Monday, January 28th 2013: 6 miles before work with Shane and Karrie. My body was still in bed.
Tuesday, January 29th 2013: Off
Wednesday, January 30th 2013: 20 miles around Smith Mesa
Thursday, January 31st 2013: 4 mile tempo run (Note: My "tempo" pace would make fast runners scoff.)
Friday, February 1st 2013: 4 miles speed work. At a track! Don't remember the last time I did that. Late that night I ran 7 miles around the LaVerkin Outlook.
Saturday, February 2nd 2013: Tons of yard work. I told my wife at the end of the day that I wanted a Do Over. That day was no fun at all.
So for Wednesday's 20 miler I started by running to the top of Smith Mesa. That road is more than a little bit of a grunt to get to the top. Within the first mile you've already climbed 1,000+ feet.
Once you reach the top, the pavement turns to dirt. It was horribly, miserably muddy at the top. The miles I ran up there were nowhere near what you'd call running. They were a slow, trudging slog.
The dirt caked a few inches on the bottom of each shoe. I realized that planning to do 20 miles up there would take me around seven weeks. I spent about an hour in that nonsense before returning to drier ground.
I was thankful to start the descent and clean off the extra pounds that were added to my shoes.
I ran the rest of my miles on some faster trails down below. I was thankful that I wore my slightly girly tights because it was still chilly outside. The last ten miles were considerably faster and I was feeling good.
Friday night I drove to the LaVerkin Overlook dirt road. I need to get more experience running trails at night. I figured this would be a good spot to get that experience. It's got some decent little climbs, it's not very technical, and I was relatively sure a mountain lion wasn't deciding if I'd make a sufficient meal. Here is the view of Hurricane from the overlook:
In other more exciting news, I bumped up from the Antelope Island Buffalo Run 50 miler to the 100 miler coming up in less than seven weeks! I'm pretty excited about that one. It will be strange to run a 100 miler when it isn't 95 degrees outside. Bring On The Buffalo!
"Fear is a part of everything you do....You have to take great risks to get big rewards." ~ Greg Louganis
You eat 20 milers for lunch! Way to go, Cory! I think you're going to do really well and much better at the Antelope 100 simply because of the weather. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteAwesome training, well done! That dirt road looks really hard with all that mud. I need to work on my night running on the trails later this year as well. Yay for the 100 miler!
ReplyDeleteHoly cow! That dirt is clingier than my children when they're hungry (which is all the time).
ReplyDeleteGorgeous pictures, as usual. You live in such a beautiful place!
Oh man! Training at night? I just realized I may have to add that to my agenda :( How come I didn't think of that?? Thanks (or no thanks) for that information!
ReplyDeleteTrails definitely take on an added challenge at night. Not to mention that every single time I hear a sound in the dark I convince myself that I'm going to become dinner for a cougar.
DeleteI think the problem you have with speed is that it is so beautiful down there why would you want to run fast and miss it all!! Looking forward to seeing you at Antelope!!
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