Maybe I'll Blog, Maybe I Won't

Race report is HERE.  Also, I have finished and posted my race report for Sand Hollow HERE.

Ran in Hurricane from my parents' house to the Canal Trail then crossed State Street and connected over to the Red Cliffs Preserve and ran around the cinder knolls on the trail and back to my house.  Felt really good, although I did go slow because my calves were a tad tight after Saturday's race.  Good run.

1:18:10 (7:18/mi.)

Bench Lake/SHM course loop.  Nothing special.  No watch

Tested out the new Launch today.  They feel great!  Thanks to SGRC.  Now I just need to take the Lone Peaks out for a spin.  Almost didn't run today, because of traveling/unpacking my life, but I had to test the new kicks.  No watch because apparently when you leave a Garmin on for 2 days the battery dies.

The usual with Cody.  Felt pretty decent all told.

1:19:05 (7:55/mi.)

Easy 7 around town.  Passed some high schoolers (I think) on the way.  No shirt.  Felt good.  No watch.

Yes!  I get to post about our epic run before Cody!  Neener neener!  

 So, we have been planning this run for a long time, wanting to scout out the Pocatello 50 course, and we got our money's worth on this run. Joint RD Luke Nelson was gracious enough to join up and act as our tour guide.  We met him at about 7 AM after a brief period of being slightly lost because Cody had to pee so bad he couldn't think straight.  I guess we'll give him a pass.  We dropped Cody's car off at City Creek Trailhead (50k start) to act as an aid station at the halfway point, and Luke drove us to the 50M start at Mink Creek.  We started running around 7:30 AM.  Temperatures were a tad chilly but we warmed up quickly.  The weather was totally perfect for a run like this.  It would get warm later in the day, but not debilitatingly hot, at least for me.  We swapped stories of moose encounters with Luke and enjoyed ourselves.  Cody was enjoying having someone on the run who is more talkative than I am.  The run had a little of everything from perfect, buffed out single track, to bushwhacking climbs up the side of mountains, to rocky, rough, and crazy fast descents, to brutal climbs back up the mountain...it had it all.  I thoroughly enjoyed this run.  Cody spent most of the time trying to convince me in every way possible to switch from the 50k to the 50 miler, but we will see.  I will withhold judgement until after I don't feel like I got hit by a bus.  Actually, most of the run felt great.  The last 4 miles or so were pretty much a suffer-fest though.  I was definitely beginning to break down.  But the last couple of miles I decided that it wasn't going to hurt any more no matter how fast I ran, and if I ran faster it wouldn't last as long, so I bombed down the trail as fast as I could go.  Which probably wasn't all that fast, but I actually did start to feel better.  My fueling and hydration definitely need improvement, but in my defense I won't be rationing water on race day because there will be aid stations.  I was pretty toasted, but a nice soak in what I assume to be Mink Creek (dirty, has weird bugs) was awesome.  Luke drove us back to Cody's car (the aid station idea was really really good and totally worth the 3 extra miles) and gave us directions to a local Mexican eatery.  I was pretty deep in the post-run pain cave, and wasn't sure if I would be able to keep anything down, but a couple of tall glasses of Coke revived me to a large degree, and I was able to eat a couple of really good tacos and some beans and rice and tortilla chips.  So good.  I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but it was really good and cheap too!  Can't beat that.  The drive home was pretty comfortable and I found when I got home that I had my walking legs back.  Now to see how long it takes to recover.  A great run though.  Probably one of the most epic I have ever done, races included.  A big thanks to Luke for joining us and thanks to Cody for arranging everything and driving us out there.  Race day it will be my turn.

This was a really big week for me, but so far I feel pretty good!

5:30:00ish (~9:55/mi.)

Took the Altras out for a test spin on the Logan River Trail.  Loved them.  Incredibly comfortable, aggressive traction, surprisingly robust protection/cushioning, and they felt very light and fast.  They will take some getting used to, but I hope they last a long time.  The biggest thing I noticed right off was how quiet they are...even going downhill.  It felt like I was landing on feathers.   I did definitely notice the extra strain on my calves, especially considering that I'm still recuperating from Saturday's run, so I'll have to be careful to ease into them.  I also noticed a little tightness in the hips as well, but I'm guessing that has more to do with Saturday's run than anything.  I actually felt very good today, though.  Yesterday I was really sore, and this morning too, but the run felt surprisingly effortless this afternoon.  Just took it slow and easy.  I'm in no rush.

Easy run.  No watch.  Still tired, but felt good.

Slow slog on the roads.  Felt like poop.

Epic Trail Run #2.

Got up at the crack of 8:45 AM, and was sitting on the couch when Cody called me asking if we could move our run up 45 minutes, because he had gotten home early from Fathers and Sons camping.  Our original plan was to meet at 10:45, but I was ok with going when the weather was a little cooler, since our planned run was going to take a solid four hours.  We drove up to Third Dam and started on the Spring Hollow Trail, which is a pretty steep and gnarly-yet-runnable, straight-up-the-mountain kind of trail.  Well, most of it.  This is fast becoming one of my favorite trails.  The views are awesome, it's a challenging run, and you can get all kinds of cool places from it.  I'd never been beyond the aspen grove just above the rock slides, but today we'd be running the whole thing to connect on to North Syncline.  Once we got to the aspen grove, the trail smoothed out and was perfect.  Not too steep, buffed out, and shady with incredible views.  We continued climbing until we reached the Forest Service road (part of the Logan Peak course) just above the turnoff to North Syncline.  By this time we had already had a little bit of adventure.  We met a hiker on the switchbacks near the top who warned us that there was "lots of snow" and that he'd lost the trail and had to turn back.  It was obvious we knew where we were going more than he did, so naturally we decided that the best plan was to follow the tracks of the guy who said he lost the trail.  So, we lost the trail too and had to do a little hiking before we found the road.  We didn't get lost too badly though.  Well, by not badly I mean we eventually found the road and we were never really lost.  We knew where we were.  We just didn't know where the trail had gotten off to.  Silly trail.  There was quite a bit of snow, but not nearly enough to turn a couple of crazy mountain goats like myself and Cody back, so we kept on going and found that North Syncline was actually fairly runnable.  There were a few downed trees (one of which looked like it had exploded on impact) some big drifts, and a few spots where we would break through and sink to our knees, but overall it was surprisingly clear.  We took a few pictures for Bruce Copeland, the Logan Peak RD.  I had forgotten how awesome of a trail North Syncline is.  I'd only run it once before during Logan Peak 2010 (the 2011 shortened course did not include the best part of the race--bummer), and so I was really enjoying running it in non-race mode and taking in the scenery.  Rounding the bend to the top of Logan Dry we came across what looked to me like mountain lion tracks.  They were quite large, and looked too round to be a dog's tracks.  Super cool.  We didn't see the cat though, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing.  Although with two of us I don't think it would have been a problem.  We saw another hiker on the overlook and another runner shortly thereafter, but on the way back they had both mysteriously disappeared.  I'm saying the mountain lion ate them.  And I'm sticking to it.  We turned around after scouting out the top of Dry and the South Syncline from a distance.  At this point I should note that I made the discovery that Gatorade's version of Shot Bloks suck.  Be warned.  Terrible.  The road back was just as much fun for me as coming up.  Cody was tired, but I was feeling really good for some reason, so I just enjoyed the run.  When we got to the junction of the Forest Service road and Spring Hollow, we decided to see if we could find where the actual trail went.  We found it with no problem, but it was mostly buried in snow and so we couldn't really blame the hiker for missing it.  After all, we are expert trail runners with eyes trained to pick out the slightest hint of a trail, right?  Yeah, because a few minutes later we somehow missed what should have been an obvious turn and ended up bushwhacking for a couple of hundred yards down the mountain before the trail decided to get back in line with us.  We passed a couple of hikers halfway down the rock slide portion of Spring Hollow right as we were discussing how we hadn't seen anyone since the top (I'm telling you, that mountain lion must have been hungry!) and how only crazy people hike or run in the middle of the day.  The hikers were very confused I think.   We finally made it back to the car with just over four hours of total running time.  Probably 4.5 with all the dinking around we did, but as I told Cody, you're supposed to have fun and enjoy training runs, right?  Great run with some small adventures, beautiful weather and scenery.  Looking forward to running much of the same terrain at Logan Peak in 6 weeks--only there will be zero snow then.  Be homesick, Jon.

~4:10 (13:30/mi.) 5500' vert.

Moderate paced run, Providence-Macey's loop.

I was only going to do 12, but I was feeling good and decided to go further.  

1:40:58 (7:12/mi.)