Gaining more than you lose

We always go to the Murray Parade with my wifes family. I'm not a huge parade fan, so I try to make up for it by getting a little run in the 5K. 

Weather was cloudy with the occasional raindrop, and it felt humid. I ran for a bit before to warm up, this was my first run since 45 at Laramie last weekend. This course runs from Murray Park south down State about a mile, then turns around and runs back to Vine street, up Vine for about a half mile, then down into the park, finishing back near the entrance. When the gun went off I started out fairly fast, but tried to hold myself back a little, trying to save some energy for later.

This is not a flat or fast course, there's a decent little hill (for a 5K anyway) south of 53rd, and then more when you come back and make your way to Vine. I felt great the first mile, then started to feel a little tired in my legs shortly after the turnaround. I just couldn't seem to hold the pace, I also felt like the humidity was making me overheat, not sure that full on sun would have been any better though! I find it interesting they do have one water station on the course, but its at about 2.75 miles in, at that point I just needed some to dump on my head! Pushed hard and finished strong at the finish, coming in at 22:19 - a few seconds slower than last year, and not as fast as I would liked, but I guess I can't complain with the time with the long run last weekend and it not being a super fast course (though the winner did it in 15:15 :)).

Had a good time and it made for a good start to the very fun and full day!

Ran up Holbrook canyon, just north of Mueller park by the Bountiful Temple. Beautiful trail, fairly steep with some decent climbs, lots of ups and downs, but pretty much all runnable (1000 feet in 1.75 miles). It was really overgrown in spots, which turned out to be where I had to walk at times, because I couldn't see the ground and there would undoubtedly be a big rock in the middle of the trail where its covered. Crossed the stream about 10 times until I got to a crossing that I just didn't feel like crossing without anyone else around. I'm sure it would have been fine, but you never know, and I was close enough to the mileage I wanted that I didn't worry about it. I didn't push the pace at all, just enjoyed being on the trails, felt like it had been a while since I just went out and ran on a trail for no good reason other than the enjoyment of it. 

Wasatch Crest with Jun and Scott. This was my first time on this trail, and man was I impressed! The road was closed on the way up towards guardsman, so we had to run an extra mile up the road, then hit the dirt road for a couple of uphill miles. Then you hit the singletrack for a couple of rolling flat miles, followed by 4 miles of bombing downhill to the end. I kept yo-yo-ing away from Craig then I'd catch up to him, then he'd pull ahead again, then with about a half mile to go I just completely ran out juice and had to just coast my way in. Fantastic run full of amazing views surrounded by pines and aspen. Can't wait for more runs like it. 

I've got the Bairgutsman coming up in a few weeks, and I had yet to run the canyon this year, so I figured I needed to get up and start running at least part of it. The Bairgutsman is a 12-13 mile run that begins with a 4000 foot climb up Baer Canyon over the course of about 3-4 miles, then you finish the rest of the mileage along the top of the mountain by Francis Peak and then part way down Farmington Canyon. The first few miles are really more of a slog than a run, but I tried to run as much of it as I could before I was relegated to hiking. Climbed 1750 feet in about 2 miles, then turned around and bombed my way down. I figured I probably went slightly more than halfway up - and it just seems to get steeper the higher you get. Its a fairly narrow and technical trail going down, so I did my best not to fall on my face - and was, at least this time, successful. Accidentally turned my watch off for about 10 minutes, but my time was right around an hour - which was about 40 minutes up and 20 down! :) Beautiful canyon and a great hike if you want a pretty quick (mileage wise anyway) way to get to the top of the mountain.   

5.2 with Jun in Dimple Dell. Ran through the new tunnel that goes under 13th, that'll be nice. No more crossing the road. Hot. 

Amazing Timp attempt with Jun, Scott and Jsh. Lots of snow and lots of fun. See their reports for pics and details. 

Family Reunion at the West Piney girls camp that sits between Swan Valley and Victor ID, about 40 miles from the Tetons. Had a great morning run with my older brother as we explored the trail from camp. Just at the very end of the trail we ran into a guy with a bunch of pack horses following him. He went passed us, but the pack horses didn't want to. We sat there for about 5 minutes off the trail, then decided to just run back the way we came to a different trail. Later the pack horses came wandering into camp, with the guy spending the next hour or so trying to chase them down. Oops. 

BoSho in Draper with Jun. I hadn't eaten much today and got tired and overheated, but plugged on through it. 700 feet of vert in about 1:02.

Baer Canyon run, almost to the top and back. It's a rough, steep trail. Getting excited for the race on the 6th. 

Had an early morning run with Scott and Matt VH, got up at 3:30, and since I live only a couple of miles from the Wasatch100 start, we met up at my place. We decided we'd do the first 14 or so of the W100 course, but rather than go back the way we came, or continue on to Farmington Canyon (would add another 10+ miles, and found later that its closed anyway), we would make a near complete loop by dropping down Baer Canyon - a steep, quick way to get from the top of the mountain to the bottom. So we dropped a car at the canyon trailhead, and then drove the mile or two over to the East Wilderness Park, where the race starts.

 Scott and Matt headed towards Chinscraper

This is my 'home trail' so I led us off and played tour guide for the first 5 or 6 miles as we ran on the BoSho, then connecting up to the Great Western. I had never been more than 6 miles on this trail, so it was cool to go past that and start to see some new stuff. I was actually quite surprised at how scenic the trail was. The higher you went, the better it got! And, though it was fairly steep, the trial was much more mild than I had anticipated. There was a nice spring at about mile 8 as you came up on Chinscaper, and after a brief detour (glad we didn't keep following THAT trail!), we made our way up Chinscraper, where Scott promptly scraped his knee (I guess he didn't want to fully commit with a chin scrape). We spent 20 or so minutes watching Scott try and see how many band-aids he could stack on top of each other while still allowing the blood to flow, then finally decided we might as well just keep on moving (I did offer to call for a life-flight, but Scott turned it down).

Last little push up to Chinscraper...Scotts knee has no idea whats coming 

VH on top of Chinscraper 

Scott's patch job...yes, he's wiping blood off his leg with a rock 

From Chinscraper there was still some climbing to do, but there were also some longer stretches of overgrown, but mostly runnable trail, which was nice after all the climbing. We skirted the base of Thurston Peak (and only 500 or so feet from the top, was killing us not to summit, but time was getting long), climbed up over a couple hills, hit a very short snow patch that took WAY too long (but I'm glad I had my poles, my shoes were in no shape to be dealing with snow). We summited one more, unnamed peak (I think it might have been unnamed peak number 9491) which topped us out at our highest elevation of 9506 feet, then continued mostly downhill to our junction with the Baer Canyon trail at about mile 13.75.

Great views 

Trail? What Trail? Yes VH is actually running on the trail 

Still a bit 'o snow up there 

I had told these guys that it was a steep, gnarly, overgrown trail, but I don't know that they believed me until we actually got on it. The first half mile or so is literally straight down a run- off trail - the switchbacks that once cut across the face of the hill are clearly visible from afar, but mostly useless to follow once you're there. You cut back across the face and then descend a bare, rocky ridgeline before getting swallowed up by the foliage, where you will pretty much stay until you are spit out at the bottom. We all stayed fairly close at the start, I stopped at a few critical spots to make sure that they made the turn, and then I just kind of took off. I was glad to see that the trail had actually be cleared a little of some of the overhanging trees, and the logs that blocked the trail further down in anticipation of the Bairgutsman coming up next weekend. I was also in a bit of a hurry because I had a conference call I needed to attend, and the cell service in the canyon is spotty. At some of the easy to miss turns, I stopped to put rocks to block the wrong way, and put arrows with twigs - don't know if they actually saw them, but its the thought that counts, right? As I got further down I was starting to get really hot and tired, we had been going for quite a while now, and the sun was in full force. I dipped my hat at the stream crossings, which helped keep cool. Once I got through the last stream crossing and pulled up away from the stream, I dialed into my call and just walked the last half mile or so to the end while I was on the phone (I had to talk every now and then so I didn't want to be running!)  Found a nice place to sit in the shade at the finish and waited for them to come in, about 10 minutes later.  

This was a fantastic, tough run that provided some calf crushing uphills, quad busting downhills, mingled with some fantastic views and a drop or two of blood. :) I'll try and post some pictures. 

 As a side note, VH had been telling me that Farmington Canyon was closed due to mudslides, which got me wondering what they were going to do for the Bairgutsman, since you run down part of it (and people have to come pick you up). So when I got home I looked it up, and sure enough they had to change the course for the race, which I'm kind of excited about. Now the race will go up to the top, run to Francis Peak, do a small loop and then head back down the trail! So, why am I excited? Well for one, the race will now finish where it started (a block from my house), so no one has to pick me up. But also, I'm guessing that a lot of the people that would normally be faster than me on a road probably don't do a lot of technical downhill running, so that could make it interesting! I just wish the Altra Lone Peaks were already out - my Instincts are starting to get a little slippery on the really steep stuff.    

This was a race that I wanted to do again this year for three reasons - 1- it was cheap, 2-I had run it last year and wanted to see if I could beat my time and 3-After the race last year I could barely walk, my knees hurt so bad (ITB). This race was kind of the turning point for me making changes to the way I run and I wanted to conquer the course and walk away pain free. 

The race is held at Soldier Hollow and is what I refer to as a roller coaster course - it starts out with a long climb the first mile and a half, followed by an overall decent down, but filled with tons of ups and downs along the way, some big, and lots of small. This year the race was run in conjunction with the first running of the Wasatch Back Marathon, a mostly trail marathon that looks very tempting.

The race started at 7:30am and as we began running, I pulled ahead with about a group of 10 speedies in front of me. It was a gradual climb at first, and then picked up slightly more as we went from pavement to the 'trail'. At first there were a few people just behind me, but as the hill continued, I noticed the breathing and voices began to become more faint. There was now one young guy hanging with me, and then a lady a little ways ahead. We caught up to the girl after a bit, then the three of us ran together for a short time, until about mile 2, where the young guy pushed on ahead, and I dropped the girl. We would stay in this order, though spread out a little, for the remainder of the race. Aside from that brief time at the beginning, I would spend the majority of the race alone, all the time trying to pull the kid back, and all the while being pushed by the girl behind me, who I could feel just wanted to catch me.

For some reason last year I had tried to hold myself back on the downhills, to 'pace' myself or something...while you certainly need to do that in a longer race - this was a 10K! This time I just tried to keep my feet turning over as I raced down the hills. One cool thing about the race is you spend a good amount of time on the face of the mountain above the start/finish area, so you can see down there and hear the music they're playing - though being able to see the finish does mess with your mind a little, as you wind back and forth along the hillside. There are sections where you pass within just a few feet of other runners, but are over a half mile ahead (or behind!) them.

I had run this in 59 minutes last year, so my first goal was to beat my time, but I also wanted to see if I could get close to 50 minutes - and deep down my real goal was to beat 50. As I was getting closer to the finish, I knew that 50 minutes was possible, but that I would have to push it. I put the hammer down on the last mile, coming quite close to the kid in front of me, as he passed a guy he had been chasing. As I hit the pavement and made the last little turn toward the stretch home, I could now see the clock, and it read 49...as I got closer I could see 49:34 and counting. I knew I could make it if I sprinted, so I pushed it hard, getting into the mid 4's and crossed the line just before the 50 minute mark. They had to scan my bib as I came in, so I really wasn't sure if my time would end up officially beating it or not. This was a runnercard race, which was nice because you just wait for a minute or two (and notice that you forgot to stop your own watch) and they give you a card that has your time and ranking on it. I was happy to see 49:50, with an age placement of 3rd - the same I had gotten last year.

I was very happy with how the race went, and the best part was, I felt great and could have gone for another round! Far different than last year! Just goes to show what changing your form and technique can do for you! Don't know if I'll do this one again though, its a bit of a drive for a 10K (worth it if you're in the area though).