Like the canyon

Caught a nasty cold Tuesday of last week, put me down hard for a couple of days.  No activity really last week, just try to work a few hours, then try to rest to get over the deep, dark, nastyness that was this cold.  Gald to finally be feeling better so I dont have to here "see, you over did it in that big race and got sick",  really tired of that one.  Feel mostly recoverd, in fact felt great last week other than sicker than I have ever been in my life. 

Easy 4 miles tonight, just to kill off the last of the bug.  Back at it slow and easy the rest of the week.  

Longest 3 miles my life.  First foray onto the dreadmill for the fall/winter season.  My hell it felt like 30 miles. Proabably didn't help that I was ruinning at  6.2 miles an hour. Gotta remeber it take time to get used to the monotony.  Legs need a little ART for full recovery. 

Finally! A run that felt completely normal.  No residual cold fatigue, no Bear100 fatigue to be felt, no aches no pains. 5 miles cruise'en on the bench, kept the pace easy.

Another cruiser 4 miles on the trails.  Cold gett'en a little revenge tonight, not as past it as I thought.

Finally got out for a a solid run.  Not blazing fast, but the distance and vert was good. Took off with the mentality that I would head up Indian Trail, if I felt o.k. I would do the a full out to the canyon trail head and back.  Felt great through the first bit, legs got heavy at the top of the first climb, but felt alright. So I went all the way through the out and back.  I felt better climbing back out of the canyon, proabaly finally warmed up after a very laid back two weeks.  Still some tweaky spots in my legs and left hip.  ART tomorrow should help mellow those out.  Agravated the chest cold a bit, arrrrhhh! Go away already!

10.5 miles 2850 vert, 1:52.00   

3.5 miles on the trails.  Kept the pace sub 6:00 for the first half mile and everything felt great.  Hit the hills and slowed down a bit but kept it sub 8:00. Turned it up a little for the last bit and clocked a 5:42 mile . . . . . .alright, most of it was slightly downhill and smooth, but a fast mile for me none the less. Last couple of tenths to cool down and made it home five minutes early. 

3.5 miles, 434 vert.  Legs feeling great, most the tweaky spots gone after the ART yesterday. Still hacking after the run though, gotta kill this bug!    

Quick trip to Moab.  Really cool exploring in the Firey Furnace.  Cool rap off Abby Arch and a quick bit of other hiking, inclding timing a trip out to Delicate Arch right at sunset with all the Euro tourists.  8 miles or so, mostly walking some power hiking.

6.4 on the bench right before dark. Easy pace, took me 5 miles to feel like I was warmed up.  8:40 pace, 960 vert.

AM: Great morning run with the whole fmaily.  My wife registered all of us for the Run From the Sun 5k/10k.  The race was a benifit run for a friend of hers from college who has cancer.  They had a great turn out and it was a great course and well organized event, especially for their first race. 

She was running the 10k pushing our 2 year old in the jogger, while our 10 year old and I would run together in the 5K.  It was his first 5k, and the first time he had run 3 miles in a row ever.  He did great and really sucked it up and kept going when he really wanted to stop and walk.  We had a blast cruising along together and me trying to keep him running along at a sustainable pace.  He had a pretty good kick in the last 1/4 mile or so, passing about 6 people and leaving me in far behind.  Finished mid-pack in just over 26 minutes, not too bad for his first 3 mile run.  He was stoked and is ready to make it regualr thing.  My wife managed a solid run despite our 2 year old throwing her Ipod in the bushes, demanding a snack mid run and demanding a drink of water every five minutes.  (sounds like me on most runs, hmmm?)

PM: Very unremarkable run to Lewis Peak. Felt sluggish on the way out, but manged to keep a run going (slow) all the way to the peak.  Coming back was a differnet thing all together.  Short hills felt like 2000 ft climbs and going downhill fel like mile 45 of a 50 miler. Really  been in a funk on any run over about an hour. I'm sure its recovery related, though I think alot of it is cold recovery, which is not going well.  Just can't seem to shake the last bit of chest congestion and cough.  I'm going to keep it all easy runs and shorter distance next week and see if will come around a bit. Grand Canyon is unlikely, but I'll see how the next week or so goes.

14.5 miles   2850 vert

Very easy paced 6 on the bench.  Sluggish funk is still in full swing.  Blahh, feels like my lung capacity is 60%.  Super congested = low energy.  Wierd because I want to run, its not like my body and mind are saying take a complete break, every day I'm excited to get home and go for a run (jog lately). Problem is when I get out there's no pep in the step and I'm hacking like a two pack a day smoker.  It'll pass, just have to accept that 60% is what I got for now, but those stronger days are going to feel great when they come around.   

6 miles, SLOW

Whole lot of nothing today.  My 2 year old got in some miles though, check out the form, nice!

Finally! Felt a little better today, and I have been looking up at Malan's Peak with a good degree of longing for a week or so, figured I'd have a go at it, even if it invloved alot of slow hiking. I hesitated even taking a watch as I didn't want to get caught up in how slow my splits would be.  I finally put on my old Ironman, promising myself that I wouldn't even look at it unitl the top of the climb, and I'd be happy with what ever it said, though I hoped the time would start with a 3 not a 4.  This year a sub 40 minute time has been a pretty easy benchmark, but the way I have felt, wasn't sure it was possible. 

I hit start and took off with the goal to keep the pace no more and no less than moderate. As I climbed along, if my effort started to approach work, I would back off a little.  My legs felt strong and finally felt like I finally could turn them over smooth and fast-ish.  Going past my split markers it was hard not to look at my watch, I felt good and like I was making good time, but if my time was slow, I'd be down myself the rest of the run, and if it was fast I'd be tempted to push too hard.  

All felt great, no more than moderate effort, breath was always easy and in control, and kept a good solid run all the way up. Cruised over the top, hit stop my time was 35:05.  That's only a minute and a few seconds off PR time and it felt totally easy! nice! finally! I hung out for a bit on the peak and watched the 3/4 moon come up over Mt. Ogden, and the sunset go dark West of the lake.  Felt great on the downhill too.  Quick turnover, form felt better, legs felt solid, fast pace until it got too dark to run hard. Totally pysched, that's the feeling I've been missing for the past few weeks! 

4.9 miles 2250 vert.

Easy cruiser 6 miles on the BST pretty much in the dark.  Knee a little tweaky which is the usual result for a couple days after running hard down Malan's. Continued improvement on the health front.  Lots of lights out boucing around just after dark, I guess there are others in addition to myself having a hard time adjusting to the shorter days.

13.5 miles, 3500 vert, in the rain, kept it pretty mellow. Legs feel great, lungs....still a little...ehhh.    

Left the house intending a slow run, got the the trailhead, hit start on the watch and play on the Ipod,  1st song up was Rage, Know Your Enemy, rock'en! Add a mountain bike and another runner ahead on the trail and well....so much for easy.  I "eased" into the faster pace and it felt good so I kept it up.  Got the runner right away and the mtn bike before the end of the first climb, but I had to pull over and let him by at the top as it was flat to downhill and I didn't have a chance, of course.  Kept a good solid pace for the rest of the run. 5.45 miles 7:38 pace, 705 ft climb. Moderate to hard effort. (27th to BST at Taylor, south via the high trail, dropped down to the gate, back to Waterfall,  low trail to 29th, up to BST at Taylor and back around to 27th)

This chest gunk, cold thing has been fleeting so we'll see what tomorrow brings, hopefully feeling strong again.

8 dreadmill miles. First 6.2 at 6:53 with last 1/4 of each mile at 6:30. Last 1/4 mile was 6:00.  Guess that makes a 42 ish 10k didn't look at the exact time as it went by? Pace would have felt much harder last year, which was the last time I ran like that on the treadmill, tonight I'll call it tempo, to just a little harder on the pick ups.  Pretty much trotted along for the last couple miles until I hit the hour mark. That time of year again.

Easy 4 or so on the bench.  Always amazes me that as much as I run up there, I can still put together a unique route on the spaghetti bowl of trails.

Took the camera for an easy cuise up Malan's tonight.   Figured I'd try to entice Scott W to get up here and run this thing with some sweet pics of what he's missing. :) Sorry no summit pics, had to turn around at the 3/4 mark to get to the Pack Meeting (Arrow of Light for the little dude). 

View looking up Taylor Canyon from the trail head at 27th Street. 

Took the pics from the top down, so Malan's in reverse.  Sweet top section through the pines. 

View from the "overlook" at about half way up, this is a major split marker for the faster runs. Trail head is marked with a red dot.

Looking North from the same spot.

One of the steep sections before the overlook on the way up.  The trails gains almost 1200 ft in a mile through here. Yep, steep.

Knee tweak section #1 in Taylor Canyon. Most of the trail through the canyon bottom looks like this, guess that's why I regularly tweak my knee running through here.

Knee tweak section #2. Good tecnical fun, both up and down.

Nice easy run tonight.  Body feeling good running almost everyday.  Mind really craving running again. Gunk 90% gone. Call it just under four miles and 1750 vert (in 1.9 miles) tonight.

Very enjoyable 4 on the trails at sunset.

4 miles, easy

I had no intention of running this on Saturday morning.  After C's 8:00 AM soccer game, I got home, new I needed to run and remebered this race started at 10:00.  It was 9:30, I threw on my gear, grabbed the headphones, drove to the start, put $25.00 in my pocket, jogged to the start line and we were off. 

I ran this last year and remebered the first 2 miles being tough, climbing about 1500 ft on gravel road and some nice single track toward the top.  Chili isn't my best pre-race dinner and my legs felt heavy from the 3 Malan's runs and 2 harder efforts through the previous week, but it was good to be pushing a bit and trying to keep up with some of the local fast guys. 

I hung on up the climb, but didn't have the downhill legs this morning and a few guys pulled away.  I held my place to the finish, gave Oreo, who was volunteering, some love, handed HD the $25.00 in my pocket and aplogized for not registering.  Overall, a pretty hard effort on tired legs.  Good to hang out a bit at the finish, talk with some old friends, and watch people finish, Gdoc came in  looking strong!

Corey and I ran back over to the start, mostly goofed off, foraged for food and swept the course for Clay and HD.  Corey ended up runnig the last 3 miles with a 5 gallon bucket full of grub, and I had 3 orange road cones, some mileage signs, and a pocket full of flags by the time we hit the start area.  Good times.

11 miles total, 3200 vert or so.

Race: 5.6 miles 48:00 minutes (and change??) 1700 vert, 8:30 pace.

Week: 38 miles, 5000 vert or so, 3 hardish runs.  Monday, teusday, saturday.