Running on Twinkies

6 mile recovery run on the treadmill. Everything feels okay. I don't think I have any long term injuries from the 50 miler.

It snowed here the last two days. This morning I grabbed my snowshoes and headed up to Mueller Park. The snow on the trail was nice and soft. I was only able to get in three miles this morning. running in snowshoes is a killer workout.

I ran to the top of Mt wire this morning with Scot and his friend Matt. Scott and I ran together up to the ridgeline, then he faded back. There was a fair amount of snow the whole way up. In some spots I was sinking to my knees. The wind was blowing hard towards the top and it was very cold. I was the first one to the top. I made it up in 53 minutes. It was so cold that I decided not to wait for the others to come up. I had to keep moving. I headed down the North side and down the gully between Red Butte and Wire. There was a lot of snow in the gully. It was about a foot deep for the first half. When I got back to the vehicles I saw a runner run down the road with a race number on, and then a second runner with a number just behind him. I realized that it was the final stretch of the Salt Lake 10 miler and they were finishing at This is the Place Park.

My son joined the blog last night, but his blog isn't up just yet. Watch for Twinkie the Kid. Have a great Easter Everyone.  

I set the treadmill to 7 mph and ran for an hour.

Hill workout today. I ran up and down several hills on the roads in North Salt Lake. Then I got on the Wild Rose Trail and ran up it. The trail had some snow, but it wasn't to bad.

Today I attempted to run to the top of Bountiful Peak. I was originally planning on running the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Marathon today, but because of some other commitments later in the day I wasn't able to. At 5 a.m. I got out of my car in the parking area near the Bountiful 'B'. I was doing some stretching when I noticed something reflect off of my headlamp. I looked over and saw a pair of eyes starring at me. It was dark and all I could see were the eyes. I had a sudden moment of panic, but then the eyes moved and I realized that it was just a deer. 

I headed up Skyline Drive. The first three miles were hard packed dirt. The next fives miles were packed snow that had been traveled by snowmobiles and 4 wheel drive vehicles. All of these miles were gradual uphill. At 8 miles the snowmobile tracks turned off of the road that I was heading on. There had been no track on that section of road since the last storm. I trudged through the snow for about another mile. I was getting short on time and the snow was making things difficult, so I turned around early. I think it was another 2.5 miles to the peak.

The downhill took me a few miles to get into a good groove. Towards the end I was doing a good pace. I will have to attempt Bountiful Peak again in a month or so when there isn't as much snow. 

I am in North Carolina for work this week. But that didn't stop me from finding a trail to run on. I found a nature trail that was a loop through a forest. It was a wide dirt trail with two bridges, but it was only .62 miles long. I ran the loop ten times. I went easy for the first mile, then I picked up the pace and ran between 7 and 8 minute miles for the rest. 

Today I found a park that had several paved trails in and around the park. I was just going to run easy but there were other people running on the trails and make competitive nature came out. At one point my gps said I was doing a 6:20 pace.

I came back home today. Around 6 p.m. I headed out to the Mueller Park Trail. The trail was muddy, snowy, slushy and icy. The terrain was constantly changing. After 2 miles there wasn't any more dirt, just snow. The snow was very soft and I was sinking in two knees at times. At 2.4 miles I sunk in passed my knees and decided to turn around. When I got back to the trail head, I hadn't gotten in as many miles as I was hoping too, so I ran the switchbacks a second time.

I ran on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail this morning up to the radio towers. There wasn't any snow on this trail. It was great. I was wearing the race shirt from the 2006 Ogden marathon and passed a guy going the other direction who was wearing the same shirt. The were lots of people out running a biking this morning. Now that the snow is melting everyone wants to get in shape. But those who trained hard through the winter are the ones that will turn heads at the Summer races.

Eight miles on a Monday morning. I started a new challenge this week. Stay tuned to the next blog or two for the details.

I mentioned yesterday that I started a new challenge. Here is what it is. Each year the descendants of my Grandparents get together for a family reunion. This year they are doing a healthy challenge that starts now and ends at the family reunion in July. Everybody that wants to do it puts in $20 and the person with the most points at the end wins. Here is how the points work. There is a maximum of four points per day. One point for drinking 8 glasses of water. One point for exercising for 30 minutes. One point for getting 6 hours of sleep. One point for not eating any junk food. The exercise is not required on Sunday, so there is one other point for the week if a personal goal is met. The personal goal does not half to be health related. The earning of points is done on the honor system, and each person can decide what they consider junk food. The junk food will be the most difficult one for me. I am used to eating whatever I want and not worrying about what is inside of it. The worst part is that I have not found a way to justify twinkies as being healthy. So far I have the full points possible, but it is only the second day.

For todays run I did a large hill workout. I ran up the Sessions Mountain Trail. I only went up 1.5 miles, but gained an elevation of 1600 ft.  If you're doing the math, that's a 20% grade. I came back down the way I went up, which was a steep downhill. When I got off of the trail, I did a 1.5 mile cooldown.

Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

I wasn't able to get a run in earlier today. So I cranked out five miles on the treadmill just before bed.

Another five on the treadmill. While running I was watching the news and saw an amazing clip from a baseball game. The player was running from third base to home and leaped over the catcher doing a hand spring of of home plate.

I met Scott at the Centerville Peak trail head at 6 a.m. this morning. Neither of us had been up that trail before and we weren't sure were the peak was. We started up the trail and there were lots of switchbacks. The trail was very runnable and just kept going back and forth across the hillside. When had gone about three miles when we hit snow. The snow had a hard pack on the top and we were able to stay on top of it. After 4 miles we really couldn't see the trail anymore and just headed up the face of the mountain.  The peak was right at five miles. It was beautiful up there this morning, but a bit windy on the peak. We had climbed about 4000 ft. We took a few pictures on top. I accidentally dropped Scott's camera while he was showing me how to use it. It seemed to be okay. Let me know if anything is broke on it Scott, and I will replace it. See Scott's blog for the pictures. 

The down hill was a blast. I ran down the snow conservatively, but when I hit the dirt I opened things up. Everything was going great until the last quarter mile. I caught my foot on a rock and went down on me hands and knees. I was moving fast and made skid marks about 5 feet long on the trail. It tore some skin off in the center of my right hand about the size of a dime. My right knee also got a bit bloody. I was wearing wind breaker pants so that protected my knees a little. I had gloves with me but had taken the off a few miles back. I guess I was getting to cocky about my down hill running ability.When I got back to the car I rinsed the dirt off my hands with my water bottle. That was painful. I walk back up the trail to meet Scott. I met him about a half mile up and ran the last little bit with him. It took me 1:45 to reach the top and only 45 minutes to come down. I definitely want to do this trail again after the snow melts a bit more. Thanks for joining me on my adventure Scott. 

Bonneville Shoreline Trail. My quads are still a bit tight from Saturday's run, but not too bad. I was expecting my knees to give my trouble today from the fall I took on Saturday, But they felt fine. It was a good run today.

It was awful windy outside tonight. So I chose to run indoors instead.

4.5 miles on the treadmill. Tomorrow I am going to get outside.