Gaining more than you lose

Beautiful day for a quick 5 miles on the BST...although the trail really wasn't that nice, making for a not-so-quick run. Plus I couldn't find my sunglasses - bad day for that, as the sun and snow mix, while beautiful, left me half snow blind by the end of the run.

The snow on the trail was decently traveled, but was heavy and melting, so every step sunk you in a couple of inches, making it nearly impossible to gain any momentum to keep up a good pace. It was a very nice day though, so I just ignored the pace and enjoyed the scenery. 

Nice afternoon run with Jun on the Dimple Dell upper gully trail, with a little jaunt up the road to the Lower Bells trailhead. A bit gusty at times, but shorts and a long sleeve shirt were perfect. Negative splits the entire way. Felt really good just letting gravity pull me down the trail on the way back. Its nice running with Jun when he's already run 8 miles and a few thousand feet of vert today - makes it a little more even. :) 

7.27 - 1:00:05 - 8:16 average - 567 vert 

Well, I was planning on a lunchtime run with Jun, but apparently its difficult for him to pack a pair of shoes that actually match...in size. Yes he brought two different sizes of the same shoe. I suppose thats what happens when you have a kid that wears the same kind of shoe and are closER to the same size as you. I can't see myself having that problem for a few more years. 

I thought about just taking today off, but when I got home I decided I might as well go make a run of it. 5.5 around the neighborhood just skirting the mountainside. While I don't particularly care to run on roads, at least around here you can get an OK amount of vert in.

 5.5 miles  - 44:37 - 8:09 pace - 562 vert

Lunchtime run with Jun starting on the lower gully trail, crossing over 1300 E and heading up the upper gully trail as well. I only had some oatmeal earlier for breakfast this morning, and began feeling like I was running out of gas at about 4-5 miles in...Yeah, at least the last 5 were pretty much downhill. My legs actually felt good, no pain, soreness or even tightness, just no fuel in the tank to lift them up! I figure that its good to do that every now and then so you can deal with it when it happens in a race. :) Stopped by the Philidelphian and grabbed us some Philly cheesteaks to replenish the calories...So good. 

10.07 miles - 1:28:13 - 8:45 pace - 783 vert 

With the last three weeks including personal long distances for me, I decided that I'd take it a little easier with the weekend run (though my weekly mileage wasn't too far off last weeks).

I met up with my brother at Mueller Park in the morning and we hit the trail. For a little bit we were following one or two tracks, and then ended up breaking trail for the rest of the way. A little slow going, my brother hasn't a ton of vert, so we took it easy. Absolutely beautiful trail, with a light snow falling. I noticed that some branches seemed especially low on the trail, and realized that the trail was just that high, even from the last time I ran it a few weeks ago. At least 3 or 4 feet deep, which makes it really interesting if you venture off trail just a foot (I got hip deep in snow trying to catch a picture of my bro, ha - good thing he was there to help me out). It was really fun to feel the powder hit your legs as you plow along, especially on the way down. Saw a few more people near the bottom as I came down, a lot of people hit that trail, but many don't go very far up. When I got to the bottom I dropped my bottle and ran a quarter mile or so back up to catch up with my brother and then finished the run together. I had planned on running it twice today, but with the conditions and time it took, I was satisfied with the outing and the company. 

7.07 miles - Long time - Yeah that was slow too - 1700 ft vert