I Like People Who Run Like A Turtle

I am pleasantly surprised with how quickly my legs recovered from the Almost-50-Miler last week. The day after the race, my legs felt like I jumped off a nine story building, poured gasoline on them, and then lit them on fire. But a few days later I was feeling fine. I've still been conservative for the week just to make sure those chicken legs of mine have all the time they need to recover.

Monday, September 17th 2012: Nothing.

Tuesday, September 18th 2012: I did my part to keep the running gods happy and volunteered to help with a trail maintenance project in Confluence Park.

Wednesday, September 19th 2012: Ran for one hour. I dropped my girls off at gymnastics Wednesday night and realized that I had an hour free before I needed to pick them up. The Hurricane Rim Trail was a few minutes away so I decided to take advantage of that free hour.

It was a 100% spontaneous run. Luckily I was already wearing some trail shoes because I was wearing a new pair around the house to break them in. (Montrail Bajada shoes. I'll give you a review after I put some more miles on them.)

I had to give myself a little bit of therapy to work through some Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because the last time I was on this trail was around mile 90 of the Zion 100. My recent visit was much, MUCH more enjoyable.

Thursday, September 20th 2012: Nothing.

Friday, September 21st 2012: I got three runs in for the day. First was 5 miles @ 10:00 minutes per mile before work. In the last mile I crossed a guy who was at least 65 years old, had an enormous smile on his face, and was running slow as a turtle. That sight made me so, so happy. I love to see people who obviously really love running. It's not a chore. They don't care about pace at all. They just love the fact that they are running. I have a special kinship with my turtle brothers and sisters.

Later in the day I went to the elementary school to have lunch with my daughter Kylee. Once a month the kids have a reward program if they run a mile during their lunch break. This day happened to be the mile challenge so I got to join Kylee and her friends for my favorite mile of the week.

That night my wife traded me a night on the trails in exchange for a girl's night the next night. I decided to go to Leeds, Utah around 20 minutes away to run through the Dixie National Forrest for the first time. There was lots of steep climbing but mostly on non-technical dirt roads:

Even though it was getting late in the evening, it was still 91 degrees. It felt much better once the sun started to go down. I apologize that my hydration pack makes it look like I'm wearing a saggy bra.

Thankfully as soon as the sun went down the temperature cooled off a lot.

I ended up running 10 miles @ 11:56 minutes per mile and was treated to a great sunset as I finished the run.

Saturday, September 22nd 2012: 30 minutes on the exercise bike. Bleh. The fun part of the day was that our family got to staff an aid station for a local 5k. This is the awesome sunrise that runners got to see. Wowzers.

One older lady got to the aid station toward the back of the pack and was happy as a clam. She said the race was her way to celebrate a knee replacement three months ago. Incredible! It was cool to see my kids so enthusiastic to help the racers.

Would you like to know what else is great? Alf is on Netflix and my kids are hooked. We've been having lots of Alf nights at our house lately. And that is awesome. (Are you an Alf lover or hater?)