Lake Mountain has been one of my favorite training runs for a few years now. It is the long mountain on the west side of Utah Lake with the radio towers on top. I run to the summit via Israel Canyon and love the route because there is a really nice 4X4 road all the way to the summit and it gets tracked out in the winter by a snowcat in order to service the towers, so there is usually a nice packed trail all the way to the to. I love it because it is 2700 feet of vertical climbing and most of it is runnable and you get 8.4 miles round trip.
In the last week I have run to the summit twice, first with Craig Lloyd and then yesterday with Van Horn, Craig, Jared Kennard and Eric Jeppson. We had a blast both times just talking and enjoying incredible early morning sunrises over Utah valley. Craig and I both agreed that this has to be added to our weekly routine during the winter.
Here is a video that Craig put together and it has some of our run to Lake Mountain from last week. It also has some running from the BST above City Creek Canyon which is also one of our favorite places to run.
Random Nov running
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Grandeur Peak
A week ago I met Matt Williams and Matt Van Horn at the Grandeur Peak trailhead for an early morning climb to the summit of Grandeur Peak via the West Ridge. The plan was to complete the loop by going down into Church Fork, run the Pipeline and then back to the WR trailhead, which is one of my favorite training runs in the Wasatch. That was the plan until we encountered deep snow most of the way up which required us to break the trail on about 3/4 of the mountain with 2-3 feet of new snow. It was arduous at best and slowed us down a lot and we ended up taking a little over two hours to hit the summit, so the loop was out.
Even though we weren't able to do the whole loop we had a total blast and Van Horn shot a sweet video which I will post below. I haven't been wearing my gators since they were stolen out of my car at the Wire trailhead last year and in my morning fog while getting ready I put on short socks which ended up being a huge mistake. I had a lot of snow and ice buildup on my tights and some of the ice was rubbing on my ankles and heels and when I got back to the trailhead I saw blood on my socks. Are you frickin kidding me? So now I have these oozing sores on my heels and ankles and now a week later they aren't much better. There might be a silver lining in all of this because the wounds have forced me to wear a different shoe and the only shoes I have that don't rub on the sores are the Altra Lone Peaks. I wore the Lone Peaks on a trip up Lake Mountain and they were incredible! They are extremely comfy and have excellent traction as well. I think I will slowly start to mix them back into my shoe rotation.
Grandeur Peak video
Even though we weren't able to do the whole loop we had a total blast and Van Horn shot a sweet video which I will post below. I haven't been wearing my gators since they were stolen out of my car at the Wire trailhead last year and in my morning fog while getting ready I put on short socks which ended up being a huge mistake. I had a lot of snow and ice buildup on my tights and some of the ice was rubbing on my ankles and heels and when I got back to the trailhead I saw blood on my socks. Are you frickin kidding me? So now I have these oozing sores on my heels and ankles and now a week later they aren't much better. There might be a silver lining in all of this because the wounds have forced me to wear a different shoe and the only shoes I have that don't rub on the sores are the Altra Lone Peaks. I wore the Lone Peaks on a trip up Lake Mountain and they were incredible! They are extremely comfy and have excellent traction as well. I think I will slowly start to mix them back into my shoe rotation.
Grandeur Peak video
Monday, November 12, 2012
October Training
I have really dialed back my training after Wasatch 100 to
help my body recover and to give myself a break. I was doing 40-50 mountain
mile weeks with about 10K vert before the race and since then I’ve been right
about 25 per week. I am actually feeling really good right now, but I still
have some nagging soreness in my left hamstring that has been bothering me
since February. It only flares up when I am running fast on steep downhill
slopes and it seems to be getting a little better, but I still feel it when I
go fast.
Our fall weather has been pretty mellow and dry and I took
full advantage getting out with our running crew. We were able to get in a lot
of excellent trail miles over the last 6 weeks until the first major storm of
the year hit over the weekend. Craig recently purchased a Sony action cam and
we have been messing around with it over the last few weeks. He put together 3
videos from Mt. Wire, View Benchmark and Grandeur peak. These are the peaks
that I climb the most because they are close to home/work and I can get up and
down quickly.
Speaking of peaks last week I hit a milestone that I was
pretty psyched about. I hit 100 peaks for the year in 2012. My original goal
was 75 for the year, but I shattered that, so my stretch goal was 100 and it
looks like I should be able to get to 110 without much of a problem. That also
gives me 232 peaks in the last 3 years. I have seen some of the most incredible
views, sunrises, sunsets, just about every wild animal you can think of and
created some incredible memories with good friends. I can’t even describe how
awesome it has been.
In case anyone is interested here are the 3 videos that
Craig made:
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