Week of 7-18-2011

Monday: 6 miles, easy, with Holly, actually on the roads, gain negligible.

Tuesday: Body still a little irritated from Sunday's long run, off.

Wednesday: 14 miles, shoreline trail from red butte, took a bit of a break to let Mark (who I was running with) do an extra 2 miles so I could tempo really hard on the last 6 miles or so, worked reallllllly hard in the 2nd half, 2000' gain.

Thursday: 5 miles, rattlesnake plus Pipeline with Holly, 1000' gain.

Friday: off.

Saturday: 10 miles, Alta. Lower Albion Basin to Germania Pass (1900' pure climb from 8500' to 10400'), down to Cecret Lake, over and up to Catherine's Pass (10300'! highest elevation I've achieved so far this year), then back down. 1/2 mile from the end, while running down the dirt access road, I came across a family of moose (father, mother, child) and the father was pretty aggressive towards me, so I had to go way out of my way and tack on an extra mile of running through a meadow with no trail to avoid getting close to them. Ran this whole thing pretty hard, only walked in the more trecherous snow-covered sections to prevent myself from falling off a mountain, despite 3500' total gain.

3 of these giant aggressive beasts can be scary, even (or especially) if one is a child:



Sunday: 22 miles, 4 hr 45 minutes, 7000' gain. Very very tough run on mostly usper technical trails with quite a few snow chute crossing (scary!) starting from the Desolation Trailhead and going through tons of gorgeous high country (lots of running between 9000' and 10000'). Came down through Mill A by Mount Raimond and Gobbler's Knob, got very very lost in Bowman Fork somehow, added on a couple miles of bushwhacking and roughly an hour of time. Did this whole thing with a little under 40 oz of water, a 90 calorie Gu, and about 200 calories of skittles, nothing else, so I was glad to see my metabolism coming back even more. I was pretty drained at the end, but a liter of chocolate milk cleared things up nicely. Great run to help make sure my legs are under me before I run the rather difficult Speedgoat 50K on Saturday.

There are a lot of pretty technical sections on the trail that are difficult going both up and down:


The huge basin behind Mill A that I ran through before crossing the saddle on the right beginning a long descent of quite a few thousand feet (Mount Raimond, 10241', and about 5/6 of a mile above my starting point, pictured on the left, Gobbler's Knob just off the right):


Total: 57 miles, 13500' gain. Mileage is a bit deceivingly low for the work I did this week. If I spent the same amount of time at the same effort on roads, this would've been roughly a 75-80 mile week, so I'm happy with it.

Week of 7-11-11

7-11: 34 miles of pacing at badwater, most of it was stovepipe wells to panamint springs, 5000' gain

7-12: 18 miles of pacing at badwater, mostly a good chunk starting around mile 100, ben finished in 41:14, no significant gain

7-13: off, after race

7-14: 5 miles, rattlesnake plus pipeline with holly, 1000' gain

7-15: 4 miles, very difficult climb most of the way up gobbler's knob from alexander basin with holly, stopped when we hit snow, which she's not good in. Hahaha... 2000' gain

7-16: off, saving for Sunday :)

7-17: 19 miles with mark, very hot and arduous run, big water to dog lake, almost down to big cottonwood fork on butler fork, up mill a fork (this climb suuuuucked, though we ran into some other dudes training for speedgoat 50k and ran it with them), west on desolation trail up to raimond/gobbler's knob saddle, back on deso trail to dog lake, back to big water, parked a half mile out from trail due to crowding, so first and last half mile was road. 6000' gain. 3:45 of a bit of easy trails and a ton of technical trail, was hot but I survived on 20 oz water and 380 calories.

Total: 80 miles and 14000' gain. Now that's what I'm talking about. :)

Week of 7-4-11

7-4-11: Skiing at Snowbird for the 4th of July, no running. :)

7-5-11: 11 miles, Pipeline with Mark, 1000' gain

7-6-11: 5 miles, Upper Big Water with Jess and Holly, did an extra mile by myself at the end while Jess and Holly waited for Jess's parents to get back from their hike (happened to see their car at the top), 1000' gain

7-7-11: 12 miles with Mark, Upper Big Water to Desolation Lake and back, really good run, 1:56 for a quite difficult, technical and mountainous run, ran quite hard and didn't walk a single step, despite really wanting to (especially coming back up Mill D to Dog Lake on the way back), 4000' gain

7-8-11: 7 miles, St George with Matt Taylor, 1000' gain

7-9-11: Off, helping Ben prep for Badwater

7-10-11: Off, helping Ben prep for Badwater


Total: 35, 7000' gain, easy week. haha...

Week of 6-27-11

Monday: Quick 5 miles on Rattlesnake Gulch and Pipeline Trail with Holly. It was 88 degrees when we were running and she really isn't such a fan of the heat, even with her own full puppy water bottle, so we kept it short, 1000' climb.

Tuesday: 7 miles, upper Pipeline out and back, 1500' climb.

Wednesday: 10 miles with Mark, upper pipeline out and back plus a bit more the other way out and back. Lost my key in the last couple miles, took 45 minutes to find on the trail, Mark's 1984 Toyota Pickup started spewing radiator fluid right before the run, so I had to take him to Auto Zone for a new radiator hose afterwards as soon as I found my keys, 1500' climb

Thursday: Off.

Friday: Opening day for upper Mill Creek, did an easy conversational 7 miles to Dog Lake and back with Mark, 1500' climb, low point of 7800', high point a little over 9000'.

Here's a couple nice shots of the trail I used (not my pictures):




Saturday: Long-ish 16 mile day in Upper Mill Creek, Upper Big Water to Dog Lake, down to Mill D trailhead in Big Cottonwood, back up the trail and up to Desolation Lake, along a rather snowy 9900' ridgeline, and back down the north side of the loop via the Great Western Trail down back to Upper Big Water, pretty quick for the distance right now, a bit over 2:40 despite a ton of snow on the north/east halves. 4000' gain, low point of 7300', high point of 9800'.

Desolation Lake, as seen from the ridgeline, near the top of the Canyons Ski Resort (not my photo):
I think it's pretty obvious why I'm so excited to run in the high country.


Sunday: Off

Weekly total: 45 miles, 9500' climb. Not a bad week, would've liked to have gotten one more run in there, but it's all good for now. This current week is bumped up a bit so far, though I imagine I'll only get 5 days of running in once again (skied on Monday, the 4th of July), and probably won't be able to run on Sunday as I'll be helping Ben Clark prepare for Badwater that day.

Oh, and just for kicks, here's a more accurate picture of how Desolation Lake looks right now wi:th a bit of snow left (not my picture, once again):