I have lost a good amount of weight this year and on the trails I have noticed myself feeling stronger, getting faster, and breaking PRs. Here’s a few recent ones.

A few weeks ago I went out for a street run in the evening and accidentally got a 10k PR of 53:32.

This accidental PR made me curious, so the next week I went back out and tried to go faster. I did, clocking a 51:01 10k PR. I am really NOT a road runner – my fitness is so much more tuned to trails – so putting down mid 8:00 min/mile pace for miles on end is a real challenge. Or, it used to be. Again, with the weight dropped, I didn’t feel like maintaining this pace was as hard as it should be. I felt great!

A couple of days later I tried to crank out a flat 5k PR. My previous was 24:00 (last year’s Pima Turkey Trot) and I beat it by 30 seconds, coming in at 23:30 for a flat 5k. This one hurt a bit.

At this year’s Turkey Trot in Orem, I pushed again and shaved of 3 more seconds! Ha! 23:27 is my new flat 5k PR.

Curious about how this newfound strength would translate to trails, I have also recently picked a few old favorite routes and tried to bang them out faster than I have before.

I dropped about 7 minutes of my previous PR on the 10 mile out and back from the Indian Road Trailhead to Bridal Veil Falls.

I also redid a 6.6ish mile up the Lindon Squiggles / Crop Circles trails that I have done a few times. It felt so good. I cut 3 minutes off my previous PR. It felt great to clock 12-13 minute miles w/ ~300ft climbing per mile on the way up and then bomb the descent.

So . . . where should I go next? I have lots more old trail routes to revisit . . .