Hit the Dusty Trail

Hill repeat day.  6 x .55.  Getting better at these, need to keep it up.

Started at 22nd street trailhead and went upTaylor Canyon to the top of Malan's peak, then part way into Malan's Basin.  2 miles at 1000'+ gain per mile.  53 minutes up, 40 minutes down.

Went for an easy trail run after work.  Nice and slow.  Legs are tired from the hill work this week.  More hills on Saturday as I'm going up to Windy Pass to work that aid station for Squaw Peak.  5 miles all uphill, with a full pack of supplies.  Good times.

Took yesterday off, had too many chores to do after work and no time during lunch.  Ran into work this morning.  Had to push so I didn't miss the train since I left the house a little late.  The day off must have helped, I felt pretty good running in.

The run home was fine, still felt pretty good.

My big chore today is to make about 10 dozen chocolate chip cookies to pack up to Windy Pass for the Squaw Peak 50 mile tomorrow.  I've been working that aid station for the last 4 years and I take cookies up every year.  The hike up is always an adventure and getting the chance to spend the day in some beautiful remote backcountry is always a good thing.  Then there's the bonus of helping friends and other runners as they come thru this station at 40 miles.  About 230 runners will come thru tomorrow.  last year it snowed 4" as we hiked up.  I was soaking wet by the time I got to the pass, but the snow quit, the sun came out and that coupled with a nice fire and everyone dried out just fine.  Even with the snow and cold, the day was spectacular.  Tomorrow will be a great day. 

Did my usual first Saturday in June thing and hiked up to Windy Pass with a full pck of food.  then I got to spend the day helping runners finsh the Squaw Peak 50 mile.  Windy Pass is 40 miles in and the only way to get there is to pack in all of our supplies except for water, there's a spring up there.  the hike can be pretty strenuous, it's all uphill and the pass is at 9000'.  We only encountered about a 1/4 mile of snow on the trail and that was near the top.  The pass did live up to its name as it was pretty breezy and cool.  This is my 5th year going up there and i always have a good time.  I get to see lots of people I know and chat for a couple minutes with them and help them on their way.  I always have a good time and look forward to doing it again next year.

did an easy trail run after work.  I actually saw almost as many runners on the trail as mountain bikers.  Kind of unusual.

Did an easy run at lunch.  Had to make a trip to the store to get a birthday card for my lovely wife.

Hill repeat day.  3 x .55 before the rain started.  Got dumped on.

Didn't feel like running in the rain this afternoon so I hit the t-mill for an easy 6.

More hill repeats.  6 x .55.  Looking forward to a bunch of miles tomorrow.

Ok, here's how much of a weather weenie I am.  I was going to run two loops around Pineview Reservoir for a total of 30 miles.  It was raining and threatening to rain this morning.  I elected to do the miles on the t-mill at home.  That way I could watch tv, talk to my wife and son, listen to music and not have to drive 30 mintues to get to where I was going to run.  Instead I decided to try and better my 50k time.  My PR was 5:05 for a 50K.  Today I my actual running time was 4:48:49.  Couple that with two stops fo about a minute each and you under 5 hours.  Now if I could only do that during a race.  Felt pretty good the entire time and actually ran all of it,no walking.  The firs ten were at about a 9:30 pace, the next ten at about a 9:00 pace and the last 11 were at a 8:34 pace.  Not to bad.  Now I can walk 75' to the shower, and not have to drive home all sweaty and stinky.

Just did an easy trail run after work.  Enjoyed the day.

Well, I had high hopes of doing some hill repeats today.  Instead I tanked the run after 3 miles.  Just didn't have the ambition.  There's always tomorrow.

Just did a short little trail run after work.

Just did an easy run on the streets around the house.  Nice evening for it.

Ran to work this morning.  First time in a couple of weeks that I've been able to.

Meghan and I ran around Pineview reservoir then up Wheeler Canyon to Snowbasin.  We were going to go up Snowbasin and over the top and down Beus Canyon into South Ogden, but the weather prevented that.  Really stormy up on top.  Instead we went back down the Green Pond trail to Art Nord trailhead, then on back down Wheeler Canyon.  Total, 30+ miles, what we wanted to get in today.  Good time slopping thru the mud and rain.  See my blog at www.ultrajim.blogspot.com for a complete write up.

Ran into work this morning.  Felt really good in spite of a lack of sleep last night.

The run home wasn't too bad.  Certainly was a nice day, clear, warm, couldn't ask for metter.  Starting to get psych'd about running the Logan Peak race this Saturday.

Did a short little run at lunch.  Pushed a little, but basically took it easy.

Ran to work this morning.  Had a 7am m eeting so I had to get up at 4:15 to catch an earlier train.  I kinda wish the train ride was longer so I could sleep while I'm on it.  Can't get much sleeping done in 15 minutes.

Ahhh, what a nice warm afternoon for a run home.  85 degrees was perfect for me.  Love the heat, bring it on.

Ran at lunch.  Pushed the pace some.  Think I'll go do some hill repeats after work.

Just a short little trail run.  Looking forward to tomorrow's race.

Ran the Logan Peak Trail Run today.  My time was within one minute of last year's time.  The top five runners blew the course record out of the water by 30 minutes.  Jon repeated his win of last year.  Perfect weather, clear skies, gorgeous views, beautiful flowers, and lots of snow still up on Logan Peak.  I'll update this with a race report later.

Ok, so here's the race report.  I ran this race last year and had a great time.  The course is beautiful, the volunteers are great, plenty of aid.  Overall just a great low key race. 

My race went about as well as I expected.  I didn't do any taper as I'm training for the Tahoe Rim 100 in three weeks and wanted to maintain the weekly mileage, so I didn't expect my time to be really good.  I just wanted to finish, feel good, and enjoy the day.  I managed to do all three.

The race starts in a park right next o Logan Dry Canyon and we got the privilege of running up that in the first 4.6 miles.  Roughly 3000' of gain.  At that point we hit the first aid station.  These people had to pakc everything in, including water.  One of the runners has some pack mules and used them to bring everything up the day before.  Then we turned and headed out on the south syncline trail.  At this point the trail leveld out some and basically was rolling for the next 7 miles.  The trail turned into a jeep road that took us around the back side of Logan Peak.  Here we came on to the second aid station, then headed up the road to the top of Logan Peak.  This isn't a particularly difficult climb other than the elevation.  The aid station is at 8100', and we climb to 9750' in the next 2.5 miles.  There wasn't as much snow this year as there was last, but the last 1/2 mile was snow covered.  I spent a coule minutes at the top just taking in the view.  The air was crystal clear and visibility was probably 100 miles.  Fantastic!  Why run road races when races like this exist.

After a couple of minutes, I headed back down.  The hard part of the race was over.  The rest of the race was downhill, kind of.  After I got back down to the aid station, I headed north along the north syncline trail.  This trail/jeep road did climb back up to about 9100', but I don't remember that climb being as hard his year.  The jeep road meets up with the Dry Canyon trail after about 1-2 miles and this trail took us back to the top of Dry Canyon.  This section of trail overlooks Logan Canyon and I had to stop a couple of times to avoid tripping while looking at the views.  Once back at the aid station at the top of Dry CAnyon, it's a 4.5 mile downhill run to the finish.  It's fun to just go bombing down this trail taking half the time to go down that it took going up.  I wasn't anywhere near doing the 5:30 pace that Jon was, but I did manage a sub 8:00 minute pace for most of it. 

I managed to cros the finish line within one minute of my time last year, 6:13 this year vs. 6:12 last year.  Last year I came in 14th place.  This year the competition was much stiffer and I only managed 39th place.  But you know, races like this are why I do ultras and trail races.  The venue, the volunteers, the low key of the race.  Not to mention that I got to hang out with a bunch of fellow ultrarunners that I know.  I figured that out of the 80 runners, I probably knew over half of them.  How cool is it that you can run a race with a bunch of people you know.

Anyway, a good time was had by all.  I definitely will be doing the race again next year, and if you're looking for a good first ultra or trail race, this one is a good one.