Running on Twinkies

Happy New year. 

Today I ran up North Canyon. The trail was good for about 3 miles up, then got really soft. It was amazing up there this morning. I love winter trail running. 

2012 ended with about 800 miles and 150,000 feet of elevation gain.

For 2013 I have decided to push my limits and climb 377,377 feet. That may sound like a strange number. It is the equivalent of summitting  Mt Everest from sea level 13 times. 13 Everest summits in 2013. Anyone care to join me?

Ran with a group of friends up Farmington Canyon. There were three Matt's in the group. Myself, Matt VH, & Matt W. It was nice to run with somebody again. Most of my runs this winter have been solo. I turned around at 3.5 miles because I had to go to work. The rest of group continued on up to 5 miles.

Quick business trip down in St George. I was able to get an early run in before the my meetings. It is warmer here, but not by much.

I have had a nasty cold for the last two weeks and haven't been able to get my runs in. It felt good to get out. I ran the Wild Rose Trail and the Eagle Ridge Trail. The Wild Rose Trail was soft packed, but Eagle Ridge was untracked and I was post holing most of the way up. Great way to start the day.

I ran up Farmington Canyon this morning at 5 am. I started a half hour earlier today so that I could go further. I made it up to Sunset Campground. It was snowing pretty hard when I turned around, but wasn't bad when I got back to the valley floor. The first mile up was difficult, but by mile 1.5 I had found my groove and settled into a comfortable pace. I passed Steve, Matt, Aaron around mile 7. The were still heading up into the darkness. I say darkness because the higher up, the worse the storm was making it harder to see. Fun morning.

Ran up the Wild Rose Trail. It is still pretty cold first thing in the morning. I hope it warms up soon.

What a fun race. The first 13 miles are dirt roads with rolling hills. The next 18 miles are paved roads and mostly down hill. I was having fun on the dirt road and probably started faster than I should have. I saw Kelli a few times and the dirt road and chatted with her a bit. Down on the pavement, I met Jenny (Neasts). We ran together for a few miles, but her pace was stronger than mine and I dropped back a bit. Near mile 22, I saw Leslie. She was running the 30k. I stopped and gave her a quick hug. About mile 25, my ankle started acting up. It wasn't anything serious, but it slowed me down. I crossed the marathon mark at 3:45. My goal before the race was to finish around 4:30. I was still on track to meet that. At mile 27, I realized that I only had 4 miles left. No problem. At 28.2 miles, my wife called to see where I was at. My family was waiting for me at the finish. I told them I would be there in thirty minutes. there are two hills near the end. They are actually short easy hills, but after thrity miles they seem like monsters. I finished at 4:32:54, a little behind my goal, but still a PR. After the race we went over to Snow Canyon State Park and did some short hikes with the kids. I carried Susanna, our eighteen month old, in a back pack. It was a great way to stretch my legs after the race. Super fun day.

Today was supposed to be a recovery run from Saturday's race. I ran along the shoreline trail with Steve, Ryan, and Matt V. When we got to parish creek, we decided to go up the switchbacks a tag Centerville peak. We came down the really fast way to the flag in Centerville canyon, then headed back on the shoreline trail. So much for easy recovery, but is was super fun run.

Mueller park Trail. Ran up past the Elephant Rock a little ways. There wasn't any snow until about 4.5 miles up. The full loop should be dry soon.

I volunteered to be the assistant race director for the 5k at my son's school, Wasatch Peak Academy. We got there early and marked the course. I ran the race with Connor, my eleven year old. He finished in 24:09. I headed back out and ran Jed (9yrs) in at 33:03. Then I headed out a third time and ran Jaxine (8 yrs) in at 40:59. My wife Susie also ran and came in at 36:45. It was a fun race for everybody.

Shepherd Creek. Ran up the mountain with Steve, Ryan, Aaron, and Jeff.

Ran with Jacob and Jen up the course for the Steeplechase. We decided to tag Twin Peaks since they were close by. Coming off of Twin Peaks we ran saw someone with a beard coming up. He had no headlamp and no water. It was Matt V. Matt tagged twins and joined for the rest of the run. The trek across Black Mountain was fun, but it was freezing this morning. It even tried to snow on us. We wanted to go down Smuggler's Gap, but there was too much snow. So we came back down basically the same way we went up. I took a few shortcuts on the way down because I was in a hurry to get to work. It was an awesome mid week run.

Ran the Mueller Park loop this morning with Matt V. and Leslie. The weather was perfect. We finished up just as it was getting warm. I just crossed the 100,000 ft mark of climbing for the year. Sweet.

I ran the Pocatello 50 miler. It was actually 53.5 miles. It's a really tough race with 3 large climbs. Starting out, I couldn't seem to get my hydration right. Finally after 35 miles, things were feeling better. At the finish line, the were serving loaded bake potatoes. They tasted great after running that distance. Super fun day.