 16.3 miles. I wanted to do a bit more so I turned up Indian Springs Rd, which is a nasty uphill for a 1/2 mile. I then headed over to North Canyon park and looped back down to my house.

The run ended up being 18 miles, giving 60 miles for the week. I think this is my highest mileage week ever. Even longer than the week I ran a 50 miler. 

Eight miles easy this morning. I ran North to Twin Hollow Park then did a mile on the Bonneville Shoreline trail. 

I was talking with my sister in law over the holidays and  trying to explain why I love to run. I guess some people just can't understand the joy of getting out of a nice warm bed to go running in the freezing cold.

My running has slacked off this week. Work has been busy and my arthritis has not been behaving. So today I needed a motivational run. I ran the Mueller Park trail up to Elephant Rock. That did the trick. There is something special about trail running. Maybe the trails have a mystical power that just makes me feel better. Or perhaps it's getting away from the smog and exhaust and just breathing clean air. I'm not sure what it was, but today's run felt great. The trail was hard packed all the way to the rock. There were even some tracks up higher, but I didn't have time to go up higher today. Hopefully, today's run was enough to get me back into a regular routine next week. 

Bonneville Shoreline Trail. 4.5 miles. Most of the trail was hard packed snow, but there were a few short sections where the snow had melted and I could run on dirt.

Today's run was an inversion diversion. There was a heavy fog in Bountiful this morning. I decided to rise above it. I drove up to the Bountiful 'B' and ran up Skyline Drive. I got out of the nasty air and it was great. The stars were out and I could see the fog down in the valley. The peak of the Bountiful Temple was just poking through the fog. Everything else was below it. Sure is nice to run in clean air.

Today I met up with Craig, Scott, and Kam to run the Mueller Park trail. It was a little cold when we started but not bad once we got going. The trail up to Elephant rock was great. It had been well traveled the snow was packed really well. Scott turn around at that point and the rest of us headed on up. The next mile was very choppy. The trail had been traveled but not near as much. Some steps stayed on top of the snow and others broke through sometimes even up to our knees. We took turns leading out and ended hiking the last two miles up to Rudy's Flat. At Rudy's Flat we were on packed trail again which was great because we were now going downhill. The downhill helped make up some time for our slow uphill snowy miles. At the bottom of North Canyon we hit the boring part, the road. We finished the last few miles of the run on the road back to the trailhead. I have done this run before in the Summer, but not in the Winter. I have wanted to run it in the Winter for a while. Thanks for running it with me guys.

My work sent me to New York this week and I didn't get any running in. I am back now, so today I ran the Mueller Park Trail. When I got to the trail head there was one other car there and there were three sets of tracks heading up in the fresh snow. There was about 2 to 4 inches of fresh powder on the trail. I didn't know how far ahead of me the group was or if they were running or hiking, but I decided I was going to try to catch them. About 1.5 miles up the trail, I caught up with them. It was two guys and a girl running up the trail. After I passed them I was breaking trail in the fresh snow.Towards the top the snow was about 6 inches deep of soft snow with hard packed snow underneath. I made it up in 43 minutes. Coming down I passed that group again and fives other hikers coming up the trail. By the end of the day today the trail will probably be nice and packed down. 

Best of luck to all of the runners who are doing the Painters half marathon in St George today.

Five miles easy this morning while breaking in a new pair of shoes. This Saturday I am running the Kahtoola Bigfoot Snowshoe Festival 50k. The pair of shoes I wore this morning are the same as my current trail run shoes (New Balance 790's). I thought it would be good to have a second pair of shoes on hand at the race in case the first pair get two wet and cold. I was planning on running the race without snowshoes, which the website for the race said was aloud, but yesterday I got an email that said that in order to be considered for the overall awards you have two wear snowshoes. Well, on the odd chance that I might win, I guess I'll will be running in snowshoes. I have never ran with snowshoes before, so this should be interesting. 

Today I ran my second 50k. The Kahtoola Winter Snowshoe Festival. It was in Midway at Wasatch Mountain State Park. The entire race was in the snow in snowshoes. My first time running in snowshoes was the first step of the race. I don't own snowshoes, but Kahtoola, one of the race sponsors had several pair there for us to demo. OK, let me explain how this race works, pay close attention because this can get confusing. The course consisted of two loops, a 10k loop called the golf loop, and a 5k loop called the mountain loop. Each loop came back to the start. To complete the 50k the course was ran in this order 10k, 5k, 10k, 10k, 5k, 10k. The 10k course was a figure 8 loop on the golf course and had an elevation gain of 882 feet. The entire 10k was on a groomed trail that was about 12 feet wide.

The 5k loop was a lollipop loop. It was a single track trail that went up the mountain a ways then did a large loop up and around the mountain. The 5k loop had an elevation gain of 1211 feet. Being that it was half the distance of the 10k, it had some difficult ascents.

Since we did these loops multiple times. It made the total elevation gain 5950 feet. This race is put on by the same race director who does Squaw Peak 50. After the pre-race meeting he asked if there were any questions. Someone asked "Why are we doing this?" His response "Because you're crazy." At 8:10 a.m. we were off. in the first half mile I released I didn't have my snowshoes adjusted right. I tried to fix them, but it didn't seem to work. I stopped several times in the first two miles to fix the snowshoes. At about mile 2.5 I stopped again. I happened to stop right by another runner named Brian. He helped me get them adjusted the right way. Thanks Brian. After that they weren't much trouble. Original I was planning on running each 10k in 1 hour. After my loop the time said 1:12. I guess 1 hour was a bit ambitious. Well, with one round of golf done, it was time to head up the mountain. I have done a lot of trail running in the past and have trained on lots of hills. I was thinking I could run the entire mountain loop. Not. I made it up the first mile, but as the hills got steeper and longer I had to walk them. I ran as much of it as I could. Towards the top it was really steep. The downhill was a blast. It was just as steep as the uphill. I think I might have been able to run the downhill faster without snowshoes, but I probably would have fallen a lot especially on the sharp corners. I completed the 5k loop in 38 minutes. At this point I had to go into the visitors center for a pit stop. Luckily there was an open stall. My pit stop cost me about 8 minutes. The second round of golf was more difficult than the first, but I was able to run most of it. The third round of golf was even more difficult. These 'lightweight' snowshoes that were strapped to me feet were starting to feel like giant ice blocks. I walked a fair amount in this loop. Towards the end of this loop I got passed by a girl who was moving at a fast pace. She didn't chick me though, because she was just finishing the 25k race and I was at 35k. So technically I was 6 miles ahead of her. At this point my feet were soaked. I stopped into the visitors center and changed to dry socks and dry shoes. I brought two pair of the same shoe for this race. This little stopped cost me about 15 minutes. I headed out for my second attempt at the mountain. Imagine running a marathon and after 22 miles you come to a hill that goes up and up and up for a mile and a half. I didn't go up real fast this time, but I was able to pass one lady who was from St Louis and was really struggling. After completing that loop I had just one more loop on the golf course. During this loop I crossed the marathon mark at 6:52. Not a PR by any means, in fact it is more than twice as slow as my PR. When I hit the 7 hour mark, I was thinking how crazy it was to run in snowshoes for that long. I finally made it to the finish and crossed the finish line at 8:04:18. So glad to be done. I don't know what my place was but there were 18 people that started the race and 6 of them dropped out after 25k. There were only twelve of us dumb enough to finish. There were at least 4 or 5 people behind me, so I came in in the top ten. I am pretty sore right now and have one toenail that is dark purple. 

  Q. Is this one of the craziest races I have ever done? A. Definitely!!

Q. Would I do it again? A. You know it!!