Running on Twinkies

I didn't sleep in this morning and actually got up and got a run in. I ran the Bonneville Shoreline Trail to the Radio Towers. I then went up to the second set of towers. I considered running up to the third set, but didn't have the motivation to do so this morning. The weather was cool this morning but not cold. 

Yesterday was a terrible day at work. There are 457 people employed at my work. Yesterday, 246 of them were giving termination notices. I was one of the luckly ones that will still be employed. This was the first layoff we have had since the economic down turn. The company thought that they could keep everyone employed and make it through but ended up with a big loss. Hopefully we will make it through now and this won't happen again. I am glad I still have a job but I feel awful for all the people that I have worked with who are leaving.

I ran with Dirt Tours tonight. We ran up City Creek Canyon. The grass is getting really tall along parts of that trail. In some spots it was up to my shoulders. I've never seen it that tall before. I usually don't post my splits for training runs, but tonight they were pretty good, so here they are.

Splits: 9:48, 9:12, 9:12, 8:58, 8:21, 8:16 

No miles today. I am resting up because I have a race tomorrow. I am running the Xterra Wheeler Canyon 21K. 

I got to sleep early last night a got a great night sleep. I woke up at 4 a.m. I drove to the finish of today's race. It finished at Snow Basin Ski Resort. I got on the first bus and we headed down to Pineview Resevoir. I got my number and did some stretching and got warmed up. It was about 45 degrees. Perfect tempurature for starting a race.

We started at 7:35 after a loud canon went off. The first two miles were on the road. I was trying not to start out to fast but was averaging about a 7:30 pace. After crossing the spillway we went down Ogden Canyon just a little then headed up Wheeler Canyon. Up and Up and Up. It was all runnable but kept going up until mile 7. Then we went downhill for a 1.5 miles. The downhill was great but it was short lived as the rest of the course was basically uphill with an ocasional short downhill. When we came out of the woods at the finish we had to go uphill for about 200 yards before turning toward the downhill finish. I finished in 1:45:08. As I was crossing the finish line they anounced "Matthew Ricks from Bountiful, Welcome back to the Party." I was expecting my time to be closer to 2 hours, so I was excited. I also placed 3rd in my age group. This is the first time I have placed in my age group this year. I got a medal for it and a box with 6 vanilla bean Gu's. The course was beautiful. The leave were changing colors and the trails were awesome. I also qualified to attend the Xterra Xduro World Championship in Hawaii on Dec 6, but I don't think I will be able to make it.